WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th April, 2023) President Joe Biden's plan to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan was severely constrained by the strategy he inherited from his predecessor President Donald Trump, the White House said on Thursday in a summary report about the operation.
The withdrawal that took place in August 2021 featured images of utter chaos at Kabul Airport and beyond with experts comparing the images to the fall of Saigon. The situation resulted in thousands of stranded Afghan allies and Americans left behind, a Taliban terror attack that left 13 US troops and 170 Afghan civilians dead and a retaliatory US strike that mistakenly killed an innocent family.
"President Biden's choices for how to execute a withdrawal from Afghanistan were severely constrained by conditions created by his predecessor," the report said.
The summary report mentions Trump's reduction of American forces in Afghanistan from 10,000 to some 2,500 as he prepped for a withdrawal of US forces from the country, avoiding consultations with US allies while negotiating with the Taliban, and pressuring the Afghan government to release 5,000 Taliban fighters from prison.
The Trump administration provided the Biden administration with no plans of how it intended to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan when Biden took office in January 2021, according to the summary report.
The Taliban (under UN sanctions for terrorism) took power in Afghanistan in August of 2021, triggering the collapse of the US-backed government and accelerating the United States' troop pullout. On August 31, 2021, US forces completed their withdrawal from the country, ending the 20-year-long military presence there.
White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said during a press briefing that Biden inherited "a general sense of degradation and neglect" from Afghan forces discouraged by Trump's Doha agreement with the Taliban.
"The willingness to fight in the Afghan National Security and Defence Forces, it had a very corrosive effect on their willingness to continue to fight for their country," Kirby said regarding the impact of the Doha agreement on Afghan security forces.
No US agencies predicted a Taliban takeover in 90 days or the rapid fleeing of then-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who had indicated to the United States his intent to remain in Afghanistan, Kirby said.
However, the Biden administration believes the United States is on a stronger strategic footing, more capable to support Ukraine and to meet its global security commitments as well as the competition with China because it is not fighting a ground war in Afghanistan, Kirby said.
The Afghan withdrawal report is the result and culmination of a lot of work, and there is no effort to try to obfuscate any information in it, Kirby said. US lawmakers received a classified version of the report that contains sensitive information. Kirby added.
