The White House Thursday laid the blame for the chaotic 2021 withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan totally on former President Donald Trump, saying President Joe Biden was “severely constrained” by the choices of his predecessor.
The White House publicly launched a 12-page abstract of the outcomes of the so-called “hotwash” of U.S. insurance policies across the ending of the nation’s longest struggle, taking little duty for its personal actions throughout among the darkest moments of Biden’s presidency.
The administration mentioned a lot of the after-action critiques, which had been transmitted privately to Congress on Thursday, had been extremely labeled and wouldn’t be launched publicly.
“President Biden’s choices for how to execute a withdrawal from Afghanistan were severely constrained by conditions created by his predecessor,” the White House abstract states, noting that when Biden entered workplace, “the Taliban were in the strongest military position they had been in since 2001, controlling or contesting nearly half of the country.”
The evaluate led by the National Security Council does fault overly optimistic intelligence neighborhood assessments in regards to the Afghan military’s willingness to struggle and says Biden adopted army commanders’ suggestions for the pacing of the drawdown of U.S. forces.
The White House asserts the errors of Afghanistan knowledgeable its dealing with of Ukraine, the place the Biden administration has been credited for supporting Kyiv’s protection in opposition to Russia’s invasion.
“America is on a stronger strategic footing more capable to support Ukraine and to meet our security commitments around the world, as well as the competition with China, because it is not fighting a ground war in Afghanistan,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby mentioned on Thursday.
“Transitions matter,” Kirby mentioned, and Biden was left with a stark alternative – withdraw all U.S. forces, or resume preventing with the Taliban.
The Taliban overran Afghanistan in August 2021 as the previous Western-backed authorities in Kabul collapsed with stunning velocity and the final U.S. troops withdrew. Under Biden’s Republican predecessor Trump, the U.S. made a take care of the Taliban to withdraw all American forces.
The White House says it simulated worst-case situations previous to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and moved to launch intelligence about Moscow’s intentions months beforehand.
“We now prioritize earlier evacuations when faced with a degrading security situation,” the White House mentioned.
In an obvious try and defend its nationwide safety resolution making, the Biden administration additionally notes that it launched pre-war warnings over “strong objections from senior officials in the Ukrainian government.”
‘Catastrophe’
Republicans in Congress have sharply criticized the Afghanistan withdrawal, specializing in the deaths of 13 service members in a suicide bombing at Kabul’s airport.
Former Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, who was badly wounded within the explosion, advised a congressional listening to final month that the withdrawal “was a catastrophe” and “there was an inexcusable lack of accountability.”
Kirby credited U.S. forces for his or her actions in working the biggest airborne evacuation of noncombatants in historical past throughout the chaos of Kabul’s fall.
“They ended our nation’s longest war,” he advised reporters. “That was never going to be an easy thing to do. And as the president himself has said, it was never going to be low grade or low risk or low cost.”
Since the U.S. withdrawal, Biden has blamed the February 2020 settlement Trump reached with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, saying it boxed the U.S. into leaving the nation.
The settlement gave the Taliban important legitimacy and has been blamed by analysts for undercutting the U.S.-backed authorities, which might collapse so shortly a yr later.
But the settlement additionally gave the U.S. the correct to withdraw from the accord if Afghan peace talks failed – which they did.
The settlement required the U.S. to take away all forces by May 1, 2021. Biden pushed a full withdrawal to September however declined to delay additional, saying it could delay a struggle that had lengthy wanted to finish.
Source: www.dailysabah.com
