Donald Trump made no plans to withdraw troops from Afghanistan

Nor did he plan the departure of American citizens and allied countries.

Joe Biden’s Government released a report this Thursday in which it blames the Donald Trump Administration (2017-2021) for not having developed any plan to facilitate the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan after 20 years of war.

According to a summary of the document, released by the White House, the Trump Administration did not provide Biden with any plan on how to carry out the withdrawal of troops or on how to evacuate American citizens in the country, as well as their Afghan allies. .

“The options available to President Biden on how to execute the withdrawal from Afghanistan were severely limited by the conditions created by his predecessor,” it explains.

In a press conference, John Kirby, one of the White House spokespersons, focused on Trump’s lack of preparation and assured that the decisions made by the former president “limited” the options available to the Democratic president.

Among other things, Kirby cited Trump’s decision to reduce the US troop presence in Afghanistan to 2,500, the lowest point since the start of the war in 2001, and said he did not devote enough resources to a visa system. to US Afghan allies

No plans to withdraw

According to the spokesperson, Biden’s team took advantage of the months prior to his arrival at the White House in January 2021 and after having won the November 2020 elections to “repeatedly” ask Trump’s advisors for the plans drawn up to evacuate Afghanistan. but they found that there was nothing.

In the 12-page summary of the report, blame is constantly placed on the previous Executive for the chaos of that withdrawal in August 2021 and no self-criticism is made for the decisions made by the Biden Government.

Kirby declined to say whether Biden feels personally responsible for what happened in Afghanistan and limited himself to saying that, as commander in chief of the Armed Forces, he “absolutely” assumes responsibility for any military operation.

The spokesperson defended, however, that the decision to leave was the “correct” one and maintained that Biden is “proud” of the way in which the Armed Forces managed to get 124,000 people, including Americans and Afghans, out of the country.

«No one is saying that everything was perfect, but there is a lot that did go well. And many Afghans are now living better in this country thanks to the sacrifices made by many members of the American government. So yes, there is a lot of pride in that,” he stressed.

The Lesson: Start Withdrawals Early

One of the lessons from the Afghanistan experience, Kirby explained, was that preparation for evacuations in a conflict environment must begin earlier to be effective, which has led to changes internally within the Government.

This Thursday, the White House sent to Congress the full version of the report with classified information and which analyzes the preparations made by the US for the withdrawal, which was marked by the attack at the Kabul airport, claimed by the terrorist group. Islamic State (IS) and where about 170 Afghan civilians and 13 American soldiers died.

The chaotic withdrawal led to a drop in Biden’s approval levels, who could not remove all the Afghans who had fought on Washington’s side from Afghanistan and had to see how the Taliban appropriated US military material valued at billions of dollars. Dollars.

The Republican opposition in Congress has criticized the way in which the Biden Administration executed the exit and had been asking for the report to be delivered to them for months, something that finally happened this Thursday.

The objective of the document is to draw lessons from what happened in Afghanistan for the future, for example in the war in Ukraine. It was prepared in recent months by different Government agencies, including the Departments of Defense and State.

The Trump Administration and the Taliban reached an agreement in February 2020 that US troops must leave the country by May 1, 2021 and, in exchange, the Taliban agreed not to attack the troops. of the US to no longer harbor terrorist groups.

After arriving at the White House, Biden said that it was not possible to withdraw troops in May and ended up setting the end of August as a deadline.

That pact was negotiated without the participation of then-Afghan president Ashraf Ghani, who fled Kabul by plane hours before the Taliban took over the capital.

The Biden Government has been very critical of this Trump agreement and considers that it served to empower the Taliban and weaken the Ghani Government, at the same time that it left the United States without options.

EFE

Related