U.S. intel faces questions over Afghanistan, Ukraine misses
Top U.S. intelligence officials were questioned Tuesday about why they misjudged the durability of governments in both Afghanistan and Ukraine, and whether they need to reform how intelligence agencies assess a foreign military’s will to fight.
U.S. intelligence believed the U.S.-backed Kabul government would hold out for months against the Taliban and thought Russian forces would overrun Ukraine in a few weeks. Both assessments were wrong. The U.S. and Western allies are now rushing to aid Ukraine’s resistance against Russia in what has turned into a grinding, violent stalemate.
“What we missed was the will to fight of the Ukrainians ... and we also missed that in Afghanistan,” said Sen. Angus King, an independent from Maine, at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He added, “I realize will to fight is a lot harder to assess than number of tanks or volume of ammunition or something. But I hope the intelligence community is doing some soul-searching about how to better get a handle on that question.”
President Joe Biden’s administration disclosed in advance Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intentions to invade Ukraine, a public campaign that it says built support for crushing sanctions on the Russian economy and military support from NATO members. Top U.S. officials have gone to Kyiv to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and pledged more military and intelligence support.
Avril Haines, the U.S. director of national intelligence, said that “will to fight” and “capacity to fight” in tandem were difficult to predict. The National Intelligence Council, a group of advisers that reviews the agencies as a whole, is studying the issue, she said.
“The two of them are issues that are, as you indicated, quite challenging to provide effective analysis on,” Haines told King. “And we’re looking at different methodologies for doing so.”
King raised his voice to cut off Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, after Berrier said he believed the intelligence agencies had done “a great job.”
“General, how can you possibly say that when we were told explicitly, Kyiv would fall in three days and Ukraine would fall in two weeks?” he said. “You’re telling me that was accurate intelligence?”