Deliberate Degradation: US Blames Trump For Chaotic Afghan Exit, Says Biden Was 'Severely Constrained'

Joe Biden's administration defended its decision to pull American troops out of Afghanistan, blaming former US president Donald Trump for the chaotic withdrawal due to a lack of transition plan.

File Photo: Afghan people climb atop a plane as they wait at the Kabul airport, after a stunningly swift end to Afghanistan's 20-year war.

Source : AFP

US President Joe Biden’s administration blamed his predecessor former US president Donald Trump for the chaotic withdrawal of the US troops from war-torn Afghanistan. The White House on Thursday released a 12-page document on the conditions that led to the messy withdrawal in 2021 and sent related classified documents to various Congressional committees. The documents termed highly classified, would not be released to public.

According to news agency PTI, the report places much of the blame on the previous Trump administration, saying President Biden was “severely constrained” by the former president’s decisions.

The Trump administration had negotiated a withdrawal agreement with the Taliban that Biden continued to honour. But the latest White House report criticised the former Republican president for a lack of planning to carry out the deal i.e. a smooth transition strategy.

The report highlights that when Biden took office on January 20, 2021, “the Taliban were in the strongest military position that they had been in since 2001, controlling or contesting nearly half of the country.” At the same time, the US had only 2,500 troops on the ground, the lowest since 2001, and President Biden was facing Trump’s near-term deadline to withdraw all US forces from Afghanistan by May 2021, or the Taliban would resume its attacks on US and allied troops, it stated.

It said Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin testified on September 28, 2021, “The intelligence was clear that if we did not leave in accordance with that agreement, the Taliban would recommence attacks on our forces."

Biden Had Stark Choice, Either To Withdraw All US Forces Or Resume Fighting With Taliban: Whit House Official

John Kirby, White House National Security Coordinator for Strategic Communications, told reporters that the Biden administration was “proud” of the way the military and the intelligence community conducted the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“The president’s very proud of the manner in which the men and women of the military, the Foreign Service, and the intelligence community conducted this withdrawal," he said, as quoted by PTI.

"I’ve been around operations my entire life, and there’s not a single one that ever goes perfectly according to plan," he added.

"Transitions matter. That’s the first lesson learned here. And the incoming administration wasn’t afforded much of one," Kirby told reporters, as quoted by The Guardian. "Clearly we didn’t get it right," he said.

As per Kirby, Biden had a stark choice, either to withdraw all US forces or resume fighting with the Taliban.

"He chose the former, but even in doing so, secured extra time to conduct that withdrawal, stretching it out to August. Despite having his options curtailed, President Biden led a deliberate, rigorous and inclusive decision-making process that was responsive to facts on the ground,” he stressed.

The White House official noted that the administration focused on the need for proper planning and said that Biden directed his top national security leaders to begin planning for a withdrawal even before he had made the final decision to leave Afghanistan.

The report points to “deliberate degradation” by the previous Trump administration, Kirby said it refers to the drawdown of US troops during Trump’s time in office, the release of thousands of Taliban prisoners, the negotiation of the 2020 “Doha agreement” – a deal between the US and the Taliban that did not include the Kabul government, and the virtual freezing of an Afghan visa program, The Guardian reported.

He ordered troop reduction plans, plans to turn over bases and equipment to the Afghan government as the previous administration had negotiated, plans to draw down the diplomatic presence, and plans to evacuate both American citizens and Afghan allies alike, Kirby said, as per PTI.

He mentioned that the evacuation planning started in the spring of 2021 and the US President ordered additional military forces pre-positioned in the region by mid-summer in case they were ever needed.

Throughout, Biden insisted that his team plan for worst-case scenarios such as the fall of Kabul, even though the intelligence community’s assessment when he was making the decision in early 2021, was that Taliban advances would accelerate only after the withdrawal of US forces, Kirby said.

The President repeatedly requested assessments of the trajectory of the conflict from his military and his intelligence professionals, he added.

White House Official On Intelligence Failure 

The long-awaited report also mentioned intelligence failure in not being able to predict rapid Taliban victory.

When asked about the inaccurate intelligence assessment, Kirby stressed that no agency predicted a Taliban takeover in nine days.

"No agency predicted the rapid fleeing of President Ghani who had indicated to us his intent to remain in Afghanistan up until he departed on the 15th of August," the White House official said.

The internationally backed Afghan government collapsed and then-President Ashraf Ghani fled the country in August 2021 as the Taliban proceeded to capture the capital city Kabul, amid the withdrawal of US forces.

Mission That Was Originally Sent Into Afghanistan Was Accomplished A Long, Long Time Ago: White House Official

During the evacuation, a suicide bombing by the Afghanistan branch of ISIS killed at least 175 people, including 13 US service members.

"No agency predicted that the more than 300,000 trained and equipped Afghan National Security and Defense Forces would fail to fight for the country, especially after 20 years of American support,” Kirby said.

The mission that was originally sent into Afghanistan was accomplished a long, long time ago, he added.

“Remember, they were ordered under President Bush to avenge the 9/11 attacks and to go specifically after Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. And decimating and degrading al-Qaida’s capability in Afghanistan was a mission that we accomplished a long, long time ago,” he stressed.

“Over time, the president has talked about this, the mission in Afghanistan morphed into something it wasn’t intended to originally be,” Kirby said.

The Biden administration has faced a lot of criticism, especially from Republicans, over its chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.