Fri 07 Apr 2023:
President Joe Biden’s administration on Thursday released a summary of classified reports that mostly blamed the chaotic August 2021 US pullout from Afghanistan on his predecessor, Donald Trump, for failing to plan for the withdrawal he had agreed on with the Taliban, reports Reuters.
The Democratic administration’s summary, drawn from top-secret State Department and Pentagon reviews sent to Congress, ignited angry reactions from Republican lawmakers who have demanded the documents for their own investigation of the pullout.
Michael McCaul, the Republican chairman of the US House of Representatives Foreign Relations Committee, strongly criticised the administration. Biden ordered the pullout and was “responsible for the massive failures in planning and execution,” McCaul said in a statement.
McCaul, who is overseeing the Republican probe, charged that his multiple threats to subpoena the State Department and Pentagon reviews, which were completed last year, finally compelled the administration to send them to Congress.
“President Biden’s choices for how to execute a withdrawal from Afghanistan were severely constrained by conditions created by his predecessor,” said the summary of the reviews. “The outgoing administration provided no plans for how to conduct the final withdrawal or to evacuate Americans or Afghan allies.”
The Trump administration also “gutted” refugee support services and virtually halted the processing of Special Immigration Visas for thousands of Afghans seeking evacuation because they worked for the US government, leaving a massive backlog, the summary said.
“Transitions matter. That’s the first lesson learned here. And the incoming administration wasn’t afforded much of one,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told a White House briefing.
“As late as May 2021, the assessment was still that Kabul would probably not come under serious pressure until late 2021 after US troops departed,” the summary said.
Pressed on whether Biden bore any responsibility for the disorder that embroiled Kabul airport, Kirby replied, “Just by dint as the commander in chief, he assumed responsibility for the orders he gives.”
The Trump administration agreed in a February 2020 accord with the Taliban on the pullout of all US-led international forces by May 2021. The Islamist militants agreed to stop attacking American troops and hold peace talks with the Western-backed Kabul government.
In laying out the withdrawal chronology, the summary said that successive troop reductions ordered by Trump had left 2,500 US troops in the country when Biden took office in January 2021.
“As a result… the Taliban were in the strongest military position that they had been in since 2001, controlling or contesting half the country,” the summary said.
Faced with the choice of delaying the pullout or increasing the number of US forces and facing renewed Taliban attacks, Biden chose the former and ordered planning for the withdrawal and evacuation operation, the summary said.
The document acknowledged that the administration learned lessons from the withdrawal, and now errs on the side of “aggressive communication” about risks in a destabilised security environment.
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