Posted on 02/13/2022 3:11:34 PM PST by simpson96
An admiral for the U.S. Navy claimed "high-profile" requests, including one from first lady Jill Biden, caused disruption to overall Afghanistan evacuation efforts last year.
Rear Adm. Peter Vasely, who serves as a special assistant to the Director of the Navy Staff, said incessant calls for help during the efforts to get Americans out of the now-Taliban-controlled country caused a "distraction" and "created competition for already stressed resources."
Vasley's remarks, stemming from a late September interview, came in a story by the Washington Post, which obtained a 2,000-page report from the probe of the 17-day operation out of Kabul.
"That’s accurate," Vasley said when asked in sworn testimony for the report whether Pope Francis and First Lady Jill Biden intervened in evacuation efforts to request help on behalf of others.
"I was being contacted by representatives from the Holy See to assist the Italian military contingent … in getting through groups … of special interest to the Vatican," he said. "That is just one of many examples."
"I cannot stress enough how these high-profile requests ate up bandwidth and created competition for already stressed resources," Vasley added.
Vasley, overwhelmed with phone calls, text messages and emails at the time at the U.S. operations center at Kabul’s international airport, told investigators he established a "coordination cell" to help handle the high volume of communication from Washington and elsewhere.
"But you had everyone from the White House down with a new flavor of the day for prioritization," Vasely told investigators for the report.
That declassified report, which featured dozens of interviews with military officials, was rejected by President Biden during an interview with NBC News released Thursday night.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Sounds like a woke admiral giving Biden a cover story.
Poll: Majority of veterans say U.S. did not leave Afghanistan Honorably
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