Robert Gates on Afghanistan, his disagreements with President Biden

Few people know more about the depth and complexity of America’s national security than Robert Gates, who spent nearly three decades at the CIA and National Security Council before running the Pentagon under President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama.

Given the end of the war in Afghanistan, tensions with China, and deep divisions in this country, we thought it would be worth hearing from the only secretary of defense to serve under presidents from different parties.

Gates is 78 and lives in Washington state, where he says he moved to get as far away from Washington D.C. as possible. He told us watching the chaos of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan on television made him feel sick.

Robert Gates: It was really tough. For a few days there, I actually wasn’t feeling very well. And I realized it was because of what was happening in Kabul. And I was just so low about the way it had ended, if you will. And– and I guess the other– the other feeling that I had was that it probably did not need to have turned out that way.

Anderson Cooper: Well, President Biden said, “Any withdrawal is messy.”

Robert Gates: Certainly the military considers withdrawal the most dangerous part of an operation. But– but they really had a lotta time to plan, beginning with the deal that President Trump cut with the Taliban. So that was in February of 2020.

Robert Gates, who oversaw the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2006 to 2011, told us President Trump failed to plan properly for the evacuation of Afghans who had helped the U.S. fight the Taliban. 

And Gates also believes President Biden didn’t act quickly enough after announcing in April he was pushing back President Trump’s deadline for the U.S. withdrawal by four months. 

President Biden: “It’s time for American troops to come home.”

Robert Gates: Once President Biden reaffirmed that there was going to be a firm deadline date, that’s the point at which I think they should have begun bringing those people out. You’d have to be pretty naïve not to assume things were gonna go downhill once that withdrawal was complete. 

Anderson Cooper: So the former President and President Biden both share some responsibility in this?

Robert Gates: Absolutely.

As for the collapse of the Afghan government and security forces, Gates believes he and others before him, made critical mistakes in how the U.S. built and trained the Afghan military. 

Robert Gates: I bear some responsibility for this. It had started before I got there. But I think that we created an Afghan military in our own image. And one that required a lot more sophisticated logistics and maintenance and support than say the Taliban.

Anderson Cooper: The Taliban didn’t have years of training from foreign advisors. They didn’t know how to read. We were teaching Afghan troops how to read before anything else.

Robert Gates: Well, they needed to know how to read in order to operate the equipment (LAUGH) we were…