WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th October, 2022) US Secretary of State Antony Blinken believed that the United States would maintain a diplomatic presence in Kabul through 2021 and into 2022 prior to the Biden administration's withdrawal from Afghanistan, the chief diplomat said in an upcoming documentary.
"I believed strongly that we were going to have a robust embassy presence in Kabul certainly through the year (2021), well into the next year," Blinken said in the documentary, according to a Politico report on Monday. "Everything that we planned and did was based on that assumption."
The HBO documentary "Year One: A Political Odyssey" is set to premier on Wednesday, with the film's central takeaway being that although the Biden administration may have acted with good intentions, its own hubris set it back, the report said.
The documentary features interviews with health and national security officials from across the Biden administration, including former White House COVID-19 chief Jeff Zients, former Press Secretary Jen Psaki and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, according to the report.
The Biden administration learned from Afghanistan and became hyper-vigilant about Russia's actions concerning Ukraine as a result, documentary director John Maggio reportedly said.
The president and vice president's offices declined the documentary crew's requests to interview their principals, the report added.
