Poor planning by Biden administration led to Afghan debacle

 Fox News:

President Biden had an explosive reaction when he was told the president of Afghanistan had fled Kabul ahead of the Taliban's takeover of the city in 2021, according to a new book.

On Friday, Aug. 12, 2021, Biden left D.C. for what was expected to be a mid-August vacation to Camp David. Three days later, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told him the news that the then-president of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani, had fled as the Taliban was poised to march into the capital.

"Biden exploded in frustration" when he heard the news and exclaimed, "Give me a break!" according to the forthcoming book "The Last Politician" by journalist Franklin Foer, which describes the inner workings at the White House during the calamitous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.

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Biden wasn't the only one on vacation when Ghani escaped and it became clear to the world that the American withdrawal from Afghanistan would be far more chaotic than the administration expected.

The Biden White House had expected a gradual handover of responsibility to the Afghan government until Aug. 31, 2021, when the Taliban would begin to take an active role in governing the country. Instead, the Taliban rapidly took over territories as the U.S. moved out of various bases and were marching on Afghanistan before Ghani fled, fearing for his life.

However, in the first weeks of August 2021, multiple high-ranking White House officials left for vacation. Biden went to Camp David. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in the Hamptons. And then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki took her family to the beach.
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On Aug. 16, 2021 — the day after Ghani fled Kabul — a U.S. C-17 military transport aircraft filled with evacuees took off from then-Hamid Karzai International Airport, but some people on the crowded runway grabbed on to the landing gear in a desperate attempt to escape as the plane took off.

Upon seeing the "images of Afghans falling from the sky," which became some of the most dramatic scenes of the evacuation, Psaki knew she had to leave her family vacation, Foer wrote.
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Foer writes that "[i]n the thick of the crisis, Biden didn't have time to voraciously consume the news, but he was well aware of the tough coverage. ‘We’re getting killed,' he would admit. It frustrated him to no end."

However, the criticism did nothing to change Biden's mind about leaving Afghanistan nor change his detestation for "the conventional wisdom of the foreign policy elites," Foer said. "After defying their delusional predictions of progress for so long, [Biden] wasn't going to back down now."
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It was Biden's incompetent planning for the exit that led to the debacle.  They should have known the capability of the government they had put in place and the likely reaction to his bugout.  They also should have been aware of the Taliban's plans and acted to thwart them.  The combination of poor planning and poor intelligence led to the disaster.