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From the SitRoom to the E-Ring, the inside scoop on defense, national security and foreign policy. | | | | | |  | | By Alexander Ward and Quint Forgey | | 
A U.S. Marine passes out water to evacuees at Hamid Karzai International Airport on Aug. 21, 2021. | Isaiah Campbell/U.S. Marine Corps via Getty Images | With help from Daniel Lippman Welcome to National Security Daily, your guide to the global events roiling Washington and keeping the administration up at night. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Quint NatSec Daily has received multiple leaked State Department cables providing the clearest, behind-the-scenes picture of the situation in Kabul and how the administration is handling the evacuation effort. Take two of the sensitive-but-unclassified cables we received today: the 50th and 51st editions of the Afghanistan Task Force’s situation reports, both of which had signoff from Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN and were prepared by the Afghanistan Task Force. The 50th, current as of 10:30 p.m. Sunday, said the task force “is currently tracking 45 planned flights in the next 48 hours,” which would be a massive ramp-up in evacuation takeoffs but a “decrease from previous reporting.” Furthermore, the cable notes that 40 unaccompanied minors are at the Norwegian Reunification Center near the Kabul airport, and that the NRC “is currently at capacity.” The U.S. also helped 43 Egyptian diplomats in Kabul make it to the airport, though the cable doesn’t detail exactly how. And a three-person delegation from South Korea got permission from the U.S. military to fly into Kabul to assist with the evacuation of that country’s 427 Afghan staff and their families. There are also some interesting trades going on: The Netherlands is considering taking up to 1,000 U.S.-bound special immigrant visa applicants for 60 days in exchange for America’s help in evacuating “a similar number of Dutch nationals from Kabul.” The 51st sitrep, with information current as of 7:30 a.m. today, says Consular Affairs contacted 1,000 U.S. citizens “to inform them to travel to the airport for processing,” though “a portion of them may be outside of Afghanistan.” There’s also an item about how “23 Afghan passengers that were not cleared for travel to the United States arrived” at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. The cable provides no further information, however. Meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy in Berlin is negotiating with the German government to open up a fourth facility in the country to host evacuees. The cable notes “the gates at HKIA remain closed,” using the acronym for Hamid Karzai International Airport. The closed gates come as many thousands aim to get in, Taliban checkpoints dot the entry roads, a threat looms against the airport by ISIS in Afghanistan, and after a fatal shooting incident near the North Gate that resulted in the death of an Afghan security soldier. The 51st edition of the sitrep also had up-to-date data on evacuation stats: Total people manifested since midnight, Aug. 23 in Kabul — 369 American citizens
— 5,048 Afghan nationals
— Eight third-country or unknown
— Total = 5,425 Total manifested since the operation began — 4,293 American citizens
— 20,156 Afghan nationals
— 642 third-country or unknown
— Total = 25,091 Maj. Gen. WILLIAM TAYLOR told reporters today that 37,000 people have been evacuated since April 14, when Kabul fell, with 16,000 people evacuated in the last 24 hours. | | | BROAD BIPARTISAN SUPPORT FOR ACCEPTING AFGHAN REFUGEES: According to a CBS News/YouGov poll released Sunday, 81 percent of respondents said the United States should help its endangered Afghan allies come to America. That total includes 90 percent of Democrats, 79 percent of independents and 76 percent of Republicans polled. The survey also showed that a majority of respondents, 59 percent, say the United States is not doing enough to help those Afghan allies flee the Taliban. The poll, conducted Aug. 18-20, surveyed 2,142 U.S. adults with a margin of sampling error of plus-or-minus 2.3 percentage points. AFGHANISTAN DEADLINE DILEMMA: The Taliban want President JOE BIDEN to stick to a full withdrawal by Aug. 31. But British Prime Minister BORIS JOHNSON will use Tuesday’s emergency G-7 meeting to push the president to extend the deadline to assist with evacuation efforts, per POLITICO’s LIV KLINGERT. That puts Biden in a very awkward position. He either extends the deadline — which would violate the militant’s “red line,” prompting “consequences,” Taliban spokesperson SUHAIL SHAHEEN told Sky News on Monday — or he refuses the request of a close American ally, cutting into the administration’s argument that the withdrawal is being executed in lockstep with its partners. Neither option is particularly appealing to administration officials, based on conversations NatSec Daily has had in recent hours. The Defense Department has said the administration is aware of the Taliban’s position but is unaware of any conversations with allies about a potential deadline extension. MORE U.S. RESCUE MISSIONS IN KABUL: Pentagon spokesperson JOHN KIRBY confirmed Monday that U.S. troops had performed another rescue of Americans in the Taliban-controlled Afghan capital, per Quint. Apart from the three Army CH-47 Chinook helicopters that airlifted 169 Americans to Hamid Karzai International Airport last Thursday, there has been “at least one additional instance where rotary airlift was used to help Americans get from outside the airport into the airport,” Kirby said. Kirby also indicated that rescue missions by U.S. troops in recent days have been more frequent than senior administration officials have thus far publicly acknowledged — and that some have been facilitated by means other than military helicopters. There are “a variety of methods” by which rescue missions “can be effected,” Kirby said, “without going into detail, we’re using the variety of methods at our disposal.” VEEP IN SOUTHEAST ASIA: Vice President KAMALA HARRIS’ trip to Singapore has produced some deliverables, per a White House fact sheet. The announcements include: — Launching a climate partnership
— Three new agreements to “expand cybersecurity cooperation”
— Starting “a high-level dialogue on supply chains” that will eventually “promote greater supply chain resilience”
— Reaffirming the defense relationship, partly “through rotational deployments of U.S. P-8 aircraft and littoral combat ships to Singapore” IT’S MONDAY: Thanks for tuning in to NatSec Daily, the newsletter for top U.S. and foreign officials, lawmakers, lobbyists, experts and the people like you who care about how the natsec sausage gets made. Aim your tips and comments at award@politico.com and qforgey@politico.com , and follow us on Twitter at @alexbward and @QuintForgey. While you’re at it, follow the rest of POLITICO’s national security team: @nahaltoosi, @woodruffbets, @politicoryan, @PhelimKine, @BryanDBender, @laraseligman, @connorobrienNH, @paulmccleary, @leehudson, @AndrewDesiderio and @JonnyCustodio. | | | | INTRODUCING OTTAWA PLAYBOOK : Join the growing community of Politicos — from lawmakers and leaders to pollsters, staffers, strategists and lobbyists — working to shape Canada’s future. Every day, our reporting team pulls back the curtain to shed light on what’s really driving the agenda on Parliament Hill, the true players who are shaping politics and policy across Canada, and the impact it all has on the world. Don’t miss out on your daily look inside Canadian politics and power. Subscribe to Ottawa Playbook today. | | | | | | | | IRAN MAKING ENERGY MOVES IN LEBANON AND AFGHANISTAN: SAEED KHATIBZADEH, the spokesperson for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said at a news conference Monday that Tehran was “ready to send fuel again to Lebanon if needed,” per Reuters . He added: “Certainly, we cannot see the suffering of the Lebanese people.” Khatibzadeh’s remarks come after HASSAN NASRALLAH, the leader of Lebanon’s Iranian-backed Hezbollah group that the U.S. designated a terrorist group, said in a speech Sunday that ships carrying fuel from Iran would be embarking soon for Lebanon. Nasrallah previously announced last Thursday that the Shiite militant group had arranged for an Iranian fuel shipment to set sail for Lebanon as the Middle Eastern faces a crippling fuel shortage. Hezbollah also suggested it would retaliate against the United States and Israel should either country try to stop the fuel shipments from Iran. U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon DOROTHY SHEA has said the Iranian shipments are unnecessary. Lebanon’s economic crisis prompted its government to announce Sunday that it would raise gasoline prices by 66 percent in a partial reduction of fuel subsidies. In related news, Iran’s Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Products Exporters’ Union confirmed Monday that Tehran had restarted fuel exports to Afghanistan, granting a request by the Taliban, per Reuters’ BOZORGMEHR SHARAFEDIN. | | | POTENTIAL STATE DEPARTMENT HACK: The State Department was hacked and notified of the intrusion by the Pentagon’s Cyber Command, per Fox Business’ JACQUI HEINRICH and CAITLIN MCFALL. “It remains unclear if any department operations were affected by the breach, but a source familiar with mass evacuation of thousands of Americans and Afghans from Kabul said Operation Allies Refuge has not been affected,’” they write. “The extent of the breach and the perpetrators behind the attack remains unclear at this time.” NatSec Daily reached out to the State Department about this, but a spokesperson responded: “For security reasons, we are not in a position to discuss the nature or scope of any alleged cybersecurity incidents at this time.” | | | SUPER-SECRET SPACE WEAPON SHOWCASE SHUTTERED? The Biden administration soon will unveil a still-classified space weapon program and demonstrate what it can do, per Breaking Defense’s THERESA HITCHENS . The crisis in Afghanistan will delay the reveal, though, and it’s possible Biden might change his mind on presenting the device to the world. “Expert speculation on what could be used for the demonstration ranges from a terrestrially-based mobile laser used for blinding adversary reconnaissance sats to on-board, proximity triggered radio-frequency jammers on certain military satellites, to a high-powered microwave system that can zap electronics carried on maneuverable bodyguard satellites. However, experts and former officials interviewed by Breaking Defense say it probably does not involve a ground-based kinetic interceptor,” Hitchens writes. | | | HOUSE GOP TO CONDEMN BIDEN OVER AFGHANISTAN: A House Republican source tells NatSec Daily that there’s a resolution in the works to condemn Biden over the administration’s handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal. The measure has the backing and support of GOP leadership, this person tells us. When the resolution will be introduced and what exact action it would trigger if passed are still unclear. But it’s apparent that Republican anger over Afghanistan has reached a boiling point, and that fury may well affect the fate of the president’s domestic priorities. | | | PETRAEUS STILL PANNING POTUS: Retired Gen. DAVID PETRAEUS, the disgraced former CIA director , added another stop on his I-would’ve-done-it-better tour with an event Monday at The Atlantic Council think tank in Washington, D.C. During the hour-long session, he urged the president’s team to clearly define who will and won’t be evacuated by the United States, and to reopen Bagram Airfield to keep tabs on al-Qaida and ISIS. “There should be some who have a bit of buyer’s remorse over what’s been going on there,” he said — displaying none of his own after leading a failed counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan. And yet, despite his later shortcomings in Afghanistan as CIA chief, he continues to attack the administration whenever given the chance. Compare that to retired Adm. MIKE MULLEN, who in an interview with Slate’s FRED KAPLAN today showed some remorse. “He got it right,” Mullen, who in 2009 pushed the Obama administration to send 40,000 more troops into Afghanistan, said of Biden. “It would be hard to argue that [Biden’s proposal] wasn’t the right way to go.” | | | — FIRST IN NATSEC DAILY: ABEL ABEYTA is now chief information security officer for the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department. He most recently was an NSA intelligence liaison officer and watch officer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. — ALEXANDER FELDMAN will start on Aug. 27 as the Singapore-based head of Boeing’s Southeast Asia business, the company announced today. For the last 12 years, Feldman was the president and CEO of the U.S.-ASEAN Business Council. — JIHFIN LEI , formerly the principal deputy director of defense research and engineer at the Pentagon, has joined Teledyne-FLIR as the company’s vice president and general manager of the surveillance business. | | | | Be a Policy Pro. POLITICO Pro has a free policy resource center filled with our best practices on building relationships with state and federal representatives, demonstrating ROI, and influencing policy through digital storytelling. Read our free guides today . | | | | | | | | — ALISSA J. RUBIN, The New York Times: “Did the War in Afghanistan Have to Happen?” — PHIL CAPUTO, POLITICO Magazine: “ ‘The Temperature in Saigon Is 105 and Rising’” — E.J. DIONNE JR., The Washington Post: “The Afghanistan outcome is ugly. Biden was still right to say: Enough.” | | | — The second day of VP Harris’ trip to Southeast Asia: In Singapore, Harris will deliver a speech on U.S. partnerships in Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific; participate in a roundtable with supply-chain thought leaders; meet with staff and families at the U.S. Embassy in Singapore; and arrive in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Tuesday evening. — The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 9 a.m.: “Eleventh Annual South China Sea Conference: Session Two” — The Brookings Institution, 10 a.m.: “How veterans can protect American democracy” — The Center for a New American Security, 11 a.m.: “From Frozen Assets to Sanctions: What Economic Leverage Does the U.S. Have in Afghanistan?” — The Middle East Institute, 11 a.m.: “Syria and the West: The Efficacy of Economic Sanctions” — The Hudson Institute, 12 p.m.: “Can We Prevent Further Calamity in Afghanistan?” — The Foreign Policy Research Institute, 3 p.m.: “Irregular Soldiers and Rebellious States” Have a natsec-centric event coming up? Transitioning to a new defense-adjacent or foreign policy-focused gig? Shoot us an email at award@politico.com or qforgey@politico.com to be featured in the next edition of the newsletter. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |  |
