Sen. Cotton Accuses Biden of Setting Afghanistan Up for Taliban Rule: ‘Pulled the Rug Out From Underneath the Afghan Army’

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) accused President Joe Biden on Tuesday of pulling “the rug out from underneath” Afghanistan’s armed forces.

“This all goes back to Joe Biden’s decision to rush the troops out by September 11, something that was totally needless and set up the Afghans for failure,” Cotton said in a morning Fox News interview with Bill Hemmer and Dana Perino, speaking in reference to the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan. He cited the Biden administration recalling U.S. Army Gen. Scott Miller from Bagram Air Force Base in July — over Miller’s objections — and said the administration crippled Afghanistan’s armed forces by preventing contractors from staying in the region.

“We trained the Afghan army to fight with air support,” Cotton said. “They weren’t fighting with American helicopters. They weren’t even fighting with American troopers supporting them. But they were fighting with western contractors doing basic things like refueling and maintenance operations. Biden insisted all the contractors come out as well. So all those helicopters were immediately grounded. So he pulled the rug out from underneath the Afghan army over the last four, five, six weeks. We shouldn’t be surprised when we train them to fight one way and we prevent them from fighting that way that they got overrun by the Taliban.”

Cotton served as a U.S. infantry officer in Afghanistan and Iraq between 2005-09, prior to his 2015 election to the Senate.

Biden “wanted the political symbolism of having all Americans out by September 11,” he added. “Now the political symbolism will be the Taliban flag flying over what once was the U.S. embassy on the 20th anniversary of 9/11.”

Watch above via Fox News.