If they did make that prediction—ANA folding in less than 72 hours—then the ensuing panic and chaos on TV at the airport and in the cities, emergency destruction plan and striking the colors at our embassy should have been obvious. That's a pretty bold move for the CinC to have basically listened to the briefs and then told the room "we'll just have to deal with the fallout."How do you know that they didn’t predict this outcome? You’re making some fairly significant assumptions based on zero evidence Or knowledge of the IC assessments.
I'm sure they briefed it as one of the possibilities, that the place would fall apart within a couple months or a maybe even a few weeks at the least.
But if they were taking it seriously that the place would fall apart in three days, that implies we put our embassy in one helluva tight spot. And that's my point, the three day Taliban takeover. It's that pace of it that our side failed to predict. (I don't think a Taliban takeover or a civil war was ever in doubt, least of all to our intelligence apparatus.)
Maybe there's another possibility. Maybe back in June or so the conversation went something like somebody called time out Mister President, every "we're making good progress with our Afghan partners" success story is bullshit, there are way more moles in the Afghan army than anyone wants to admit, and the minute we leave half of them are going to turncoat and the other half will disappear. Lots of them play nice with our trainers and go through the motions because let's face it, it's a paycheck. That's how it's been for a long time, no matter what anybody briefed you on in the past. The longer we wait then the harder it's going to be to rip the band-aid off. What'll it be, Mister President?
I'm open to other explanations, and I realize the known facts are going to change over time and different things come to light.