House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, speaks to reporters about his panel’s Afghanistan report and findings from a three-year investigation into the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, at the Capitol in Washington, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. He is accompanied by families of military members who were killed by a Taliban attacker during the evacuation. | Photo credit: AP
US House Republicans on Sunday released a scathing report on their investigation into the country’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, blaming President Joe Biden’s administration for a disastrous end to America’s longest war and underestimating the role of former President Donald Trump, who signed the withdrawal deal with the Taliban.
The partisan review charts the final months of military and civilian failures following Mr. Trump’s February 2020 withdrawal deal that allowed the hardline Taliban, America’s enemy, to infiltrate and conquer much of the country even before the last American officers flew out on Aug. 30, 2021. The chaotic evacuation put many American citizens, Afghan battlefield allies, female activists and others at risk from the Taliban.
But the House Republicans’ report adds nothing new because the withdrawal has been extensively litigated through multiple independent reviews. Previous investigations and analyses have pointed to a systemic failure spanning the past four presidential administrations and concluded that Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump share the heaviest blame.
Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican who led the investigation as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the GOP review showed the Biden administration “had the information and opportunity to take the steps necessary to plan for the inevitable collapse of the Afghan government so we could safely evacuate American personnel, American citizens, green card holders, and our brave Afghan allies.”
“However, at every step, the administration has prioritised spectacle over security,” he said in a statement.
White House spokeswoman Sharon Yang said the Republican report was based on “select facts, inaccurate characterizations and pre-existing biases.”
“President Biden has inherited a volatile situation because of the poor deal that former President Trump made with the Taliban to exit Afghanistan by May 2021,” Ms. Yang said in a statement, adding: “Either escalate the US war against the strengthened Taliban, or end it.”
House Democrats said in a statement that their Republican colleagues’ report ignored facts about Mr. Trump’s role.
The 2023 report from the US government watchdog on Afghanistan cites Mr Trump’s February 2020 deal with the Taliban to withdraw all US forces and military contractors by the spring of next year, and both Mr Trump and Mr Biden have vowed to continue withdrawing US forces despite the Taliban breaking key commitments in the withdrawal deal.
The more than 18-month investigation by Republicans focused on the months before the withdrawal of American troops, saying Mr. Biden and his administration overruled high-ranking officials and ignored warnings as the Taliban seized major cities far more quickly than most American officials had expected or prepared for.
The withdrawal ended a nearly two-decade-long occupation by U.S. and allied forces aimed at expelling al-Qaeda terrorists responsible for the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. The Taliban had allowed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to take refuge in Afghanistan. Committee staff noted reports since the U.S. withdrawal of the group’s rebuilding in Afghanistan, such as a United Nations report of eight al-Qaeda training camps there.
The Taliban overthrew the Afghan government and military that the United States had spent nearly 20 years and trillions of dollars building.
Since Mr. Biden is no longer running for re-election, Mr. Trump and his GOP allies have tried to elevate the withdrawal as a campaign issue against Vice President Kamala Harris, who is now Mr. Trump’s Democratic rival in the presidential race.
The House Republicans’ report cites Ms. Harris’s overall responsibility as an adviser to Mr. Biden but does not point to any specific advice or actions taken by Ms. Harris that contributed to the multiple failures.
Ignoring the Signs
Earlier reviews said Mr Trump also took initial steps to reverse the withdrawal deal, eventually reducing the US troop presence from about 13,000 to 2,500 despite the Taliban’s initial failure to comply with some parts of the agreement and an increase in Taliban attacks on Afghan forces.
The House report blames not Mr Trump but a long-serving US diplomat in Afghanistan, former ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, for the Trump administration’s actions in negotiations with the Taliban. The new report says Mr Trump was following the recommendations of US military leaders in drastically reducing the number of US troops in Afghanistan after signing the deal.
The report also highlights the vulnerability of US embassy staff in Kabul as the Biden administration plans to exit its embassy. Republicans claim there was a “dogmatic insistence” by the Biden administration to maintain a large diplomatic footprint, while there were concerns about the lack of protection offered to personnel once US forces left.
According to the report, General Frank McKenzie, one of the two US generals who oversaw the evacuation, told lawmakers that the administration’s insistence on keeping the embassy fully operational was a “fatal flaw that led to what happened in August.”
The report claims that State Department officials undermined or “even completely rewrote” reports from the heads of diplomatic security and the Defense Department that warned of threats to US personnel.
“When Kabul was invaded, we were still planning,” Carol Perez, the State Department’s acting undersecretary for management at the time of the withdrawal, testified before the committee.
Published – September 10, 2024 12:35 pm IST