- Well, former Secretaryof State Mike Pompeo

is joining us now for more.

And Mr. Secretary, PresidentBiden is blaming this situation

on the agreement youmade with the Taliban.

What do you say to that?

- That's a pretty patheticeffort to shift the blame,

the responsibility for what'shappening today in Kabul.

That falls squarely on the leadership,

the commander in chiefwho's there in charge,

who made the terrible set of decisions

that led to what you'reseeing today on television.

They decided to pull out the military

before they got civilians out.

They hadn't adequately planned.

And as for the agreement,

the Taliban clearly broke the agreement.

And President Trump wasunambiguously clear,

you break this agreement,we will come break you.

We will come and inflictenormous costs on you.

We're not gonna beg you notto come into our embassy.

We're going to come to your village

and inflict enormous pain on you

until you comply with these set of terms

that you signed up for.

One of the key terms wasa power-sharing agreement.

The Taliban clearly violated this,

and instead of saying, "Well,you violated the agreement.

We're not gonna finish ourdraw down in Afghanistan,"

the Biden administrationsays, "No, we're gonna take

everybody out without a plan,without a systemic thought

as to how we're actually goingto deal with this result."

History will prove theTrump administration

had drawn down safely and securely.

We had around 2,500 US forces,

about 5,000 NATO forces onthe ground when we departed.

President Trump was very clear to me

and to the Department of Defense

that we were going to make sure

that this was an orderly plan to withdraw

that protected theimportant American interest

of making sure that we were never attacked

from this place again.

And the Biden administrationhas now pulled the pin, right?

They pulled the last stickout of the Jenga puzzle.

The chaos has ensued.

We can't even get the presidentof the United States today

to explain why it is heallowed this to happen.

- We understand that theTaliban has taken over

a enormous amount of armament,that they have drones,

they have the Bagram Airfield,they got other things.

Could you tell us what extent

of the material we left behind?

- So I can't tell you for certain,

because I don't know preciselywhat they left behind.

I can certainly talk tothis in great detail.

I was in the room for meetings

over the course of my entire four years

where we talked about thisvery set of operations,

how we were thinking about this.

President Trump was clear.

If they'd scare and American,if they hurt an American,

we're gonna impose all, we'regonna use all American power

to impose real costs on the Taliban.

We want a peaceful, reconciled Afghanistan

so that we can depart in an orderly way

and protect the things thatmattered to the United States.

A key piece of this,

the key piece of this was to make sure

that we've got all of our equipment out.

President Trump, I can'ttell you how many times

he looked at the militaryleadership and said,

"I want every stick of Americanequipment out of there.

I want it all, and then when we get that,

when we get to that place,take the time that you need

to do that when we get to that place

that we can continue to reduceour force posture there."

I don't know what all they left behind.

I hope they left itbehind in the condition

that the Taliban could notuse against the Afghan people

or against Americans.

I fear that that's not the case.

- Let me ask you, what's this gonna do

to our policy withIran, China, and Russia?

How will they regard us now?

- Yeah.

You know, we've talked about

the tactical situation on the ground.

It's worth one more thought.

I must say to all of thefolks who fought there,

all the young men and womenwho risked their lives,

some who lost family membersor were injured there,

your fight was noble, the work was good,

the destruction of Al-Qaedawas complete and important,

and we did good work there.

So this was a political failure,

not a failure of our young men and women

who were fighting for us.

And I mention that in the context

of what's going on around the world.

I hope the world will see

that we still are a verycapable fighting force,

that our young men andwomen are entirely capable

of doing their mission.

I fear that they will now see

that American leadershiphas left the global stage.

The word retreat,

whether it's handingthe Russians a pipeline,

or you mentioned earlier what's going on

at our southern border.

We saw what the Obama administration did

when President Bidenwas the Vice President.

Bashir Assad fired chemicalweapons at his own citizens.

They refused to impose costs on him.

There's a long history of President Biden

not demonstrating the strength and resolve

and the leadership that weneed on the American stage.

It's not about starting wars.

We went four years without starting a war

and we went the last, over 12 months

without a single Americankilled in Afghanistan

in spite of the fact that we drew down

over 80% of our soldiers.

The world is watching President Biden.

They're watching America.

And when President Bidensays, "America is back,"

I hope he doesn't mean we're back

to the old days of Jimmy Carter.

That would be a disasterfor American foreign policy,

and frankly, a disasterfor global security

and peace as well.

- Thank you.

Thank you for the work you're doing.

God bless you.

Appreciate it so much your being here.