Lord Robertson says withdrawal 'happened far too quickly' as Afghanistan collapses to Taliban

He claimed that there had been a failure in intelligence by the West, “which allowed President Biden up until the last moment to predict the Taliban would not take over swiftly in Afghanistan”.

Speaking to Good Morning Scotland on Monday, he said: “I’m sad and sickened by what I’m seeing.

READ MORE: Afghanistan: Thousands try to flee at Kabul airport as Taliban take control of country

“I was the one who read out the statement 20 years ago invoking Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, saying an attack on the United States was an attack on all of the countries in Nato.”

He added: “I find it ironic at best but tragic at worst that the anniversary of 9/11 is going to be commemorated in a few weeks’ time with the Taliban back in control of Kabul – that is deeply, deeply depressing.”

The former Nato secretary added that he was "staggered" that Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab remained on holiday saying: “You’ve got to be on duty during that sort of period where we are so deeply and intimately involved in it.

“We never really took Afghanistan and the conflict there with the seriousness that it demanded.

Photo issued by Ministry of Defence of the first flight of evacuated personnel arriving at RAF Brize Norton in the UK. The flight constituted of British Embassy staff and British Nationals.

“We sent people into danger, troops into danger and people died and yet we were not fully, it would appear, committed to the campaign that was going on there.

“I’ve been critical all along about our country not taking this situation seriously and now the chickens have come home to roost and we’re facing a humiliation and a disaster for all of our people.”

Robertson added that UK should support Afghan citizens who helped British forces in the past 20 years and reverse cuts to the aid budget. 

“We should certainly accept those who were helping us during that 20 years of conflict,” he said.

Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, the former head of Nato

“We also need to reverse the aid cuts that would involve the humanitarian aid to the area being cut back at the present moment.”

He added: “What we’ve also got to do is to build greater resilience in this country against a terrorist threat which is likely now to increase in the future.”

Lord Robertson said there had been a failure in intelligence by the West, “which allowed President Biden up until the last moment to predict the Taliban would not take over swiftly in Afghanistan”.

He added: “That failure of intelligence should worry all of us about the future.”

The withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan happened “far too quickly”

“It didn’t have to be like this.

“If we had learned the lessons of what happened in Bosnia and Kosovo then a gradual withdrawal based on facts on the ground and success on the ground may have stopped this catastrophe from happening.

“But, sadly, we don’t learn from the past, we don’t learn from previous experiences, and therefore a wholesale withdrawal of American forces meant that the country was left in a condition that has now led to the Taliban taking over.”

Lord Robertson also added that the UK cannot return militarily to Afghanistan.

“We can’t go in there militarily – that’s over, that’s finished.

“That’s an episode we’ll have to reflect on and learn lots of lessons from. But what we have to do is to make sure that our own defences are much more resilient as a consequence of this particular failure, and we’ve got to watch what the international ramifications are going to be – they will not be good.

“That’s why I think it’s tragic that we will commemorate the disaster that was 9/11 with the Taliban back in control of the presidential palace in Kabul.”

Last night, former US president Donald Trump released a statement calling for Joe Biden to resign, however, UK Defence Secretary blamed Donald Trump for some if the decision making that has led to the crisis.

READ MORE: Boris Johnson urged to make last-ditch intervention to save Afghanistan

In a statement, the former president wrote: "What Joe Biden has done with Afghanistan is legendary. It will go down as one of the greatest defeats in American history!"

On US President Biden’s leadership over Afghanistan, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said: “The die was cast when the deal was done by Donald Trump if you want my observation.”

Graphic locates Kabul airport where 16 Air Assault Brigade are working with US forces to evacuate civilians.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “President Biden inherited a momentum, a momentum that had been given to the Taliban because they felt they had now won, he’d also inherited a momentum of troop withdrawal from the international community, the US.”

“So I think in that sense, the seeds of what we’re seeing today were before President Biden took office. The seeds were a peace deal that was (effectively) rushed, that wasn’t done in collaboration properly with the international community and then a dividend taken out incredibly quickly.”

Offering an update on the removal of foreign nationals from the country, he said: “Myself and the Home Secretary have been working very hard to remove any other barriers, bureaucratic barriers that did stand in the way, such as the requirement to (have) Afghan passports, to make sure that if our people had passed our tests and our screening those Afghans can come in.

“We’re working to remove them literally as we speak, I spoke to her late last night and I’ll speak to the Home Secretary later today to make sure that we can speed that up. We all recognise, we all see what we’re seeing on telly, time is of the essence, every hour counts.

“Our flights, our planning and coming in and out and soon if we manage to keep it in the way we’re planning to we should have capacity for over 1,000 people a day to exit to the UK. Currently this is not about capacity on planes, it’s about processing speed, so that’s why we’re trying to fix that.”

He added: “Our timescale which we’d originally planned which was August 31, will be out. We will try our very best to get everyone out, it’s one of the biggest regrets of the speed of the collapse of the Afghan government is that those timetables will no doubt have to be shortened and that’s what we’re moving extra assets to do…

“If we can manage to keep the airport running in the way we are putting in place our people to deliver then I’m confident that by the end of the month we could get everyone out and actually hopefully sooner. There will be some people left behind, we made that clear in the last few weeks, I’m not going to raise expectations.”

Wallace added: “Our troops will be deployed under rules of engagement of self-defence and if they are attacked they will have the ability to… defend proportionately, that is quite right… I sought through a third country yesterday, a Middle East country, assurances from the Afghan military, Taliban military leadership that they would respect the airport.”

He added: “People further afield who will find it hard to get to Kabul, absolutely we have a challenge there. We’ve relocated since April over 2,000-plus people and they’ve come from all over Afghanistan.”

Former Tory international development secretary Rory Stewart said the UK Government should form an international coalition to provide routes, funding and safe haven for “millions of refugees” from Afghanistan.

In a post on Twitter, Mr Stewart also called on ministers to “dramatically increase UK aid and development spend for Afghans trapped in the country”.

After the message, former Conservative home secretary Amber Rudd responded: “Agree with this.”