On Tuesday's edition of CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360," Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO), a former Army Ranger, weighed in on the chaos in Afghanistan over the last few days — and emphasized the need for the Biden administration to do more to protect Afghans who helped the U.S. military.
"You have to establish lines of communication and open up some roads," said Crow. "To the extent we expand those out to the city, how far we expand those out is obviously going to be a consequence of the security situation and how many troops we have on the ground. I'm not saying this is easy. I'm saying we have to do it. I know the operational challenge, the complexity of doing this. I know how dangerous and complicated it is."
"I'm certainly very upset that we're in this position because we actually didn't need to be in the position had the administration started it back in April we could have most of these folks out and this would be a very different situation," continued Crow. "But that's not going to help us now. What we need to be is singularly focused on the mission of getting folks out. I don't think 5,000, 6,000 troops is going to do the job. I think we'll have to send in some more as well as additional assets to make sure we're extending that perimeter out."
"I actually got a video five minutes before coming on here sent by a friend of mine of the line trying to get into the airport and gunfire and the chaos at the Taliban checkpoints and the things you described and showed pictures of," added Crow. "We can't allow that to happen. We have to extend that perimeter out and open up some mechanism for folks to get to the airport."
Watch below:
Jason Crow on the evacuation of Afghanistanwww.youtube.com
