当惊慌失措的阿富汗人看到塔利班武装分子周日冲进首都喀布尔，结束了那里美国支持的政府的崩溃时，许多美国人都在想，拜登的高级官员最近宣称喀布尔不会轻易陷落，他们怎么会错得这么离谱。
就在几天前，美国军方分析美国广播公司新闻报道预测喀布尔可能在90天内陷落——而不是周末。
众议员杰基·斯派尔(加州民主党)周日在接受美国全国广播公司采访时说:“这是一场前所未有的危机。”塔利班武装分子横扫喀布尔。“这是一次情报失败。我们低估了塔利班，高估了阿富汗军队的决心。”
但许多美国官员告诉美国广播公司新闻，事实恰恰相反，他们坚持认为，关键的情报评估一直在告诉政策制定者，塔利班可能会在几周内压倒该国并占领首都——这基本上重复了1975年西贡陷落的情况，当时北越军队冲进南越首都时，直升机匆忙将外交官从美国大使馆屋顶撤离。
长期以来一直自称为“阿富汗伊斯兰酋长国”的塔利班宣布，他们在阿富汗总统阿什拉夫·加尼于周日下午逃离该国后不久就进入了喀布尔，引发了对该市机场的冲击，并由AH-64阿帕奇攻击直升机在一度无法穿越的绿区周围守护的军事直升机编队加速撤离美国大使馆。美国总统乔·拜登迅速调动数千名美军撤离仍在首都的美国官员。
一名匿名的美国情报官员告诉美国广播公司新闻，“军方告诉(美国)领导人，塔利班不需要任何时间就能掌握一切。“没人听。”
其他情报来源称，拜登和他的顾问团队已经就此事做出了决定美军的撤离根据超出喀布尔命运的各种因素，这项工作几乎于7月4日完成。
一名要求不透露姓名以讨论敏感简报的国会高级官员告诉美国广播公司新闻，情报官员警告美国领导人，原教旨主义塔利班武装分子将迅速取得全面胜利，他们在20世纪90年代末一直在喀布尔掌权，直到911袭击之后。
“情报界的评估一向准确;他们只是无视它，”这位官员在谈到拜登政府时告诉美国广播公司新闻。
消息人士称，与政府分享的情报中，有人声称，25年前帮助创建和组织塔利班的一些巴基斯坦情报部门成员在夏天支持塔利班。美国广播公司新闻看到了在死亡战士中发现的巴基斯坦政府身份证的证据，但无法验证其真实性。
西迪奎拉·汗/美联社
2021年8月15日，塔利班战士在阿富汗坎大哈市内巡逻。
周日上午，美国国务卿安东尼·布林肯出现在美国广播公司的“本周”节目中，他大多回避了关于政府误判的问题，坚称“这显然不是西贡”——尽管来自喀布尔的现场视频显示，直升机将美国官员从美国大使馆大院运送到喀布尔机场的军事一侧。
几个月来，布林肯一直表示，这种崩溃是可能的，但极不可能。6月由众议员迈克尔·麦克考尔(得克萨斯州共和党)提出。)在外交事务委员会就日益严重的危机举行的监督听证会上，布林肯说，“我认为这不会是一个星期五到星期一发生的事情。我不一定会把我们的部队在7月、8月或9月初撤离等同于局势的某种立即恶化。”
今年5月，领导在卡塔尔多哈与塔利班领导人会谈的美国特使还告诉众议院委员会，对阿富汗政府全面垮台的担忧是不恰当的。
扎勒迈·哈利勒扎德大使说:“我个人认为，关于阿富汗军队将立即崩溃的预测是不正确的。“我们会帮助的，我们现在正在帮助他们。我们会帮助他们。这是我们的承诺。”
现在，成千上万的阿富汗人为美国军方工作或者与美国军队并肩作战——包括那些仍在申请特殊移民签证的人——害怕塔利班在喀布尔等被占领城市进行报复。
命运也不确定美国土木工程师马克·弗里德里希斯自去年以来一直被塔利班扣为人质。
“请记住，我的兄弟马克·弗里德里希斯是塔利班的人质。我们希望所有美军安全回家，但我哥哥也应该能回家，”弗里德里希斯的妹妹夏琳·卡科拉在周日提供给美国广播公司新闻的一份声明中说。
由夏琳·弗里德里希斯提供
这张未注明日期的照片是美国海军老兵马克·弗里德里希的家人提供的。
一些美国官员私下表示，拜登总统和特朗普总统宣布军队从阿富汗撤军是一个错误，认为这助长了塔利班发动进攻的勇气。
美国中央情报局前代理局长迈克尔·莫雷尔周日在推特上写道:“阿富汗发生的事情不是情报失败的结果。“这是多个政府多次政策失败的结果。在这些年的所有参与者中，情报界迄今为止最准确地看到了阿富汗的局势。”
其他人想知道，在美国投资800多亿美元招募、训练和武装阿富汗军队后，他们怎么会在几周内崩溃。一名美国官员告诉美国广播公司新闻，巴基斯坦在塔利班的军事行动中发挥了作用，尽管程度尚不清楚。
周六，一名巴基斯坦高级官员告诉美国广播公司新闻，他不否认他的国家的情报部门在塔利班在战场上的胜利中发挥了作用，但他将阿富汗政府军的失败归咎于美国的误判和阿富汗军队自己的“崩溃”
他告诉美国广播公司新闻，“我不是说(与塔利班)从来没有关系，或者我们已经完全断绝了关系。
这位巴基斯坦官员表示，他担心的与其说是塔利班控制的喀布尔政权，不如说是导致人道主义危机的内战——还有数百万阿富汗难民可能越过边境进入巴基斯坦。
这位官员说:“塔利班应该对他们的成功半信半疑。"占领一座城市是一回事，但占领它是另一回事."
“我们担心的不是他们的胜利，”他补充道。“但建立一个治理体系非常困难。他们也会犯错。胜利的傲慢将导致这一点。”
Afghanistan's collapse: Did US intelligence get it wrong?
As panicked Afghans watched Taliban fighters roll into the capital city of Kabul Sunday, sealing the collapse of the U.S.-backed government there, many Americans were left wondering how top Biden officials could have been so wrong in their recent proclamations that Kabul would not easily fall.
Just days ago, a U.S. military analysisreported by ABC Newspredicted that Kabul could fall within 90 days -- not by the weekend.
"This is a crisis of untold proportions," Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) told NBC News Sunday asTaliban militants swept into Kabul. "This is an intelligence failure. We underestimated the Taliban and overestimated the resolve of the Afghan Army."
But numerous U.S. officials tell ABC News that the opposite was true, insisting that key intelligence assessments had consistently informed policymakers that the Taliban could overwhelm the country and take the capital within weeks -- essentially repeating the 1975 fall of Saigon, when helicopters hastily evacuated diplomats from the U.S. embassy's rooftop as the North Vietnamese Army stormed into the South Vietnam capital.
The Taliban, which has long called itself the "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan," announced they had entered Kabul soon after Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country on Sunday afternoon, setting off a rush to the city's airport and a stepped-up evacuation of the U.S. embassy by a fleet of military helicopters guarded by AH-64 Apache attack helicopters orbiting the once-impenetrable Green Zone. President Joe Biden rushed to move in thousands of U.S. troops to evacuate American officials still in the capital.
"[U.S.] leaders were told by the military it would take no time at all for the Taliban to take everything," an anonymous U.S. intelligence official told ABC News. "No one listened."
Other intelligence sources said that Biden and his team of advisers had reached their decision about theU.S. military's withdrawal-- which was all but completed on July 4 -- based on a variety of factors that went beyond Kabul's fate.
A senior congressional official who asked not to be named in order to discuss sensitive briefings told ABC News that intelligence officers had warned the U.S. leaders about a swift and total victory by the fundamentalist Taliban militants who had held power in Kabul during the late 1990s up until after the Sept. 11 attacks.
"The intelligence community assessment has always been accurate; they just disregarded it," the official told ABC News, speaking about the Biden administration.
Among the intelligence that sources said was shared with the administration were claims that some members of Pakistan's intelligence services, who helped create and organize the Taliban 25 years ago, were supporting the Taliban over the summer. ABC News has seen evidence of Pakistani government ID cards found among deceased fighters, but could not verify their authenticity.
Appearing on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday morning, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken mostly dodged questions about the administration's miscalculations, insisting that "this is manifestly not Saigon" -- even as live video from Kabul showed helicopters ferrying American officials out of the U.S. embassy compound to the military side of Kabul's airport.
Blinken had said for months that such a collapse was possible, but highly unlikely. Pressed in June by Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.) during a Foreign Affairs Committee oversight hearing on the growing crisis, Blinken said, "I don't think it's going to be something that happens from a Friday to a Monday. I wouldn't necessarily equate the departure of our forces in July, August or by early September with some kind of immediate deterioration in the situation."
In May, the U.S. special envoy leading talks with the Taliban leadership in Doha, Qatar, had also told the House committee that fears about a total fall of the Afghan government were misplaced.
"I personally believe that the predictions that the Afghan forces will collapse right away -- they are not right," said Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. "We will help, we are helping them now. We will help them. This is our commitment."
Now, thousands of Afghans whoworked for the U.S. militaryor fought side-by-side with American forces -- including those still in the pipeline for special immigrant visas -- fear Taliban reprisals in occupied cities such as Kabul.
Also uncertain is the fate ofAmerican civil engineer Mark Frerichs, who has been held hostage by the Taliban since last year.
"Please remember that my brother, Mark Frerichs, is a hostage of the Taliban. We want all U.S. troops home safely, but my brother should be able to come home too," Frerichs' sister Charlene Cakora said in a statement provided to ABC News on Sunday.
Some U.S. officials privately said it had been a mistake for Presidents Biden and Trump to announce the military's withdrawal from Afghanistan, believing that it emboldened the Taliban to launch its offensive.
"What is happening in Afghanistan is not the result of an intelligence failure," former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell tweeted on Sunday. "It is the result of numerous policy failures by multiple administrations. Of all the players over the years, the Intelligence Community by far has seen the situation in Afghanistan most accurately."
Others wondered how Afghanistan's army could have collapsed in a matter of weeks, after the U.S. invested more than $80 billion in recruiting, training and arming them. A U.S. official told ABC News that Pakistan played a role in the Taliban's military campaign, though to what extent is unclear.
On Saturday, a Pakistani senior official told ABC News that he did not deny his country's intelligence services had played a role in the Taliban's victory on the battlefield, but he blamed the defeat of Afghan government forces on American miscalculations and the Afghan troops' own "meltdown."
"I'm not saying that there has never been a relationship [with the Taliban] or that we have totally cut it off," he told ABC News.
The Pakistani official said that his concern was not so much about a Taliban-controlled regime in Kabul, as it was about a civil war leading to a humanitarian crisis -- with millions more Afghan refugees potentially crossing the border into Pakistan.
"The Taliban should take their success with a grain of salt," the official said. "To take a city is one thing, but to hold it is a different ballgame."
"Our fear is not their victories," he added. "But setting up a system of governance is very difficult. They will make mistakes, too. The arrogance of victory will lead to that."
