U.S. intelligence warned Afghan forces were increasingly fragile in run-up to Taliban takeover

Washington — Multiple U.S. intelligence assessments issued this spring and summer warned that Afghanistan's security forces appeared increasingly fragile and that its government could struggle to withstand a Taliban-led incursion, according to current and former officials familiar with their content.  

Those warnings followed years of consistently pessimistic assessments of the Afghan military's resilience and its ability or willingness to fend off Taliban fighters. Reports from the CIA were often among the bleakest issued, and some were at odds with more favorable Pentagon assessments of the strength of Afghan security forces, three former intelligence officials said. Questions about what the Biden administration was told about conditions on the ground as the U.S. continued its military drawdown have arisen quickly and with fervor, especially as footage of rosier pronouncements made in recent weeks by President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken has circulated.