Sue Gordon, who served as a top U.S. intelligence official under both the Trump and Obama administrations, said Sunday that she would not characterize the American withdrawal from Afghanistan "as an intelligence failure" despite widespread criticism oc how the Trump and Biden administrations, the U.S. military, and the intelligence community failed to anticipate how swiftly the Taliban would overrun the Afghan government and security forces and take control of Kabul.
During an appearance on Sunday's edition of Face the Nation, Gordon said she thinks throughout the U.S.'s 20-year involvement in Afghanistan, the intelligence community remained "pretty clear-eyed" about what was happening on the ground. And she believes that didn't really change last month, arguing that a leaked transcript of President Biden's last conversation with former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani makes it seem clear the former knew the situation was "fraught." She did, however, acknowledge that "they apparently didn't have precision in their estimate on the speed of the loss."