McCaul: There Are More Americans in Afghanistan Than State Department Claims, Fate of Interpreters Left Behind Is ‘Very Certain’

On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Situation Room,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Michael McCaul (R-TX) said that the number of Americans still in Afghanistan is higher than the number put out by the State Department and that the fate of the interpreters who have been left behind, “unfortunately, is very certain.”

McCaul said, “[W]e could have saved all Americans, plus those interpreters that you know worked so closely with our special forces. Now, they’ve been left behind and their fate, unfortunately, is very certain.”

After host Wolf Blitzer referenced the State Department’s number that there are less than 250 Americans in Afghanistan, McCaul stated that the Americans left in Afghanistan are in “a very dangerous situation.”

He continued, “I just got briefed in the — it’s actually higher than that number. And the reason — a lot of them maybe they tried to get out at the last minute. Because of the security concerns, they were not let into the airport. But a lot of them, actually, Wolf, have family members there that they can’t get out with them, and that’s part of the problem there also. The ones that — I think the Americans, the Taliban were letting through their perimeter, again it’s the Afghan interpreters that they view really are the ones that betrayed their country. Because they worked with the Americans, the infidel, and they are the ones that have the…bullseye on their back and they’re most likely going to be the ones that are going to die.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett