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“Takeover of Kabul Unlikely Before 9/11”: A Chronicle of German Failures in Afghanistan

  • August 20, 2021

Gerd Müller, the head of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), was one of the first to slam on the brakes. Representatives of his ministry argued that there must be “no uncertainty” in the whole process in Afghanistan, because “otherwise a chain reaction could be triggered among local hires of the BMZ that could also have an international context.” In other words: The ministry feared that many local aid workers would flee the country. But the agency was determined to continue its development work in Afghanistan – work that cannot be done without local staff.

The Foreign Ministry suggested considering a “visa on arrival” option – meaning that residence permits could be issued after Afghans arrived in Germany rather than having to go through lengthy procedures prior to departure. According to the minutes, the Interior Ministry rejected the idea, saying there should be “no blanket solution without an individual risk assessment.” A mandatory security check would also have to be “completed before entry.”

The idea of using chartered jets to get local staff out of the country was also rejected. That would send a “wrong signal” said the representative of the Defense Ministry.

Defense Minister Asks Merkel for Help

A few days later, the Taliban launched their military offensive. By the beginning of June, fighting was underway in 26 of the 34 Afghan provinces. It was at that time that Foreign Minister Maas, speaking before parliament, rejected the assumption that the Taliban would seize power in Afghanistan in a matter of weeks.

In mid-June, Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) asked Chancellor Angela Merkel for help. The rules currently held that only local hires who had for the German armed forces in the past two years would be allowed to move to Germany if they requested. She wanted to extend that to include all local hires going back to 2013.

Kramp-Karrenbauer has accused the Foreign Ministry, the Interior Ministry and, in particular, the Development Ministry of resisting that eligibility expansion. Development Minister Müller had written to Kramp-Karrenbauer to reject the idea as “highly problematic.” In terms of development cooperation, they were dealing with “probably more than 50,000 people,” Müller wrote. A decision like that could have an “enormous pull effect” and overload the “processing structures on the ground.”

Müller apparently considered it possible to continue development work despite the Taliban’s advance. It was necessary to “ensure that what has been achieved in the last 20 years is safeguarded for the Afghan people.”

During a cabinet meeting on June 16, Merkel took the ministers in question aside and urged them to reach an agreement quickly. Pressure was also coming from elsewhere.

At a conference of the federal interior minister and his counterparts at the state level from June 16 to 18, some state interior ministers, in particular Boris Pistorius of the center-left SPD from Lower-Saxony, called on federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer to act more decisively. The politician, a member of the center-right Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party to the CDU, has a different recollection of the meeting. He denies that he opposed more generous rules for local hires being able to come to Germany. According to his ministry, it was the Foreign Ministry and the BMZ that had rejected flying local hires out earlier – in order to prevent destabilizing the Afghan government and sending the wrong message to the Taliban. But there was one thing that Seehofer’s people were still reciting like a mantra at that point: The local hires should pay for their own flights to Germany.

By then, the Taliban were conquering one Afghan region after the other. As of June 22, they had captured 50 of some 400 districts, according to the UN special envoy. On July 2, U.S. troops secretly withdrew from Bagram Air Base near Kabul. The base had been their military headquarters in Afghanistan. In a situation report, the Foreign Office wrote that the Taliban are seeking to “consolidate and expand” their realm of influence. It “is difficult to assess at present” how the military situation would develop after the withdrawal of the international troops.

Merkel Takes Her Ministers To Task

On July 13, the human rights spokespersons of the parliamentary groups of the CDU/CSU, the SPD, the Greens and the business-friendly Free Democrats sent a joint letter to the chancellor. In it, they wrote, “we are appealing to you urgently and therefore publicly because time is very short and Germany is in danger of betraying its commitments to local hires in Afghanistan.”

A week later, Merkel’s cabinet met on July 21. By then, the Taliban already had control of half of all districts in the country. The chancellor once again took the ministers involved to task. Merkel asked Michelle Müntefering, a senior official in the Foreign Ministry, to explore the option of renting charter planes at government expense to get local hires out.

Article source: https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/takeover-of-kabul-unlikely-before-9-11-a-chronicle-of-german-failures-in-afghanistan-a-d954eee2-f72d-4125-a6d5-90d3d774a422#ref=rss

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