Joe Biden’s deadly bungling of the Afghanistan withdrawal precipitated a drop in the president’s approval rating from which he has yet to recover. New reports indicate the missteps were worse than previously known.

Recall that Mr. Biden in July 2021 announced, “Our military mission in Afghanistan will conclude on Aug. 31. The drawdown is proceeding in a secure and orderly way, prioritizing the safety of our troops as they depart.” He insisted that the Afghan military was “well-equipped” to ensure the Taliban did not seize power again and that the government could maintain itself.

In fact, virtually every assertion the president made that day proved to be disastrously wrong. By the middle of August, the Taliban had advanced quickly. As the situation in Kabul deteriorated, 13 American troops were killed by a terror attack while they helped evacuate people from the country. When the last U.S. military planes left — a scene reminiscent of the fall of Saigon — scores of Americans and thousands of Afghans who had served alongside them were left stranded, and the Taliban had seized control.

On Thursday, CNN released a report on the Afghan withdrawal based on testimony from State Department officials to the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Transcripts of their testimony reveal that the foreign affairs officers dispatched to Afghanistan had been on other assignments when they were sent to Kabul and “were rushed to the country with virtually no time to prepare and no established emergency evacuation plan in place when they arrived,” CNN reported.