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17. Okt. 2021 · Robert Gates, who oversaw the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2006 to 2011, told us President Trump failed to plan properly for the evacuation of Afghans who had helped the U.S. fight the...
- 60 Minutes Correspondent
- 13 Min.
- CBS News
13. Juni 2021 · Robert M. Gates served eight presidents, including as the director of central intelligence for President George H.W. Bush. He oversaw the U.S. troop surges in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr....
6. Feb. 2014 · In Duty, recently retired Defense Secretary Robert Gates gives readers an inside look at some of the most interesting national security challenges of the past eight years. However, the book’s...
- Douglas Ollivant
- Overview
- Was the surge a mistake?
In an interview with 60 Minutes, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said there is reason to fear Afghanistan will become a terrorist state under Taliban rule.
"I think it's a very real worry," Gates told correspondent Anderson Cooper. "The Taliban have never disavowed their relationship with Al Qaeda. And they haven't done it since they took power."
Gates, who served as defense secretary under presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, oversaw nearly five years of fighting during the U.S. war in Afghanistan. Now, he sees other countries stepping in to play a larger role in Afghanistan. Even if money might help the U.S. maintain some leverage over the Taliban, Gates said, the group will also likely get assistance from China, Russia, and Iran.
In an op-ed published in the New York Times this past June, Gates further explained the role he sees those countries taking.
"Some observers contend that the Taliban…will moderate their policies and ideology in order to gain international recognition and economic assistance," he wrote. "However, the Taliban may be able to obtain both from China and other autocratic nations without tempering the harshness of their rule."
China would be incentivized to help the Taliban, Gates wrote, because an in-road into Afghanistan would give Beijing access to the country's minerals and geographic proximity to Iran, as part of China's Belt and Road Initiative.
As defense secretary, Gates may be best known for the surge, the controversial decision to send a temporary influx of 47,000 U.S. troops into Afghanistan in 2009 and 2010. The goal was to reverse Taliban gains, but the strategy was hotly debated.
During the 2020 presidential election, President Joe Biden, who had been vice president at the time of the surge, argued against it. "It was a big, big mistake to surge forces to Afghanistan. Period," Mr. Biden said.
In hindsight, Gates said he stands by the decision.
"I think I would make the same recommendation today because it did improve the security situation in Afghanistan, and particularly in the areas where the Taliban had been the most active, really seriously improved the security situation," Gates told Cooper.
Cooper then asked Gates about comments he made in a 2011 interview on 60 Minutes. At the time, Gates had suggested that U.S. forced had "turned the corner in Afghanistan."
"What we didn't realize is that that those gains would last only as long as the U.S. kept that kind of a force in there," Gates said.
14. Okt. 2021 · Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the U.S.’s withdrawal from Afghanistan “probably did not need to have turned out that way,” pinning blame on both former President Trump and President...
5. Sept. 2010 · Daniel Dombey, the FT’s US diplomatic correspondent, blogs from Iraq, where Robert Gates, US defence secretary, has begun a trip to mark the end of the US combat mission in the country.
The former defense secretary tells 60 Minutes what leverage the U.S. has over the Taliban now — and whether he thinks his troop surge in Afghanistan was a mi...
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- 60 Minutes
