He admitted that "everybody got it wrong" but many assessments suggested the Taliban takeover would happen this year. Mr Raab, who was on holiday in Crete when Kabul fell, suggested last week that military intelligence had been wrong over how quickly the Taliban would seize control of Afghanistan following the withdrawal of Western forces. But Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, shot down his claims, saying: "It's not about failure of intelligence, it's about the limits of intelligence." Sir Nick also denied his assertion that the military intelligence had been wrong. He said even the Taliban did not expect to take back power of Afghanistan so swiftly and had suffered "catastrophic success".

Source: Daily Mirror September 05, 2021 10:18 UTC