WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden’s administration on Thursday blamed his predecessor, President Donald Trump, for the disastrous and bleak 2021 recession. Our troops from Afghanistan caused some of the darkest moments of the Biden presidency.
The White House has officially released a 12-page summary of the so-called “hotwash” results. “US politicians are nearing the end of the nation’s longest war, taking little responsibility for their actions, claiming that Biden was ‘severely pressured’ by Trump’s decisions.”
He acknowledged that the evacuation of Americans and allies from Afghanistan had begun sooner, but he blamed the delays on the Afghan government and military, and on assessments by the US military and intelligence community.
The brief was drafted by the National Security Council rather than by an independent agency, with input from Biden himself. The administration said in detail that the reviews held by the State Department and the Pentagon, which the White House said privately would be forwarded to Congress on Thursday, are highly classified and are not being released publicly.
“President Biden’s choices to make a withdrawal from Afghanistan were severely constrained by the conditions made by our Predecessor”, noting the White House State Summary when Biden took office, “The Taliban are in the strongest war they have been in since 2001, controlling or controlling almost half of the country.
Trump responded by accusing the administration of playing a “new information game” to distract from his “incompetent self-surrender in Afghanistan.” On social media, he said, “Biden is responsible, not one.”
The report does not fault the state’s overly optimistic intelligence estimates about the Afghan army wanting to fight, says Biden, following the recommendations of military commanders for the agreement on the withdrawal of US forces.
“Obviously, you didn’t do it right,” National Security Adviser John Kirby said Thursday, but he was hesitant about questions about whether Biden would regret any of his decisions and actions until his retirement.
Kirby said of the report that it was “not an accountability goal,” but an “intelligence” that was done to inform future decisions.
The White House claims it misreported Afghanistan about its handling of Ukraine, where the Biden administration is believed to be. to support the defense of Kyiv against Russian invasion. The White House says it has simulated worst-case scenarios for a March 2022 attack and has moved to release intelligence about Moscow’s intentions months in advance.
“We are now prioritizing evacuations due to the poor security situation,” the White House said.
In an apparent attempt to protect his national security decision, the Biden administration also notes that it dismissed pre-war warnings about “strong objections from senior officials in the Ukrainian government.”
Republicans in Congress have sharply criticized the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which they blamed on the deaths of 13 service members in a suicide bombing at Kabul airport, which also killed more than 100 Afghans.
Shawn Vandiver, a naval veteran and founder of #AfghanEvac, called the NSC report “the next big step” in efforts to repatriate Afghans fleeing the country.
“We are pleased to see the recognition of lessons learned and a laser focus on continued relocation and transposition operations,” Vandiver said in a statement.
But Sen. Rep. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said Thursday that Flagellant’s removal was an “unpunished fiasco,” adding that “passing a goat on a reputation is not going to be changed by criticism.”
The administration’s report found no fault on Aug. 26. 2021 seems to translate, the suicide death at the Hamid Karzai International Airport, saying that it was the US military, who may have made one key decision.
“To manage the potential of a terror attack, the President has repeatedly asked whether to request military assistance to carry out HKIA,” the report said, adding that “Senior military officials have confirmed that they have sufficient resources and powers to mitigate it.” threats “
Kirby credited US forces for their actions in running the largest air raid in history during the chaos of the fall of Kabul.
“The country’s biggest war has ended,” he told reporters. “That’s never going to be easy to do. And, as the president himself said, it’s never going to be low-level or low-cost.
With the US withdrawal, Biden has criticized the agreement Trump reached in February 2020 with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, saying it will restrict the US from leaving the country. The agreement was criticized by analysts as being followed by the US government, which collapsed last year.
Under the US-Taliban Doha agreement, nearly 5,000 Taliban prisoners were released as a condition for what was supposed to be separate peace talks between the Kabul government and the Taliban. Kirby noted this release and other examples of what he called “a general sense of rejection and neglect” inherited by Biden.
But the agreement also left the door open for the US to recall its removal deal with the Taliban if the Taliban-Afghan peace talks failed, they did under Biden as the US military pulled out and Taliban fighters advanced.
The US will withdraw all forces by May 1, 2021. Biden has pushed for a full withdrawal to September, but refused to delay further, saying it was a long war that was long overdue.
Since the withdrawal, the US has successfully completed an operation to kill al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri — the group’s No. 2 leader Sept. 11 attacks – which the White House has alleged may still determine the terrorist group in Afghanistan.
But images of chaos and violence still reverberate in the fall of Kabul, including scenes of Afghans falling from the undercarriages of American planes, Afghan families handing their babies to airport gates to save them from the beatings and violence of the crowds and devastation. death by bombing at the abbey gate.
A February report from the special inspector general of the US government on Afghanistan blamed the most immediate blame for the Afghan military collapse on both the Trump and Biden administrations: defeated) destroyed the morale of the Afghan soldiers and police.”
Pressed by reporters Thursday afternoon, Kirby repeatedly defended the U.S. response and attempted to get American citizens to withdraw and argued with reporters who reported a chaotic withdrawal. At one point he paused in what seemed to be gathering emotions.
“For all this talk of chaos, I just didn’t see it, not from my perch,” said Kirby, who was a Pentagon spokesman at the retreat. “At one point in the evacuation the aircraft was being dropped full of people, Americans and Afghans alike, every 48 minutes, and not one mission was missed. So I’m sorry, I just don’t buy the whole chaos argument.
The release of the NSC review comes as the State Department and House Republicans battle over documents for classified cables related to the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called Kirby’s comments “unfortunate and insulting.”
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AP writers Josh Boak, Ellen Knickmeyer, Seung Min Kim, Lolita C. Baldor and Farnoush Amiri contributed.
