U.S. diplomats issued an internal memo last month urging top State Department officials to take urgent action with evacuations as the Aug. 31 military withdrawal deadline approached.

The cable warning of the possible fall of Kabul soon after the troop pullout, sent through the agency’s confidential dissent channel on July 13, pressed the Biden administration to begin collecting information from Afghans who qualify for Special Immigrant Visas and start evacuation flights no later than Aug. 1, sources told the Wall Street Journal.

This new information, reported on Thursday, follows the widespread capitulation of Afghan security forces and the rapid Taliban takeover of the country, which prompted chaotic scenes of crowds desperately trying to escape via Kabul’s international airport over the past few days.

Lawmakers in Washington and others have leveled severe criticisms at the Biden administration for underestimating the speed by which Kabul fell into Taliban hands, with accusations that officials completely missed the threat altogether and congressional hearings already being called to assess the debacle.

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State Department spokesman Ned Price said Thursday the diplomats’ cable did not go unnoticed, suggesting its warnings were considered as administration officials planned for contingencies associated with the U.S. military’s drawdown.

“[Secretary of State Antony Blinken] reads every dissent and reviews and clears on every reply,” Price told the Washington Examiner in a statement. “He’s made clear that he welcomes and encourages use of the dissent channel, and is committed to its revitalization.”

“Just as importantly, we incorporate the channel’s constructive and thoughtful ideas into our policy and planning,” Price added.

U.S. troops and Western allies departed Bagram Airfield, the U.S. base used to coordinate the decadeslong war effort in Afghanistan, in early July.

Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, contended neither he nor anyone else had seen evidence the Afghan government would collapse as swiftly as it did, claiming intelligence said a quick Taliban victory was a possibility, but no one saw such a swift takeover coming.

“There was nothing that I or anyone else saw that indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days,” he said during a press conference on Wednesday.

President Joe Biden himself admitted Monday the capture of Kabul “did unfold more quickly than we anticipated.”

Biden then asserted to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in a interview released Wednesday “there was no consensus” in the government’s intelligence when he downplayed in July the chance the Taliban would seize power, saying such an occurrence was not “inevitable.”

Biden claimed “chaos” in Afghanistan was always guaranteed with a U.S. troop drawdown.

“The idea that somehow, there’s a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don’t know how that happens. I don’t know how that happened,” Biden told Stephanopoulos.

Former President Donald Trump, who struck an agreement with the Taliban last year for a withdrawal of U.S. military forces, has been heavily critical of Biden and military leaders for their handling of the situation in Afghanistan.

“First you bring out all of the American citizens. Then you bring out ALL equipment. Then you bomb the bases into smithereens — AND THEN YOU BRING OUT THE MILITARY. You don’t do it in reverse order like Biden and our woke Generals did,” he said in a statement on Thursday. “No chaos, no death — they wouldn’t even know we left!”

Biden dispatched thousands of troops to Kabul after it was overtaken Sunday as the administration prioritizes the evacuation of what could amount up to 15,000 U.S. citizens remaining in the country.

U.S. troops are also working to execute evacuations of those Afghans eligible for humanitarian visas. The internal July 13 cable, sent to Blinken and Director of Policy Planning Salman Ahmad, was followed a day later by the White House’s announcement of Operation Allies Refugee, an effort to evacuate the thousands of Afghans who aided the U.S. throughout the war in Afghanistan and who face Taliban retribution because of it.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Tuesday the Taliban assured the administration its members will “provide the safe passage of civilians to the airport,” but reports have surfaced of Taliban militiamen firing weapons and setting up checkpoints and obstructing people from making their way to the airport.

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The situation has led the U.S. Embassy in Kabul to warn people on Wednesday the U.S. government “cannot ensure safe passage” to the airport for evacuation.

There were roughly 18,000 Afghans who applied for the United States’s Special Immigrant Visa program, as well as their families, who remained in Afghanistan as of last weekend.

On Wednesday evening, a White House official said the U.S., which sent thousands of troops back to assist with the effort at the Kabul airport, has evacuated nearly 6,000 people since Saturday.

Price said on Thursday there were 6,000 people at the airport in Kabul who have been “fully processed by our consular team and will soon board planes.”

Original Location: US diplomats sent memo urging swift evacuation of Afghan allies weeks before Taliban takeover

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