Review of Afghanistan withdrawal says Biden 'severely constrained by conditions' left by Trump
President Joe Biden's administration on Thursday laid the blame on his predecessor, President Donald Trump, for the of U.S. troops from Afghanistan that brought about some of the darkest moments of Biden바카라 게임 웹사이트s presidency.
The White House publicly released a 12-page summary of the results of the so-called 바카라 게임 웹사이트 바카라 게임 웹사이트 of U.S. policies around the ending of the nation's longest war, taking little responsibility for its own actions and asserting that Biden was 바카라 게임 웹사이트severely constrained바카라 게임 웹사이트 by Trump바카라 게임 웹사이트s decisions.
It does acknowledge that the evacuation of Americans and allies from Afghanistan should have started sooner, but blames the delays on the Afghan government and military, and on U.S. military and intelligence community assessments.
The brief document was drafted by the National Security Council, rather than by an independent entity, with input from Biden himself. The administration said detailed reviews conducted by the State Department and the Pentagon, which the White House said would be transmitted privately to Congress on Thursday, were highly classified and would not be released publicly.
바카라 게임 웹사이트President Biden바카라 게임 웹사이트s choices for how to execute a withdrawal from Afghanistan were severely constrained by conditions created by his predecessor,바카라 게임 웹사이트 the White House summary states, noting that when Biden entered office, 바카라 게임 웹사이트the Taliban were in the strongest military position that they had been in since 2001, controlling or contesting nearly half of the country.바카라 게임 웹사이트
Trump responded by accusing the Biden administration of playing "a new disinformation game" to distract from 바카라 게임 웹사이트their grossly incompetent SURRENDER in Afghanistan.바카라 게임 웹사이트 On his social media site, he said, 바카라 게임 웹사이트Biden is responsible, no one else!"
The report does fault overly optimistic about the Afghan army's willingness to fight, and says Biden followed military commanders' recommendations for the pacing of the drawdown of U.S. forces.
바카라 게임 웹사이트Clearly we didn바카라 게임 웹사이트t get it right," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Thursday, but sidestepped questions about whether Biden has any regrets for his decisions and actions leading up to the withdrawal.
Kirby said of the report that 바카라 게임 웹사이트the purpose of it is not accountability,바카라 게임 웹사이트 but rather 바카라 게임 웹사이트understanding" what happened to inform future decisions.
The White House asserts the mistakes of Afghanistan informed its handling of Ukraine, where the Biden administration for supporting Kyiv바카라 게임 웹사이트s defense against Russia바카라 게임 웹사이트s invasion. The White House says it simulated worst-case scenarios prior to the February 2022 invasion and moved to release intelligence about Moscow바카라 게임 웹사이트s intentions months beforehand.
바카라 게임 웹사이트We now prioritize earlier evacuations when faced with a degrading security situation,바카라 게임 웹사이트 the White House said.
In an apparent attempt to defend its national security decision-making, the Biden administration also notes that it released pre-war warnings over 바카라 게임 웹사이트strong objections from senior officials in the Ukrainian government.바카라 게임 웹사이트
Video above: U.S. Marine gives opening statement on Afghanistan withdrawal
Republicans in Congress have sharply criticized the Afghanistan withdrawal, focusing on the deaths of 13 service members in a suicide bombing at Kabul바카라 게임 웹사이트s airport, which also killed more than 100 Afghans.
Shawn Vandiver, a Navy veteran and founder of #AfghanEvac, an effort to resettle Afghans fleeing the country, called the NSC report an 바카라 게임 웹사이트important next step.바카라 게임 웹사이트
"We are glad to see acknowledgment of lessons learned and are laser-focused on continuing relocation and resettlement operations," Vandiver said in a statement.
But Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., tweeted Thursday that the withdrawal was 바카라 게임 웹사이트an unmitigated fiasco," adding, 바카라 게임 웹사이트Passing the buck in a blame-shifting report won바카라 게임 웹사이트t change that.바카라 게임 웹사이트
The administration바카라 게임 웹사이트s report appears to shift any blame in the Aug. 26, 2021, suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport, saying it was the U.S. military that made one possibly key decision.
바카라 게임 웹사이트To manage the potential threat of a terrorist attack, the President repeatedly asked whether the military required additional support to carry out their mission at HKIA,바카라 게임 웹사이트 the report said, adding, 바카라 게임 웹사이트Senior military officials confirmed that they had sufficient resources and authorities to mitigate threats.바카라 게임 웹사이트
Kirby credited U.S. forces for their actions in running the largest airborne evacuation of noncombatants in history during the chaos of Kabul's fall.
바카라 게임 웹사이트They ended our nation바카라 게임 웹사이트s longest war," he told reporters. 바카라 게임 웹사이트That 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.바카라 게임 웹사이트
Since the U.S. withdrawal, Biden has blamed the February 2020 agreement Trump reached with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, saying it boxed the U.S. into leaving the country. The agreement has been blamed by analysts for undercutting the U.S.-backed government, which collapsed the following year.
The Afghan government released roughly 5,000 Taliban prisoners after the Doha agreement as a condition of having peace talks with the Taliban. Kirby noted that release and other examples of what he said was a 바카라 게임 웹사이트general sense of degradation and neglect바카라 게임 웹사이트 inherited by Biden.
But the agreement also left an opening for the if the promised Taliban-Afghan peace talks failed 바카라 게임 웹사이트 which they did under Biden, as the U.S. military was pulling out and Taliban fighters advancing.
The agreement required the U.S. to remove all forces by May 1, 2021. Biden pushed a full withdrawal to September but declined to delay further, saying it would prolong a war that had long needed to end.
Since the withdrawal, the U.S. carried out a successful operation to kill al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri 바카라 게임 웹사이트 the group바카라 게임 웹사이트s No. 2 leader during the Sept. 11 attacks 바카라 게임 웹사이트 which the White House has argued is proof it can still deter terrorist groups in Afghanistan.
But the images of disorder and violence during the fall of Kabul still reverberate, including scenes of Afghans falling from the undercarriages of American planes, Afghan families handing infants over airport gates to save them from the crush and violence of the crowd, and the devastation after the suicide bombing at the Abbey Gate.
A February report by the U.S. government바카라 게임 웹사이트s special inspector general for Afghanistan placed the most immediate blame for the Afghan military바카라 게임 웹사이트s collapse on both the Trump and Biden administrations, and cited the speed with which Biden insisted on carrying out the withdrawal: 바카라 게임 웹사이트Due to the (Afghan security force바카라 게임 웹사이트s) dependency on U.S. military forces, the decision to withdraw all U.S. military personnel and dramatically reduce U.S. support to the (Afghan security forces) destroyed the morale of Afghan soldiers and police.바카라 게임 웹사이트
Pressed by reporters Thursday afternoon, Kirby repeatedly defended the U.S. response and effort to evacuate American citizens and argued with reporters who referred to the withdrawal as chaotic. At one point, he paused in what appeared to be an effort to gather his emotions.
바카라 게임 웹사이트For all this talk of chaos, I just didn바카라 게임 웹사이트t see it, not from my perch,바카라 게임 웹사이트 said Kirby, who was the Pentagon spokesman during the withdrawal. 바카라 게임 웹사이트At one point during the evacuation, there was an aircraft taking off full of people, Americans and Afghans alike, every 48 minutes, and not one single mission was missed. So I바카라 게임 웹사이트m sorry, I just won바카라 게임 웹사이트t buy the whole argument of chaos.바카라 게임 웹사이트
The release of the NSC review comes as the State Department and House Republicans battle over documents for classified cables related to the Afghanistan withdrawal. Rep. Michael McCaul, the Texas Republican who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called Kirby's comments 바카라 게임 웹사이트disgraceful and insulting.바카라 게임 웹사이트
AP writers Josh Boak, Ellen Knickmeyer, Seung Min Kim, Lolita C. Baldor and Farnoush Amiri contributed.