BBC News
According to a senior British Foreign Office official, the manner in which Britain withdrew from Kabul was "unforgivable".
The female government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the BBC's Newsnight program that the withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan had caused "trauma and hardship".
The female officer said that instead of saving lives, the ministers focused on media coverage and political losses.
It should be noted that the British government says that they had worked tirelessly to evacuate 15,000 personnel from Afghanistan.
The State Department official said he was having difficulty describing the situation there: "Because it was very painful. It was also difficult because people would not believe it. It's unforgivable, that's all I can say. "
He added that instead of overcoming the crisis, the whole process was done to avoid political losses, which was a very painful and extremely difficult situation for him.
'Thousands of emails not read'
Normally, at any one time of the day, about 5,000 such e-mails were in the inbox, and thousands of them were never read, including messages from Afghan parliamentarians."
During the emergency evacuation from Kabul, the decision as to which Afghan citizen to evacuate and which not, was made not under any system but arbitrarily and the emails of thousands of Afghans requesting help were not read.
Raphael Marshall, a former senior official at the Foreign Office's Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office, said in written evidence provided to a Foreign Office committee that the British Foreign Office's evacuation strategy was ineffective after the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan. There was chaos.
According to Raphael Marshall, the decision-making process of the then British Foreign Secretary Dominic Robb was slow.
I have never seen such a bad operation in my entire career."
The senior officer explained that it was such a bad operation that he had not seen it in his entire career.
According to him, it caused a lot of direct mental trauma and difficulties and the manner in which the operation was carried out, it is possible that many lives were lost in this operation.
On the other hand, sources close to former Foreign Minister Dominic Robb told the BBC that the real issue during the emergency withdrawal from Afghanistan was not speedy decision making but verification of people's identities and provision of safe passage to the airport.
'Taliban are killing those left behind'
It should be noted that during the emergency withdrawal from Afghanistan after the Taliban took control of Kabul, the British government helped to evacuate about 15,000 people by air. They included 5,000 British citizens, 8,000 Afghans and 2,000 children.
But according to the written testimony given by Raphael Marshall, the number of Afghans working with the British government who applied for evacuation was about 1.5 million. According to Raphael, the lives of these Afghans were in danger because of working with the British government, but less than five percent of them had their requests granted.
Raphael claims that "it is now clear that many of those who were left behind are now being killed by the Taliban."
Lack of staff, skills and communication
According to Raphael Marshall, during the evacuation, the State Department's Emergency Center not only had a severe shortage of staff, but also a lack of competence and coordination with the Ministry of Defense.
According to him, Foreign Minister Dominic Robb spent hours responding to messages from the Emergency Evacuation Center and did not fully understand the real situation.
What are the allegations of the former officer who revealed the secrets of the British withdrawal?
None of the staff handling the evacuation requests had worked in Afghanistan, nor did they know much about the situation there.
The staff at the Emergency Evacuation Center did not speak any Afghan language, so English was spoken to the Afghan applicants.
Which Afghan citizen will be assisted during the evacuation was decided arbitrarily, and the emails of thousands of applicants have not been read.
The Emergency Evacuation Centre's IT system was also inactive, with eight soldiers using a computer to assist.
Foreign Minister Dominic Robb's decision-making has been slow because he did not understand the real situation.
'Many Afghan MPs' support messages not seen'
It should be noted that during the Taliban's advance on Kabul in August, the British government had introduced two evacuation schemes. One was to evacuate Afghans who were working directly with the British government, while the other was to help identify and evacuate Afghans whose lives had been assisted by the British government. The cause could be dangerous.
Raphael Marshall was working with a team assigned to Afghan Special Cases. The group included Afghan soldiers, politicians, journalists, bureaucrats, social workers, judges and private bodyguards who had worked directly for the British government through subcontractors.
According to Raphael Marshall, as soon as the Taliban began advancing on Kabul, there was a flurry of messages from these Afghans seeking help to flee the country.
Normally, at any one time in a day, there were about 5,000 such e-mails in the inbox, and thousands of them were never read, including messages from Afghan parliamentarians."
He says the process by which the priority was set in these applications was ineffective because the criteria set by the government were unsupported and vague, which caused a great deal of confusion.
The system was in turmoil.
Raphael Marshall says staff at the Emergency Evacuation Center who previously worked for the Department for International Development could not access computers at the Foreign, Commonwealth, Development Office because the IT system was not integrated.
According to him, when the soldiers were brought to the center for help, many of them had not used the computer system before, which led to many mistakes. At one point, eight soldiers were using the same computer."
