A former Navy Seal has revealed how he believes the evacuation of Afghanistan by US forces should have been conducted - in a video address pretending to be Commander-in-Chief.
Jocko Willink assumed the role of President in a 3-minute 30-second video shared on his Instagram account, in which he accepts responsibility for the mistakes in dealing with Afghanistan.
He also laid out clearly a plan to fix the mistakes made by the actual President which have caused scenes of panic and chaos, even resulting in the deaths of some of the people seeking safety.
Speaking in the video, Jocko starts by admitting the errors made during the early stages of the Afghanistan withdrawal.
Jocko Willink (pictured) assumed the role of President in a 3-minute 30-second video shared on his Instagram account, in which he accepts responsibility for the mistakes in dealing with Afghanistan
He said: 'As you know, we were set to leave Afghanistan this month and as we began the final draw down, I made some critical errors.
'Namely, I underestimated the strength of the Taliban, and I overestimated the strength and capability of the friendly Afghan forces. This was my fault – and due to my mistake, the Taliban has taken control of Afghanistan.'
Jocko also made reference to the huge number of American citizens, soldiers and allies who have found themselves stuck at the airport in the Afghan capital of Kabul.
He said: 'Unfortunately, there are tens of thousands of Americans on the ground there, as well as friends and allies of America on the ground.
'These people, Americans and our allies, are all stranded, and that is my fault.'
However, the ex-Navy Seal then moved on to address these failings and laid out the plan he has thought up to help solidify the situation in Kabul and help ensure everyone who needs to leave Afghanistan is able to do so.
Jocko said: 'In the next 48 hours, America will be in control of most major airports in Afghanistan.
'Any resistance we meet from the Taliban or otherwise when we seize these airports will be destroyed completely and without mercy.
'From those airports, we will conduct rapid strike rescue missions until we have recovered and evacuated all our citizens, allies and friends. Any person that interferes with these operations will be killed.
'We will also recover or destroy all aircraft, vehicles, weapons and sensitive equipment we left behind. Any person utilizing, guarding, or located within close proximity to these weapons or equipment will be killed.
'Once we have evacuated all friendly personnel and recovered or destroyed the weapons and equipment left behind, we will depart Afghanistan.'
The military veteran then continued on by saying that his imagined administration would continue to monitor the situation in Afghanistan even after the complete withdrawal, and would offer assistance to any forces remaining in the country fighting for 'freedom, liberty and basic human rights'.
He ended his address by saying: 'May God bless America, and my God have mercy on the souls of our enemy because we will not. That is all.'
President Biden has been criticized for his handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Last week, Republicans ramped up their vocal criticism of the President after he sat down for an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos.
'Incompetent. Unhinged. Incoherent. Unfit,' tweeted Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott, sharing a clip from the Stephanopoulos interview. Earlier this week, Scott floated that Biden should be removed from office over the Afghanistan debacle.
President Biden (pictured) has been criticized for his handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan
Ohio Rep Steve Chabot, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee with jurisdiction over Afghanistan, told DailyMail.com: 'No matter how much President Biden makes excuses for his bungled withdrawal and rationalizes the consequences, the simple fact is that we are witnessing a truly monumental failure of leadership and planning that will haunt America for some time.
'Many predicted a rapid Taliban takeover, and the fact that we didn’t get everyone to safety, or even have a plan to get everyone to safety, before the Taliban took Kabul is simply inexcusable.'
And President Biden was also criticized for the 'bizarre' messaging his team has been putting out about the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan.
A panel on CNN's 'Inside Politics' show on Sunday were discussing the gulf in narrative between how the operation was being described by the White House, and how it was being depicted on the ground in Kabul.
Images and videos shared on social media in recent days have shown huge crowds of Afghans who worked with U.S. military forces, as well as US nationals, camped outside the airport in Kabul and the clock ticks down to Biden's exit ultimatum.
A panel on CNN's 'Inside Politics' show on Sunday were discussing the gulf in narrative between how the operation was being described by the White House, and how it was being depicted on the ground in Kabul
And when the evacuation operation first began, harrowing images of Afghans attempting to flee the Taliban by clinging to the underside of aircraft also laid bare the situation in Kabul.
Despite this, on Friday, President Biden claimed that he has 'seen no question of our credibility from our allies around the world.'
Jeff Zeleny, CNN's chief national affairs correspondent, described the President's comment as 'bizarre'.
He said: 'You have to question, is the president insulated, isolated? On Friday it was almost bizarre. What he was saying did not match the reality of what some of his other advisers were saying.
'I think this will be a very defining moment in the Biden presidency about what we learn of him as president, but it seems to me he's a bit insulated or isolated inside the White House.'
On Friday, President Biden claimed that he has 'seen no question of our credibility from our allies around the world'
It comes as the President is 'unlikely' to meet his August 31 deadline to evacuate US citizens and their allies from Afghanistan, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee said Monday.
Adam Schiff made the grim prediction after an intelligence briefing Monday evening, as the Taliban rejected a mooted extension to the withdrawal date.
Schiff said a full evacuation was 'possible' but 'very unlikely given the number of Americans who still need to be evacuated, the number of SIV’s, the number of others who are members of the Afghan press, civil society leaders, women leaders.'
Speaking outside the US Capitol, Schiff continued: 'I am encouraged to see the numbers of people evacuated, increasing readily to the point where we evacuated 11,000 people in a single day,” Schiff continued.
'Nonetheless, given the logistical difficulties of moving people to the airport and the limited number of workarounds, it's hard for me to see that being fully complete by the end of the month. And I'm certainly of the view that we maintain a military presence as long as it's necessary to get all U.S. persons out and to meet our moral and ethical obligation to our Afghan partners.'
Adam Schiff, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, is pictured on Monday discussing the Afghanistan evacuations. He said he does not believe the process will be completed by August 31 - Joe Biden's deadline
Schiff, a Democrat representing California, said that he did not believe there had been an intelligence failure - suggesting that the Biden administration ignored warnings about the Taliban threat
Biden, pictured on Monday, will have to decide today whether to withdraw from Kabul as planned by August 31 or keep troops there beyond the deadline
He added: 'Given the number of Americans who still need to be evacuated, the number of SIVs, the number of others who are members of the Afghan press, civil society leaders women leaders, it's hard for me to imagine all of that can be accomplished between now and the end of the month,' he said.
He also said that he was troubled by the idea that the Islamic State could attack the crowds massed outside Kabul airport.
'I think the threat to the airport is very real and very substantial and this has been a concern of mine for, for some days now that this would make a very attractive target for ISIS,' he said.
Schiff also said that he believed there had not been an intelligence failure about the Taliban's capacity to overrun the country - implying that the Biden administration knew the risks, yet plowed ahead regardless.
Taliban spokesman Dr Suhail Shaheen (pictured) has warned of 'consequences' if Western forces stay beyond the end of the month
'The intelligence agencies assessments of the Afghan government's ability to maintain itself became increasingly pessimistic,' he said.
'Over the course of the last six months. And there were any number of warnings that the Taliban might take over - and some that included the potential for it to be very rapid.'
Schiff spoke as military officials have warned Biden he must decide whether to keep US troops in Afghanistan by Tuesday - otherwise they will miss the deadline to leave.
CNN reported that the withdrawal decision must come within hours, to give them time to remove all 5,800 US service personnel currently on the ground in Kabul, as well as their equipment and weaponry.
Yet Schiff said he thought that was unlikely given the numbers of US citizens and those with SIVs - Special Immigrant Visas, issued to Afghans who have worked as US translators.
Pictured: British and Canadian soldiers help an Afghan climb up the wall of a canal near the airport in Kabul yesterday morning
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson is expected to press Biden and other G7 leaders to delay the final withdrawal in a virtual call today, despite his armed forces minister warning Kabul will become a 'warzone' if the West stay and ignore the Taliban's demands
The date of August 31 was set as the point at which US troops would be removed from Afghanistan, meaning any evacuations need to be completed by this point. Pictured: British and Canadian soldiers patrol the perimeter of the airport in Kabul near the military-controlled section
Meanwhile, conditions at the Kabul airport continued to deteriorate over the weekend, with Americans on the ground being told not to try to brave the chaos around the airport unless they have been told to report.
And it emerged that evacuation flights were dropping flares and making steep combat landings after warnings that terrorists of the Islamic State might try to shoot down a plane.
While the uneasy agreement between the US and Taliban that would see the militant group leave the airport and evacuation effort alone has also been tested.
Despite the agreement that the Taliban would not encroach on NATO efforts to evacuate their people, US and German soldiers were involved in a gunfight during the early hours of yesterday morning after shots were fired by 'unknown attackers'.
And yesterday, in the face of NATO allies urging President Biden to extend his August 31 deadline, Taliban spokesman Dr Suhail Shaheen said there will be 'consequences' if the US does not leave Afghanistan on the agreed date.
Biden is still facing questions about why his administration did not have a better evacuation plan after being warned that the Taliban could sweep into Kabul within days.
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