[Hoot Gibson]

The administrations of the last 3 Presidents had been informed that the numbers of soldiers in the Afghan Army were inflated by approximately 100%.  This means that they were also providing arms and equipment for the false number, which were being sold on the black market.  Also, over 50% of the fuel provided by the US was being stolen.  For whatever reason, these warnings were ignored, so now the US has a complete mess on it's hands.  The Biden Administration needs to quit making excuses and make it as right as they can from this point on and hopefully learn from the mistakes that were made.

That is the first that I have heard about this but it is certainly believable. The U.S. had to rely on Afghans to some extent and I am sure that they were fed some bogus data to get their hands on goods that could be sold on the black market. I don't know about the percentages and I don't know how you would get a handle on the actual magnitude of the problem, except by embedding American commanders more deeply into Afghan military units, but your statements sound credible.

There were also intelligence reports that included assessments that the Afghan military could collapse very quickly under some scenarios but those reports were ignored. Those reports were reportedly provided to both the Trump and Biden administrations but as you said, the Biden administration needs to stop making excuses and focus on getting Americans home safely. We will never know for certain whether or not Trump would have made operational adjustments and prepared better for the evacuation of American citizens because his term ended well before the plan was implemented.