Under-Committee on Afghanistan: Evacuation plans were ready

For the first time, witnesses from the Federal Foreign Office were questioned in the committee of inquiry into the Afghanistan withdrawal. The embassy in Kabul assessed the situation much more pessimistically than communicated in Germany.

The German diplomat speaks of a “clear trend” – that the security situation in Afghanistan has “continuously deteriorated” since February 2020. In other words, from the date when the US signed a withdrawal agreement with the Islamist Taliban. The former envoy, who was also responsible for security at the German embassy in Kabul, reports that he “had the evacuation plans for the German representation ready in June 2021.” That was two months before the extremists took power. Even if no decision on an evacuation had been made in Berlin.

The picture of the situation before the withdrawal of the Bundeswehr, which was communicated from the embassy in Kabul to Berlin, is clearly more depressing than what the Foreign Ministry and the Federal Government as a whole communicated in Germany at the time: That was originally what Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said for the beginning A deportation flight to Afghanistan had been planned a few days before the Taliban took power.

Scenario of a “permanent civil war”

However, the German diplomat also has to admit that he did not see the extremists storming Kabul or an “Emirate 2.0”, i.e. a renewed Taliban rule, coming. He rather considered the scenario of a “permanent civil war” to be more likely.

The man, who was managing director of the German embassy in Kabul until two months before the Taliban took power, came to a more optimistic assessment than was prevailing in the Ministry of Defense at the time: there the end of 2020 was already considered the most likely scenario that the extremists would in the foreseeable future Time to take control again and set up an “Emirate 2.0”.

“Dissatisfaction” with the US agreement

In Germany, however, there was agreement on the devastating effects of the agreement that the United States concluded with the Taliban during President Donald Trump’s term in office and which provided for the withdrawal of international troops: the German diplomat spoke of a “birth defect” in his hearing.

In a confidential note from the Federal Foreign Office dated March 5, 2020, which the ARD Capital Studio and WDR investigative is available, there is talk of “dissatisfaction” with the US-Taliban agreement, which “should be communicated to the USA in an appropriate manner”. Other documents also provide insights into the large number of solo attempts that the USA started to make at this time.