Biden pushed ahead with plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan

President Joe Biden pushed ahead with his plan to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan despite multiple warnings of devastating consequences, according to a damning congressional investigation published Sunday, which reveals a catalog of missteps and missed opportunities. It reveals how Washington’s most senior official in Kabul went on vacation even as the Taliban was closing in on the capital city.

And it accuses Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and their officials of prioritizing politics and optics over operational needs, such as planning for an emergency evacuation of civilians. The resulting chaos, with tens of thousands of foreign nationals and Afghans crowding into Kabul’s airport after the Taliban seized the city in August 2021, triggered the first crisis of the Biden administration. And it descended into tragedy when a [self-murder] bomber killed 13 American service personnel and about 170 Afghans. The findings come in a report by Republican members of the House Foreign Affairs committee.

‘Our investigation reveals the Biden-Harris administration had the information and opportunity to take necessary steps to plan for the inevitable collapse of the Afghan government, so we could safely evacuate U.S. personnel, American citizens, green card holders, and our brave Afghan allies,’ said Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the committee. ‘At each step of the way, however, the administration picked optics over security.’ He described the withdrawal as an ‘unconditional surrender’ and said the failure to plan for all eventualities was a ‘dereliction of duty,’ that directly led to the ‘preventable’ loss of American lives. For its part, the White House National Security Council accused McCaul of producing a ‘partisan’ report based on ‘cherry-picked facts’ and ‘inaccurate characterizations’.

And an official said preparations for withdrawal included ‘planning for all contingencies—including a rapid deterioration of the security situation—even though intelligence at the time deemed this situation unlikely.’ The report calls for Congress to condemn Biden, Harris and 13 officials. And it says procedures and responsibilities for ‘noncombatant evacuation orders’ or N.E.O.s should be codified so that politics cannot drive the process. The order to leave Afghanistan after 20 years of bloodshed may have been the most consequential decision of Biden’s time in office. It stunned NATO allies, who later said they were blindsided, and horrified Afghan leaders and military commanders.

It left the Taliban in charge of the country, setting back the cause of human rights in general and women’s rights in particular by decades. The three-year investigation by House Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans reveals how at every step the reality of a worsening security situation was ignored. The original deal with the Taliban to leave Afghanistan, the Doha Agreement, was negotiated without input from top military leaders, concludes the report.

Promises by U.S. officials to assess whether the Taliban was abiding by the deal, particularly the commitment to prevent Al Qaeda operating in its territory, turned out to be hollow. And the decision to leave was flawed from the beginning, flying in the face of military and intelligence assessments. ‘Despite President Biden’s public assertions to the contrary, our investigation has revealed the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), the Secretary of State, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), and the Commander of NATO’s Resolute Support Mission and United States Forces–Afghanistan all advised against withdrawing all U.S. troops from the country — both during and after the interagency review,’ the report concludes.

Biden announced his decision to withdraw the last remaining troops on April 14, 2021. His original timetable set September 11, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, as the deadline, reflecting what the report says was a political decision rather than a decision made on conditions on the ground. With foreign contractors already on the way out, limiting the effectiveness of the Afghan air capability, the Taliban made rapid advances through the country. Within a couple of months of the exit announcement, the Taliban controlled 221 of Afghanistan’s 407 districts, compared to the Afghan government’s 73, while the rest were contested. Their fighters swept into Kabul on Aug 15.

It was only after that that Ambassador Ross Wilson, who was in charge of the embassy, ordered a ‘non-combatant evacuation operation’ or N.E.O. The report called that an ‘inexcusable failure.’ ‘The investigation has revealed senior State Department and National Security Council officials equated a N.E.O. with failure’ it said. ‘This explains, in part, the decision to keep Embassy Kabul open no matter the cost and their refusal to plan for a NEO. Indeed, testimony obtained by the committee reveals the administration failed to even contemplate a plan for a NEO with the Taliban in control of the country.’

It also describes how officials failed to understand the severity of the situation as the Taliban made rapid advances in July. ‘Yet with Afghanistan teetering on collapse, a limited military presence, and Embassy Kabul ill-prepared, Secretary Blinken went on vacation, abdicating leadership to Ambassador Wilson, who was fresh off his own vacation and mired in inaction,’ it states. ‘The crisis in Afghanistan was in part a crisis of leadership.’ McCaul added that the U.S. was still suffering from its loss of standing that the scenes of chaos. ‘It has damaged U.S. credibility,’ he said. ‘It has emboldened our adversaries, and it has made the United States more at risk of an attack emanating from Afghanistan. And the moral injury to our veterans and servicemembers is generational. The administration’s unconditional surrender and the abandonment of our Afghan allies, who fought alongside the U.S. military against the Taliban – their brothers in arms – is a stain on this administration.’

A spokesperson for the National Security Council said the U.S. was in a stronger position by leaving Afghanistan. ‘Everything we have seen and heard of Chairman McCaul’s latest partisan report shows that it is based on cherry-picked facts, inaccurate characterizations, and pre-existing biases that have plagued this investigation from the start,’ said Sharon Yang, a spokesperson for oversight and investigations. ‘As we have said many times, ending our longest war was the right thing to do and our nation is stronger today as a result. ‘Bringing our troops home after 20 years put us in a stronger position by allowing us to redirect our resources to confront threats to international peace and stability, such as Russia’s war in Ukraine, an ongoing crisis in the Middle East, China’s increasingly aggressive actions, and terror threats that exist around the world.’

But one staff from the committee allege that the White House and its executive branch allies in the State Department, Pentagon and myriad other agencies concocted a ‘cover up’ to distort reporting on the withdrawal. They condemned the administration for misleading and at times directly lying. The panel’s investigators stressed to DailyMail.com that the White House was aware of brutal Taliban actions long before they publicly ordered U.S. civilians and forces out of the country.

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