Biden’s Failure in Afghanistan: Public Relations Was the Concern – Not the Dissent Cable

After Biden’s abysmal withdrawal from Afghanistan, which cost the lives of 13 American soldiers and 170 Afghan civilians, the ACLJ filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Biden Administration to get answers.

We have uncovered that the dissent cable appears to have been completely ignored in principle. This particular cable warned that the current U.S. withdrawal plan would almost certainly result in an extreme loss of morale among the Afghan military and that the territorial gains of the Taliban indicated the current government would likely collapse after the withdrawal was complete. Despite this cable, the Biden Administration did not change plans and stubbornly drove into the wall.

A dissent cable is a foreign service officer’s last resort when the normal chain of command won’t heed a warning about an issue that the foreign service officer sees as critically important. They can send a dissent cable directly to leadership in the State Department. That’s what happened, and the warning was still clearly ignored by Biden’s top officials.

The State Department repeatedly claimed that Secretary Blinken had seen the cable, but there was no indication that anyone else did. But at this point, we know that Deputy Secretary Sherman, Deputy Secretary McKeon, and Under Secretary Nuland received the dissent cable on July 13, 2021: “Good afternoon. We received the dissent channel message below expressing concern regarding U.S. policy toward Afghanistan. Please let me know if you would like to provide initial guidance to shape our response on this matter.”

The Department of State has a peculiar flowchart. It has two Deputy Secretaries, i.e., two second in command and six Under Secretaries of State. (See 22 U.S. Code § 2651a - Organization of Department of State.)

Only the two Deputy Secretaries and the Under Secretary for Political Affairs are relevant; both are subject to Senate confirmation. All report directly to the Secretary of State per the Foreign Affairs Manual. The Under Secretary for Political Affairs is number four in the State Department. Again, Sherman, McKeon, and Nuland all received the dissent cable and are decision makers who each report directly to Blinken, who reports to the President.

So, what was the response after receiving such dire news via the dissent cable prior to the imminent withdrawal from Afghanistan? Was it candid advice to the Secretary? No. Nor was it a reconsideration of the advice provided to the President, nor a proposal to change or modify the withdrawal.

In response, the State Department reached out to Sherman, McKeon, and Nuland, inquiring: “Please let me know if you would like to provide initial guidance to shape our response on this matter.” The real concern for the State Department was one concerning public relations and how it might look in the media (“shape our response”) and not actually addressing the very real concerns expressed in the dissent cable.

We do not know what the “initial guidance” was, but we all know the chaos that cost the lives of 13 American soldiers and 170 Afghan civilians and allowed ISIS and Al Qaeda to take over Afghanistan, emboldened with U.S. military hardware valued at $7 billion.

The contents of these documents should deeply concern every American. They reveal the troubling actions of a misguided Administration; and to this day, no one has been held accountable for the disastrous withdrawal. This serves as a stark reminder that, as Commander in Chief, President Biden bears the ultimate responsibility for the U.S. military’s actions. Elections have consequences – consequences that, in this case, have proven to be both dire and far-reaching.