Home Republicans launch partisan report blaming Biden for disastrous finish to US conflict in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON — Home Republicans on Sunday issued a scathing report on their investigation into the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, blaming the disastrous finish of America’s longest war on President Joe Biden’s administration and minimizing the position of former President Donald Trump, who had signed the withdrawal take care of the Taliban.

The partisan overview lays out the ultimate months of navy and civilian failures, following Trump’s February 2020 withdrawal deal, that allowed America’s fundamentalist Taliban enemy to brush by way of and conquer all the nation even earlier than the final U.S. officers flew out on Aug. 30, 2021. The chaotic exit left behind many Americans, Afghan battlefield allies, girls activists and others in danger from the Taliban.

However Home Republicans’ report breaks little new floor because the withdrawal has been exhaustively litigated by way of a number of impartial opinions. Earlier investigations and analyses have pointed to a systemic failure spanning the final 4 presidential administrations and concluded that Biden and Trump share the heaviest blame.

Texas Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, who led the investigation as chairman of the Home International Affairs Committee, stated the GOP overview reveals that the Biden administration “had the data and alternative to take needed steps to plan for the inevitable collapse of the Afghan authorities, so we may safely evacuate U.S. personnel, Americans, inexperienced card holders, and our courageous Afghan allies.”

“At every step of the way in which, nevertheless, the administration picked optics over safety,” he stated in an announcement.

McCaul earlier within the day denied that the timing of the report’s launch forward of the presidential election was political, or that Republicans ignored Trump’s errors within the U.S. withdrawal.

A White Home spokesperson, Sharon Yang, stated the Republican report was primarily based on “cherry-picked information, inaccurate characterizations, and preexisting biases.”

“Due to the dangerous deal former President Trump minimize with the Taliban to get out of Afghanistan by Might of 2021, President Biden inherited an untenable place,” both ramp up the U.S. conflict towards a strengthened Taliban, or finish it, Yang stated in an announcement.

Home Democrats in an announcement stated the report by their Republican colleagues ignored information about Trump’s position.

The greater than 18-month investigation by Republicans on the Home International Affairs Committee zeroed in on the months main as much as the elimination of U.S. troops, saying that Biden and his administration undermined high-ranking officers and ignored warnings because the Taliban seized key cities far quicker than most U.S. officers had anticipated or ready for.

“I known as their advance ‘the Purple Blob,’” retired Col. Seth Krummrich stated of the Taliban, telling the committee that on the particular operations’ central command the place he was chief of employees, ”we tracked the Taliban advance day by day, trying like a pink blob gobbling up terrain.”

“I do not suppose we ever thought — you realize, no one ever talked about, ‘Nicely, what’s going to occur when the Taliban come over the wall?”’ Carol Perez, the State Division’s performing undersecretary for administration on the time of the withdrawal, stated of what Home Republicans stated was minimal State Division planning earlier than abandoning the embassy in mid-August 2021 when the Taliban swept into Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital.

The withdrawal ended an almost two-decade occupation by U.S. and allied forces begun to rout out the al-Qaida militants accountable for the Sept. 11, 2001, assaults on america. The Taliban had allowed al-Qaida’s chief, Osama bin Laden, to shelter in Afghanistan. Committee staffers famous stories because the U.S. withdrawal of the group rebuilding in Afghanistan, corresponding to a U.N. report of as much as eight al-Qaida coaching camps there.

The Taliban overthrew an Afghan authorities and navy that the U.S. had spent almost 20 years and trillions of {dollars} constructing in hopes of retaining the nation from once more changing into a base for anti-Western extremists.

A 2023 report by the U.S. government watchdog for the U.S. in Afghanistan singles out Trump’s February 2020 take care of the Taliban agreeing to withdraw all American forces and navy contractors by the spring of the subsequent 12 months, and each Trump’s and Biden’s willpower to maintain pulling out U.S. forces regardless of the Taliban breaking key commitments within the withdrawal deal.

Home Republicans’ greater than 350-page doc is the product of hours of testimony — together with with former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, U.S. Central Command retired Gen. Frank McKenzie and others who had been senior officers on the time — seven public hearings and round-tables in addition to greater than 20,000 pages of State Division paperwork reviewed by the committees.

With Biden now not operating for reelection, Trump and his GOP allies have tried to raise the withdrawal as a marketing campaign subject towards Vice President Kamala Harris, who’s now Trump’s Democratic opponent within the presidential race.

The report by Home Republican cites Harris’ total accountability as an adviser to Biden, however would not level to particular counsel or motion by Harris that contributed to the various failures.

Some highlights of the report:

Republicans level to testimony and information that declare the Biden administration’s reliance on enter from navy and civilian leaders on the bottom in Afghanistan within the months earlier than the withdrawal was “severely restricted,” with a lot of the decision-making happening by Nationwide Safety Adviser Jake Sullivan with out session with key stakeholders.

Yang, the White Home spokesperson, denied that, saying the administration had sought enter from officers in Kabul and others throughout the U.S. authorities.

The report says Biden proceeded with the withdrawal although the Taliban was failing to maintain a few of its agreements below the deal, together with breaking its promise to enter talks with the then-U.S.- backed Afghan authorities.

Former State Division spokesperson Ned Worth testified to the committee that adherence to the Doha Settlement was “immaterial” to Biden’s resolution to withdraw, based on the report.

Earlier opinions have stated Trump additionally carried out his early steps of the withdrawal deal, slicing the U.S. troop presence from about 13,000 to an eventual 2,500 regardless of early Taliban noncompliance with some components of the deal, and regardless of the Taliban escalating assaults on Afghan forces.

The Home report faults a longtime U.S. diplomat for Afghanistan, former Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, not Trump, for Trump administration actions in its negotiations with the Taliban. The brand new report says that Trump was following suggestions of American navy leaders in making sharp cuts in U.S. troop numbers in Afghanistan after the signing.

The report additionally goes into the vulnerability of U.S. embassy employees in Kabul because the Biden administration deliberate its exit. Republicans declare there was a “dogmatic insistence” by the Biden administration to keep up a big diplomatic footprint regardless of issues concerning the lack of safety afforded to personnel as soon as U.S. forces left.

McKenzie, who was one of many two U.S. generals who oversaw the evacuation, informed lawmakers that the administration’s insistence at retaining the embassy open and totally operational was the “deadly flaw that created what occurred in August,” based on the report.

The committee report claims that State Division officers went so far as watering down or “even fully rewriting stories” from heads of diplomatic safety and the Division of Protection that had warned of the threats to U.S. personnel because the withdrawal date bought nearer.

“We had been nonetheless in planning” when Kabul fell, Perez, the senior U.S. diplomat, testified to the committee.

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Related Press author Rebecca Santana contributed to this report.