WATCH: Pentagon Propagandist Admits Intelligence Agencies Are Essentially Useless in Afghanistan Withdrawal Report Briefing

Admitted diversity hire Karine Jean-Pierre can barely read her pre-written notes, much less wax philosophically on matters of geopolitics. To save her the embarrassment, accordingly, whenever national security is on the agenda, the Biden administration sends its Pentagon spokesman John Kirby out to liaise with the press instead.

So they did on April 6, when Kirby was presented to discuss and summarize the much-anticipated Afghanistan withdrawal report.

Via ABC News: (emphases added)

The Pentagon and State Department have shared with Congress their after-action reports on the 2021 military withdrawal from Afghanistan, the White House announced at Thursday’s press briefing — immediately drawing a flurry of questions from reporters on an issue that has long been controversial.

National security spokesman John Kirby was tasked to respond to the findings and made two things clear at the top of the briefing: The administration still believes ending the war was the “right” decision and they were left with limited options because of the lack of planning by the Trump administration…

Kirby also maintained that some of the intelligence Biden received on the state of the Afghan government was faulty or flawed.

“There were some assessments passed to him that proved faulty, that proved to be wrong, that proved to not shake out the way he had been given to understand that they would,” he said.

The failure of the intelligence agencies to foresee the swift Taliban takeover in August 2021 was highlighted repeatedly by Kirby, as he dutifully deflected blame away from his bosses at the Pentagon and in the White House by blaming the intelligence agencies, Trump, and the Afghanistan government — anyone and anything except the military and President Brandon:

No agency predicted a Taliban takeover in nine days. No agency predicted the rapid fleeing of President [Ashraf] Ghani who had indicated to us his intent to remain in Afghanistan up until he departed on the 15th of August, and no agency predicted that the more than 300,000 trained and equipped Afghan National Security Defense Forces would fail to fight for their country, especially after 20 years of American support.

The fault, though, according to Kirby, ultimately lies with President Trump, despite Brandon being in office for a full eight months prior to the disastrous withdrawal:

During the transition from the Trump Administration to the Biden Administration, the outgoing Administration provided no plans for how to conduct the final withdrawal or to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies.

While it’s standard practice for presidential spokesmen to blame failures on political opponents, it’s unusual that they throw intelligence agencies under the bus with such rhetorical force.

The ineptitude and dishonesty of the intelligence community should come, of course, as no great shock to anyone who lived through the Iraq War WMD lies. But in Washington, it’s near-sacrilege.