MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 04th July, 2023) Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan a complete failure of American leadership, noting that the analysis published by the State Department serves as a cover-up for President Joe Biden's administration.
"The Biden Admin's Afghanistan report is a cover-up. They try to pass the blame but don't explain why they abandoned our conditions-based approach ... A complete failure of leadership," Pompeo tweeted on Monday.
On June 30, the State Department released an analysis of US actions from January 2020 to August 2021, acknowledging both its own shortcomings and the miscalculations of the Donald Trump and Joe Biden administrations in organizing the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan.
"The catastrophic handling of Afghanistan encouraged (Russian President Vladimir) Putin to invade Ukraine. Weakness is provocative, and we'll be paying for these mistakes for years," Pompeo added.
The 21-page State Department document said the Trump and Biden administrations, in planning for the drawdown of the 20-year US presence in Afghanistan, did not sufficiently anticipate "worst-case scenarios and how quickly those might follow."
The State Department said that the rapid withdrawal of troops deprived diplomats of necessary support and that plans to maintain a small contingent of troops to secure the embassy had not been negotiated with the Taliban (under UN sanctions over terrorist activities).
The lawmakers also criticized the decision to turn Bagram Air Base over to the Afghan authorities, which left them relying only on Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport to evacuate tens of thousands of people.
"Critically, the decision to hand over Bagram Air Base to the Afghan government meant that Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA) would be the only avenue for a possible noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO)," the document read.
On June 30, Biden rejected claims of miscalculations in the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, saying the Taliban were fulfilling their promise not to allow terrorist organizations into the country.
The Taliban came to power in August 2021, toppling the US-backed government as NATO troops were leaving after almost 20 years of US military presence in Afghanistan.
