WASHINGTON – A US State Department report on Friday criticized the dealing with of the 2021 evacuation from Afghanistan, saying selections by President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump to withdraw troops had “serious consequences for the viability” and safety of the previous US-backed authorities.
Adverse findings within the report additionally mirrored badly on Secretary of State Antony Blinken, with out naming him. They included the division’s failure to increase its crisis-management job power because the Taliban superior on Kabul in August 2021 and the dearth of a senior diplomat “to oversee all elements of the crisis response.”
“Naming a 7th floor principal … would have improved coordination across different lines of effort,” mentioned the report, referring to the State Department’s high ground the place Blinken and senior diplomats have places of work.
The evaluate, and an identical Pentagon research, contributed to a report launched by the White House in April. But the State Department evaluate’s important findings weren’t mirrored within the White House report.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended Biden’s dealing with of the Afghan pullout.
“He had to make a decision,” she instructed reporters on Friday. The United States had poured “billions of dollars into a war with no end in sight” and that “he wanted to stop that, he wanted to end that,” she mentioned.
Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump, wrote in an electronic mail: “There’s only one person responsible for the disastrous pullout of Afghanistan — Joe Biden,”
The White House report successfully blamed the chaotic US pullout and evacuation operation on a scarcity of planning and troop discount rounds by Trump following a 2020 take care of the Taliban to withdraw US forces.
“I can’t speak to that internal coordination piece and how the administration settled on the core conclusions that it presented” in April, a senior State Department official mentioned.
The official, briefing reporters on situation of anonymity, declined to say why the evaluate dated March 2022 was withheld from launch till the eve of the July 4 vacation weekend.
Withdrawal after 20 years
The US troop pullout and evacuation of US and allied officers, residents and Afghans prone to Taliban retribution noticed crowds of determined Afghans attempting to enter Kabul airport and males clinging to plane as they taxied down runways.
An Islamic State suicide bomber killed 13 US servicemembers and greater than 150 Afghans outdoors an airport gate.
The State Department launched 24 pages of a 85-page After Action Report — the remainder remained categorized — on its dealing with of the evacuation operation launched because the final US-led worldwide forces departed after 20 years of backing successive Kabul governments towards the Taliban.
It praised the efficiency of American embassy personnel working beneath tough situations just like the COVID-19 pandemic and decreased safety due to the US troop drawdown, whose velocity “compounded the difficulties the department faced.”
Some 125,000 individuals, together with almost 6,000 Americans, have been flown out of Kabul earlier than the final US troopers departed on Aug. 30, 2021, because the Taliban consolidated their grip on Kabul after the US-backed authorities fled.
“The decisions of both President Trump and President Biden to end the US military mission in Afghanistan had serious consequences for the viability of the Afghan government and its security,” mentioned the evaluate.
While these selections have been outdoors its scope, the evaluate mentioned that “during both administrations there was insufficient senior-level consideration of worst-case scenarios and how quickly those might follow.”
A White House spokesperson disputed that conclusion. He pointed to a White House report discovering that there have been in depth conferences and tabletop workouts to discover evacuation situations as a part of the planning course of, together with contingencies “actually worse than the worst-case predictions.”
The State Department evaluate mentioned division planning “was hindered” as a result of it was “unclear” which senior official “had the lead.”
Senior administration officers additionally did not make “clear decisions regarding the universe of at-risk Afghans” to be included within the evacuation by the point it began nor had they decided the place Afghan evacuees could be taken, it mentioned.
Preparation and planning “were inhibited” by the Biden administration’s reluctance to take steps that might sign a lack of confidence within the Kabul authorities “and thus contribute to its collapse,” the evaluate discovered.
“The complicated Department task force structure that was created when the evacuation began proved confusing to many participants, and knowledge management and communication among and across various lines of effort was problematic,” it mentioned. —Reuters
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
