The White House did not provide comment for this story by press time. But one person familiar with the matter bluntly assessed, “Probably, this is all going to shit. But we also have confidence that we’ll have political cover, that no one’s going to give a shit.”

According to the sources with knowledge of the situation, some of the polling that had been shared among Biden administration officials prior to the official withdrawal announcement included a survey conducted by Concerned Veterans for America (CVA), a Koch-backed organization pushing for a full drawdown of American troops from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. CVA had also amassed considerable clout with the preceding administration, and had regularly shared similar data on withdrawal support with its allies in the Trump White House, as then-President Donald Trump frequently stalled on his pledges to pull U.S. forces out of overseas conflicts. The group was previously fronted by Pete Hegseth, an Iraq War vet and Fox News host who privately advised then-President Trump on several policy areas.

The January memo from CVA found that “a full two-thirds of veterans (67%) would support a move by the president to withdrawal all troops from Afghanistan—an increase of nearly 10 points (8%) from 2019,” and that a “vast majority of the general public (80%) believe our military engagement around the world should be reduced or stay about the same. Only 6 percent believe we should be more engaged.”