The Biden administration blames Trump for the chaotic Afghan withdrawal

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By Sam Cabral, BBC News, Washington Apr 6, 2023 20:03 GMT

Updated 23 minutes ago

Image source, Getty Images

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There have been desperate scenes in recent days of the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan

US President Joe Biden’s administration has blamed its chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan on his predecessor, Donald Trump, in a new report.

The 12-page summary of the report says Biden has been “severely constrained” by Trump’s decisions, including a 2020 deal with the Taliban to end the war.

But the report also acknowledges that the government should have started evacuating civilians earlier.

Mr Trump responded that the White House was playing a “disinformation game”.

The deadly withdrawal in August 2021 ended America’s longest war.

Thirteen American soldiers and about 200 Afghans were killed, while American soldiers rushed to evacuate more than 120,000 people within days.

A review of the decisions and actions that led to the withdrawal, conducted by the State Department and the Pentagon, was sent privately to Congress on Thursday.

House Republicans, who are investigating the withdrawal, have been asking to see the report for weeks.

The document remains classified, but a summary of its conclusions — compiled by the White House National Security Council with input from President Biden himself — has been made available to the public.

When the Afghan government collapsed, there were desperate scenes at Kabul airport as huge crowds tried to flee the Taliban.

On August 26, an attack by two suicide bombers on the airport killed 170 Afghans and 13 American soldiers.

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US Marines to Congress in March on Afghan withdrawal: ‘There was an unwarranted lack of accountability’

The US carried out a drone strike in Kabul days later, saying it had targeted a suicide bomber, only to admit that the missile killed 10 civilians, including seven children.

British forces were also involved in the withdrawal, which Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said at the time put the UK “in a very difficult position”.

On Thursday, President Biden’s national security spokesman, John Kirby, blamed the chaos on a depleted operation in Afghanistan that it inherited from the Trump administration.

The report notes “negligence – and in some cases willful disdain” by the Trump administration.

Kirby said that this phrase refers to the agreement that the former president concluded with the rebels a year ago in Qatar to end the war, as well as the withdrawal of US forces during Trump’s term, the release of thousands of Taliban prisoners and the unloading. of the visa program used to evacuate Afghan allies.

“Transitions matter,” said Mr. Kirby, providing a summary of the report. “That’s the first lesson learned here. The incoming administration was not given much of a single lesson.”

Trump responded on social media within hours of the report’s release, accusing the “fools in the White House” of playing a “new game of misinformation – blaming ‘Trump’ for their gross incompetence in their capitulation in Afghanistan.”

“Biden is responsible, no one else!” He said.

Michael McCaul, the ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, also criticized the administration for its “shameless whitewashing of its failure in Afghanistan.”

The report notes that the evacuation of Americans and Afghans who assisted in the war effort could have begun sooner.

Page seven read: “We are now prioritizing past evacuations when faced with a degrading security situation.”

But the report faults the Afghan government and military for these delays, along with US military and intelligence assessments.

Kirby said Biden “acted on the best military judgment and the best assessments from the intelligence community” but that “some of those assessments turned out to be wrong.”

He declined to say whether the president regretted how the withdrawal was carried out, adding, “With all this talk of chaos, I haven’t seen it.”

After the fall of Kabul, the Biden administration received harsh criticism at home and abroad. Many expressed their anger at the abandonment of the Afghans and American weapons.

Kirby said some lessons had been learned from the end of the war in Afghanistan, particularly regarding the failure to predict the sudden collapse of the Afghan government.

He added that this affected the US policy of supporting Ukraine before the Russian invasion.

At a heated White House press conference, Kirby was forced to defend the timing of the release just before the US holiday weekend.

Pushing whether any officials involved would be removed from office as a result of the report, Kirby said it was “not intended for impeachment.”

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