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In August 2021, as the Taliban swept to power in Afghanistan, capturing major cities including the capital, Kabul, attention in the U.S. turned to President Joe Biden's decision to complete the withdrawal of American troops from the country, and the appearance of a frantic and hurried evacuation of diplomatic staff and certain Afghan nationals at risk of persecution by the extremist Islamist militia. On Aug. 16, several news outlets and social media posts reported that National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan had, at least in part, attributed the startlingly quick return to power of the Taliban to a lack of willingness, among Afghan government forces, to fight back. For example, Bloomberg News White House reporter Jennifer Jacobs posted a tweet that attributed the following quotations to Sullivan: Similar quotations were attributed to Sullivan in reports by Business Insider and The Hill. Those remarks were authentic, and correctly attributed to Sullivan, who did indeed defend Biden's withdrawal decision, and said Afghan security forced did not have the will to fight to protect the capital city Kabul, or the country of Afghanistan. As such, we are issuing a rating of Correct Attribution. Sullivan's remarks came during the context of an interview with Savannah Guthrie on NBC's Today show, on the morning of Aug. 16, which can be watched in full below. Guthrie put it to Sullivan that the last-minute scramble to evacuate U.S. citizens and government personnel from Kabul was indicative of a poorly conceived or badly executed withdrawal plan. Sullivan replied, in part, as follows: When Guthrie put it to Sullivan that the Taliban's rapid takeover of the country represented a worst-case scenario, Sullivan rejected that claim, and defended Biden's decision to withdraw from Afghanistan:
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