White House Holds Donald Trump Leaders Responsible for Painful 2021 Afghan Withdrawal

White House on Thursday blamed former Republican President Donald Trump and intelligence failures for the traumatic conclusion Afghanistanbut globally defended the way in which it was carried out, the only possible “scenario”.

The classified documents have been sent to Congress, where Republicans in the House of Representatives are investigating this August 2021 exit that they see as a failure by Democratic President Joe Biden.

The last US troops organized a desperate evacuation of the Kabul airport after Taliban expires in a few weeks Afghan forces Western learning.

Thirteen US soldiers and 170 Afghans were killed in a suicide bombing on the overcrowded airport perimeter, where an unprecedented airlift of military aircraft managed to evacuate more than 120,000 people from the country in a few days.

In presenting the declassified summary, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby acknowledged that mistakes had been made.

“Ending a war, any war, is not an easy task, certainly not in 20 years,” but “that doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth doing,” Kirby told reporters.

White House largely blamed Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trumpfor creating the conditions that led to the defeat.

But he also acknowledged that the US intelligence agencies had missed the strength of the Taliban and the weakness of the Afghan government forces. “Obviously we were doing something wrong in intelligence,” Kirby said.

“After more than 20 years, more than $2 trillion and the support of an Afghan army of 300,000 soldiers, the speed and ease with which the Taliban took control Afghanistan suggests that there was no scenario, short of a permanent and greatly expanded US military presence, that could change the trajectory,” the document says.

Nothing “would have changed the trajectory” of the withdrawal, and “in the end, President Biden refused to send another generation of Americans to fight in a war that should have ended long ago for the United States,” the summary says.

Before American troops could secure the entire airport, the world witnessed panicked scenes of terrified Afghan civilians trying to board the plane, some even dying in the attempt.

“Removal date”

In summary, White House largely blamed the agreement reached in February 2020 between the government Trump And Talibansaying it made life too difficult for the Biden administration.

“Administration Trump The outgoing left the Biden administration with a release date, but not a plan for its implementation. And after four years of neglect, and in some cases deliberate degradation, critical systems, offices and agency functions that would be necessary for a safe and orderly exit were abandoned, ”the document says.

He also insists that Trumpduring the last 11 months of his tenure, reduced the presence of US troops in Afghanistan to just 2,500 when Biden took office in January 2021.

“As a result (…) Taliban were in the strongest martial law” since 2001, when the United States invaded Afghanistan for a mission originally directed against those responsible for the planning of the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington.

Kirby acknowledged that the US government failed to predict “how fast” the wars were developing. Taliban in the country, or “how quickly the Afghan National Security Forces will be withdrawn.”

“I don’t think we fully understood the degree of corruption that took place in the officer ranks in the army,” he added.

On August 30, 2021, one minute before midnight, the last US soldier left the airport in the Afghan capital, 24 hours before the deadline set by the US President for the withdrawal of troops from the country.

(According to AFP and EFE)