Sue Gordon and John McLaughlin on Intelligence and the Afghanistan Withdrawal
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 3 September 2021
⏱️ 56 minutes
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Summary
Many questions involving intelligence and Afghanistan have come up in the past few weeks. Did intelligence prepare policymakers for the rapid collapse of the Afghan forces and the Taliban’s taking of the capital? How unusual is it for a CIA director to visit a de facto war zone—in this case, Bill Burns to travel to Kabul to meet with Taliban leaders? What's the context for intelligence sharing with the Taliban? To tackle these issues, David Priess sat down with Sue Gordon, who for two years during the Trump administration was the principal deputy director of national intelligence after decades of service at the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and John McLaughlin, who served as the acting director of central intelligence and the deputy director during the George W. Bush presidency, after a career as an analyst, manager and executive in the CIA.
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| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:34.0 | The main thing we have to do in addition to kind of understanding who are the Taliban |
| 0:38.5 | and where are they going and so forth, but it really does focus pretty heavily on that. |
| 0:42.8 | This is not a country with nuclear weapons. |
| 0:45.8 | It's not a country powerful in trade relationships. |
| 0:49.0 | It's not a country whose inherent power challenges us in some way beyond its capacity to |
| 0:55.6 | be a safe haven or an ungoverned space where terrorists can puddle up and plot. |
| 1:02.0 | So it's a focused mission and I think that helps as well. |
| 1:06.5 | I'm David Priss and this is the LawFair podcast September 3rd 2021. |
| 1:14.5 | Many questions involving intelligence and Afghanistan have come up in the past few weeks. |
| 1:20.7 | Did intelligence prepare policymakers for the rapid collapse of the Afghan forces and |
| 1:26.5 | the Taliban's taking of the capital? |
| 1:29.2 | How unusual is it for a CIA director to visit a de facto war zone in this case Bill |
| 1:35.0 | Burns to travel to Kabul to beat with Taliban leaders? |
| 1:39.4 | What's the context for intelligence sharing with the Taliban? |
| 1:45.1 | To tackle these issues, we got the intelligence leaders banned back together. |
| 1:50.4 | Hugh Gordon for two years during the Trump administration was the principal deputy director |
| 1:54.9 | of national intelligence after decades of service at the Central Intelligence Agency and the |
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