During an interview with Just the News in April, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio warned that the Taliban would “take over” Afghanistan if the United States withdrew its troops from the country.
“The outcome is going to be a terrible thing. The Taliban, I believe, will eventually take over the country, as they were in charge before, and it’s not going to be a good outcome,” said Rubio, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Afghanistan descended into chaos over the last few days as the Taliban began seizing territory in the country. Afghans were captured on video attempting to flee from the country at the airport in Kabul.
Rubio tweeted about the dire situation in Afghanistan on Sunday.
“When the Biden Administration announced their Afghanistan pullout plan, several of us on the Intel Committee told them their predictions of what would happen next were complete fantasy. We are now witnessing how true our warnings to them were,” he wrote.
Rubio, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, posted several follow-up tweets on Monday.
“The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan is terrible. What comes next is far worse, the return & resurgence of Al Qaeda,” he wrote. “The incompetent Biden Administration has no plan to prevent this & we should have zero trust they ever will.”
He also said the Biden administration was “specifically told Afghan forces would surrender faster than our ability to exit” but they “decided to ignore these warnings & smugly tell everyone how smart & brilliant they are.”
Rubio rejected the notion that the intelligence community shares blame for the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan.
“No, US intelligence did NOT get it wrong on Afghanistan The incompetent people in the Biden Administration decided to ignore it in favor of their own wishful thinking,” wrote Rubio, a 2016 GOP presidential candidate.
