As previously noted, the Biden administration State Department claimed approximately 124,000 persons were evacuated from the Kabul airport. Of that number approximately 6 to 7 thousand were Americans. Now mainstream media [Bloomberg Reporting] is beginning to admit that no one knows who the approximately 118,000 other people really are.
This is quite a stunning admission from Bloomberg, putting the spotlight on the White House:
[Bloomberg] – Days after the Biden administration finished evacuating about 124,000 people from Afghanistan, it’s coming to grips with the reality that it doesn’t know who many of those people are.
What’s emerging, according to government officials and advocates, is that a small percentage of the Afghan citizens who got out are the ones the U.S. pledged to place at the top of its priority list: the thousands who had worked for the U.S. and its allies as well as employees of nongovernmental groups and media organizations.
Instead, initial findings suggest that while some who escaped were locally employed staff, many got out because they were part of the initial crush of people who made it to Kabul’s airport as the city fell to the Taliban or secured passage through airport gates thanks to luck or help from people in the U.S. or elsewhere.
The U.S. is looking into reports that older men may have been admitted along with young girls they claimed as “brides” or otherwise sexually abused, according to an official who discussed the concern on condition of anonymity. That issue was reported earlier Friday by the Associated Press.
In fact, many of the Afghans who were most vulnerable to the Taliban — applicants for the Special Immigrant Visa program intended for translators and others who aided the American war effort — didn’t make it out because the U.S. told them going to the airport would be too dangerous. And they never got a call to come before the last U.S. plane departed to meet President Joe Biden’s Aug. 31 departure deadline. (read more)
Video of press conference below:
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