![]() “And a lot of Afghans are now living better lives – in this country and other countries around the world – because of the sacrifices and the work of so many American government officials.” But there was a lot that went right,” he said. “Nobody’s saying that everything was perfect. The Biden administration has faced mounting criticism, especially from Republicans, over the withdrawal.īut Kirby said on Thursday that the US was “proud” of taking control of the airport in Kabul in August 2021 and evacuating about 100,000 Afghan allies. At that time, the Taliban, which was in control of the country, hosted al-Qaeda’s leader Osama bin Laden.Īlthough US-led troops were able to quickly remove the Taliban from power, they never managed to ensure a lasting defeat of the group or wrest full control over the mountainous country. The US and a coalition of its allies invaded Afghanistan in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks by al-Qaeda in New York and Washington, DC. “Two decades after the war had started, America had become bogged down in a war in Afghanistan with unclear objectives and no end in sight and was underinvesting in today’s and tomorrow’s national security challenges,” it read. ![]() “Biden is responsible, no one else!”ĭespite criticism of the Trump administration, which initiated the American withdrawal after 20 years in Afghanistan, the report said Biden – who took office in January 2021 – also wanted to end the longest war in US history. “I watched this disaster unfold just like everyone else,” he said on his Truth Social platform. Trump rejected the findings of the report on Thursday. He said Trump “negotiated the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners that were being held by the Ghani government without consultation with the Ghani government”. Kirby also slammed the Trump administration for negotiating a withdrawal agreement with the Taliban that he said excluded the Afghan government. Similarly, the report said the US now prioritises “earlier evacuations when faced with a degrading security situation”. “Another lesson learned was the need to plan early and extensively for the low-probability, high-risk scenarios,” Kirby said during a news conference. White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters that the US government could not have predicted that Afghan forces would “fail to fight for the country” after 20 years of American support. While Thursday’s report did not explicitly acknowledge mistakes by the Biden administration during the withdrawal, it said the US learned to prepare early for evacuations and worst-case scenarios. The internationally backed Afghan government collapsed and then-President Ashraf Ghani fled the country in August 2021 as the Taliban took over the capital, Kabul, amid the withdrawal of US forces.Īmerican troops – confined to the area around the city’s airport until their final withdrawal at the end of that month – oversaw a massive, two-week operation to get desperate Afghans out.ĭuring the evacuation, a suicide bombing by the Afghanistan branch of ISIL (ISIS) killed at least 175 people, including 13 US service members. “Indeed, there were no such plans in place when President Biden came into office, even with the agreed upon full withdrawal just over three months away.” The withdrawal “During the transition from the Trump administration to the Biden administration, the outgoing administration provided no plans for how to conduct the final withdrawal or to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies,” the report said. But Thursday’s review criticised the former Republican president for a lack of planning to carry out the deal. The Trump administration had negotiated a withdrawal agreement with the Taliban that Biden pledged to honour. “President Biden’s choices for how to execute a withdrawal from Afghanistan were severely constrained by conditions created by his predecessor,” it read. Keep reading list of 3 items list 1 of 3 UN says its female staffers banned from working in Afghanistan list 2 of 3 Three UK citizens held in Taliban custody in Afghanistan list 3 of 3 Afghanistan school year starts without millions of teenage girls end of list
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