The perpetrators of the flight of American troops from Afghanistan are named: an accusatory report is published

A US State Department report released on Friday criticized the organization of the 2021 evacuation from Afghanistan, Reuters reported. It is noted that the decisions of President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump to withdraw troops had “serious consequences for the viability” and security of the former US-backed Afghan government.

The unfavorable conclusions contained in the report also reflected poorly on Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, although he is not named. Those findings, Reuters continues, included the State Department’s failure to expand its crisis management task force when the Taliban (the Taliban, a banned terrorist organization in Russia) advanced on Kabul in August 2021, and the absence of a senior diplomat “to oversee all elements crisis response”.

The withdrawal of US troops and the evacuation of US and allied officials, citizens and Afghans at risk of retaliation from Islamist militants resulted in crowds of desperate Afghans trying to enter Kabul airport, with men clinging to planes as they taxied onto the runways. At the same time, an Islamic State suicide bomber (ISIS is a terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation) killed 13 US military personnel and more than 150 Afghans at the airport exit.

The State Department has released 24 pages from an 85-page “After Action” report – the rest remained classified – on the progress of the evacuation operation launched after the last U.S.-led international force withdrew after 20 years of supporting successive governments in Kabul against militants. extremist groups.

The report praised the performance of US embassy staff working in challenging environments such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the declining security levels due to US troop drawdowns, the speed of which has “exacerbated the difficulties faced by the department.”

This review, and a similar study by the Pentagon, contributed to a report released by the White House in April. But the critical findings of the State Department review were not reflected in the White House report.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended President Joe Biden’s move to pull troops out of Afghanistan. “He had to make a decision,” she told reporters on Friday. The United States had poured “billions of dollars into a war with no end in sight” and that “he wanted to stop it, he wanted to end it,” she said.

However, Stephen Chang, Trump’s press secretary, wrote in an email: “There is only one person responsible for the catastrophic withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan – Joe Biden.”

The White House report effectively blamed the chaotic withdrawal and evacuation of Americans for the lack of planning and rounds of troop drawdowns by Trump following an agreement with the Taliban to withdraw American troops in 2020.

“I can’t speak to that part of the internal coordination and how the administration has settled on the main findings it presented,” a senior State Department official said in April.

The official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, declined to say why the review, dated March 2022, was not published before the eve of the July 4 holiday weekend.

About 125,000 people, including nearly 6,000 Americans, were flown out of Kabul before the last American soldiers left on August 30, 2021, while the Taliban consolidated their grip on Kabul following the defection of the US-backed government.

“The decisions of both President Trump and President Biden to terminate the US military mission in Afghanistan have had serious implications for the viability of the Afghan government and its security,” the review said.

While these decisions were outside his purview, the review said that “during both administrations at the highest level, there was insufficient consideration of worst-case scenarios and how quickly they could follow.”

A White House spokesman disputed that conclusion. He pointed to a White House report that said extensive meetings and tabletop exercises were held as part of the planning process to examine evacuation scenarios, including contingencies “that are actually worse than the worst forecasts.”

The State Department review said evacuation planning “was difficult” because it was “unclear” which senior official was “in charge.”

Senior administration officials also failed to make “clear decisions about the number of at-risk Afghans” to be included in the evacuation by the time it began, and did not determine where the evacuated Afghans would be taken, it said.

Preparations and planning “were hampered” by the Biden administration’s unwillingness to take steps that could signal a loss of confidence in the Kabul government “and thus contribute to its collapse,” the review said.

“The complex structure of the department’s task force that was created when the evacuation began was disconcerting for many participants, and knowledge management and communication between different lines of business was problematic,” the report said.