Joe Biden blamed for disastrous end to US war in Afghanistan in scathing report
- In Reports
- 12:23 PM, Sep 09, 2024
- Myind Staff
On Sunday, House Republicans released a critical report on their investigation into the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. The report attributed the chaotic conclusion of America's longest war primarily to President Joe Biden's administration while downplaying the role of former President Donald Trump, who had negotiated the withdrawal deal with the Taliban.
The partisan review details the final months of military and civilian failures following Trump's February 2020 withdrawal deal, which allowed the Taliban, America's fundamentalist adversary, to rapidly take control of Afghanistan before the last U.S. officials departed on 30 August 2021. The chaotic exit left behind numerous American citizens, Afghan battlefield allies, women activists, and others at risk from the Taliban.
However, the House Republicans' report adds little new insight, as the withdrawal has already been extensively examined in several independent reviews. Previous investigations and analyses have identified systemic failures across the last four presidential administrations, concluding that both Biden and Trump bear significant responsibility.
Texas Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, who led the investigation as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the GOP review reveals that the Biden administration “had the information and opportunity to take necessary steps to plan for the inevitable collapse of the Afghan government, so we could safely evacuate U.S. personnel, American citizens, green card holders, and our brave Afghan allies.”
“At each step of the way, however, the administration picked optics over security,” he said in a statement.
Earlier in the day, McCaul denied that the timing of the report's release, which comes ahead of the presidential election, was politically motivated. He also rejected claims that Republicans had overlooked Trump's mistakes in the U.S. withdrawal.
A White House spokesperson, Sharon Yang, said the Republican report was based on “cherry-picked facts, inaccurate characterisations, and preexisting biases.”
“Because of the bad deal former President Trump cut with the Taliban to get out of Afghanistan by May of 2021, President Biden inherited an untenable position,” either ramp up the U.S. war against a strengthened Taliban or end it, Yang said in a statement.
House Democrats, in a statement, accused their Republican colleagues of disregarding facts about Trump's role in the withdrawal.
The over 18-month investigation by House Republicans focused on the period leading up to the withdrawal of U.S. troops. The report claimed that Biden and his administration undermined senior officials and disregarded warnings as the Taliban rapidly captured key cities, a development that many U.S. officials had neither anticipated nor prepared for.
“I called their advance ‘the Red Blob,’'' retired Col. Seth Krummrich said of the Taliban, telling the committee that at the special operations' central command where he was chief of staff, “we tracked the Taliban advance daily, looking like a red blob gobbling up terrain."
“I don't think we ever thought — you know, nobody ever talked about, ‘Well, what’s going to happen when the Taliban come over the wall?''' Carol Perez, the State Department's acting undersecretary for management at the time of the withdrawal, said of what House Republicans said was minimal State Department planning before abandoning the embassy in mid-August 2021 when the Taliban swept into Kabul, Afghanistan's capital.
The withdrawal marked the end of a nearly two-decade occupation by U.S. and allied forces, which had begun to oust al-Qaida militants responsible for the 11 September 2001 attacks. The Taliban had provided shelter to al-Qaeda's leader, Osama bin Laden, in Afghanistan. Committee staffers highlighted reports since the U.S. withdrawal indicating that al-Qaida has been rebuilding in Afghanistan, including a U.N. report of up to eight al-Qaeda training camps.
The Taliban’s takeover dismantled an Afghan government and military that the U.S. had invested nearly 20 years and trillions of dollars in, aiming to prevent the country from becoming a haven for anti-Western extremists once again.
A 2023 report by the U.S. government watchdog for Afghanistan specifically highlights Trump’s February 2020 deal with the Taliban, which committed to withdrawing all American forces and military contractors by the spring of the following year. The report also criticises both Trump’s and Biden’s resolve to continue the withdrawal of U.S. forces despite the Taliban’s breaches of key commitments in the deal.
The House Republicans' more than 350-page report results from extensive testimony, including former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, U.S. Central Command retired Gen. Frank McKenzie, and other senior officials from that period. The investigation involved seven public hearings, round-tables, and the review of over 20,000 pages of State Department documents.
With Biden not seeking re-election, Trump and his GOP allies have sought to highlight the withdrawal as a campaign issue against Vice President Kamala Harris, who is now his Democratic opponent in the presidential race.
The report by House Republican cites Harris' overall responsibility as an adviser to Biden but doesn't point to specific counsel or action by Harris that contributed to the many failures.
Republicans highlight testimony and records suggesting that the Biden administration's reliance on input from military and civilian leaders on the ground in Afghanistan was “severely limited” in the months leading up to the withdrawal, with much of the decision-making reportedly concentrated in the hands of National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, without consulting key stakeholders.
In response, White House spokesperson Yang denied these claims, stating that the administration had actively sought input from officials in Kabul and other parts of the U.S. government.
The report asserts that Biden continued with the withdrawal despite the Taliban's failure to uphold certain commitments under the deal, including its promise to engage in talks with the then-U.S.-backed Afghan government.
Former State Department spokesperson Ned Price testified to the committee that compliance with the Doha Agreement was deemed “immaterial” to Biden’s decision to proceed with the withdrawal, according to the report.
Previous reviews have indicated that Trump also implemented the initial steps of the withdrawal deal, reducing the U.S. troop presence from around 13,000 to eventually 2,500, despite early noncompliance by the Taliban and a rise in attacks on Afghan forces.
The House report criticises former Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, a longstanding U.S. diplomat for Afghanistan, rather than Trump, for the actions taken during the Trump administration’s negotiations with the Taliban. The new report asserts that Trump was acting on the recommendations of American military leaders when making significant cuts to U.S. troop numbers in Afghanistan following the signing of the deal.
The report also examines the vulnerability of U.S. embassy staff in Kabul as the Biden administration planned its exit. Republicans argue that the Biden administration displayed a “dogmatic insistence” on maintaining a significant diplomatic presence despite concerns about inadequate security for personnel once U.S. forces had departed.
McKenzie, who was one of the two U.S. generals who oversaw the evacuation, told lawmakers that the administration’s insistence on keeping the embassy open and fully operational was the “fatal flaw that created what happened in August," according to the report.
The committee report alleges that State Department officials went so far as to watering down or “even completely rewriting reports” from heads of diplomatic security and the Department of Defense that had highlighted threats to U.S. personnel as the withdrawal date approached.
“We were still in planning" when Kabul fell, Perez, the senior U.S. diplomat, testified to the committee.
Image source: AFP
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