Biden responsible for picking Kabul airport for exit, Milley rationalizes it

 Streiff:

Joe Biden Overruled the Military Advice and Ordered Kabul Not Bagram to Be Used for Evacuating Afghanistan

Milley should have done a better job of pushing for Bagram as an exit point.  It is, after all, only 30 miles from Kabul and much more defensible and has better access for planes to remove people. 

...

This is not idle Monday morning quarterbacking. The evacuation fiasco is a direct result of choosing HKIA.

Kirby’s description of the size of Bagram, which American forces substantially expanded after 2001, underscores exactly why it could be so useful for supporting evacuation flights. The facility, which U.S. forces are intimately familiar with after having used it as a major hub for operations for nearly two decades, has two large runways and a host of other supporting infrastructure. Bagram, which is situated some 30 miles to the North of Kabul, also has the benefit of a much larger and more readily defensible perimeter that isn’t inside an urban area.

If Bagram could be opened and operated in a secure manner, even in a contested environment, it could be possible to shuttle in evacuees from Hamid Karzai International Airport, offering an immediate way to relieve the current logistical strains imposed by conducting evacuations flights from a single airport. In addition, the base could present a valuable fall-back location to continue evacuation operations should the security situation in Kabul continue to erode, and that could be maintained after Aug. 31.

In short, Bagram has more facilities, is more secure, and is easier to keep secure than HKIA. At Bagram, the mob scenes at ingress points to HKIA would have been avoidable. The 30-mile separation between Kabul and Bagram would have enabled much better management of refugees and provided much more physical security than being located close to a major city. A second runway would have allowed for more planes in and out, and it would provide a staging area for air assets to defend the airfield.

...

This looks like more evidence of Milley's poor judgment as well as that of Biden. 

See, also:

Biden’s Arrogance, Unilateralism, and Failures Hurt and Offend Our Most Trusted Allies