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Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says US should ‘crush the Taliban’ in Kabul using ‘American air power’

Mike Pompeo
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pauses while speaking at a news conference at the State Department on April 29, 2020, in Washington, DC.

ANDREW HARNIK/POOL/AFP via Getty Images

  • Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the US should “crush the Taliban who are surrounding Kabul.”
  • President Joe Biden on Saturday ordered more troops to the country to assist the evacuation of US personnel and allies.
  • The Taliban has seized control of most of Afghanistan and reached the capital city of Kabul on Sunday.
  • See more stories on Insider’s business page.

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who served in the Trump administration, said in an interview Sunday that the US Military should intervene to take the Afghanistan capital city of Kabul back from Taliban control.

“They should go crush the Taliban who are surrounding Kabul, we can do it with American airpower,” Pompeo said during an appearance on “Fox News Sunday.” “We should put pressure on them, we should inflict cost and pain on them.”

“Every President confronts challenges,” he said. “This President confronted a challenge in Afghanistan – he has utterly failed to protect the American people from this challenge.”

The Taliban took control of most of the country in just about one week despite the two decades the US and allies spent in the country attempting to bolster its government, as the Associated Press reported. Taliban insurgents reached the capital city of Kabul early Sunday and ordered the unconditional surrender of government officials.

The Taliban took the Afghanistan city of Jalalabad without a fight overnight, which had been of the last major cities still under the control of the country’s government.

Afghan Interior Minister Abdul Sattar Mirzakwal said Sunday that the nation would have a “peaceful transfer of power” to a transitional government led by the Taliban, Insider previously reported.

Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country earlier Sunday as Taliban insurgents moved into further parts of the country and the capital city, officials said, according to the AP.

President Joe Biden meanwhile has held firm on his plan to withdraw the US Military from Afghanistan, bringing an end to the country’s two-decade effort in the country.

Biden on Saturday ordered an additional 5,000 troops to Afghanistan to facilitate the “orderly and safe drawdown of US personnel and other allied personnel and an orderly and safe evacuation of Afghans who helped our troops during our mission and those at special risk from the Taliban advance.”

“One more year, or five more years, of US military presence would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country,” Biden said in a statement Saturday. “And an endless American presence in the middle of another country’s civil conflict was not acceptable to me.”

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