US President Joe Biden was adamant on getting out of Afghanistan, and ignored the advice of the US military, the Afghanistan government and Nato.
This was revealed in a House Foreign Affairs Committee’s report, which was a result of a more than two-year investigation into America’s Afghanistan withdrawal in August 2021, according to a report discussed by a report on September 8.
“During his decades-long tenure as a Delaware US senator, eight years as Vice President of the United States and nearly four years as president, Mr Biden has demonstrated distrust of America’s military experts and advisors and has prioritised politics and his personal legacy over America’s national security interests,” the 350-page report revealed.
The involvement of Kamala Harris or any kind of blame has not been mentioned in the report. The sparse mention of Harris in the report led to the resignation of the senior investigator, Jerry Dunleavy, according to the New York Post.
Now, Republicans are criticising Biden administration’s handling of Afghanistan.
‘CONSTANTLY LIED TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE FOR SUPPORT’
The report also added that the Biden administration constantly lied to the American people to get them to support its end to the 20-year-old war in Afghanistan, the review added. Former US President Donald Trump’s administration created and entered the Doha Agreement with the Afghan government and the Taliban regarding America’s war in Afghanistan.
But Biden did not pay attention to the terms of the agreement that the US would withdraw its troops from Afghanistan if its demands were heard.
The terrorist group would then cut its ties with “al-Qaida and the other terrorist organisations”, stopping attacks on the US and coalition troops. This would lead to less violence against Afghan forces and start negotiations with the Afghan government, according to the report.
But Biden’s reckless steps led to the agreement’s crucial details, the documents revealed.
On February 2021, then-state department spokesperson Ned Price announced the US would be reassessing the Taliban’s abiding of the Doha Agreement to analyse whether the US should withdraw from Afghanistan.
“In his testimony before the committee, contrary to his public statement, Mr. Price asserted the Taliban’s adherence to the Doha Agreement was in fact ‘immaterial’ to the Biden-Harris administration’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan,” the report added.
The lies did not stop.
“Missing from press releases was information related to the Taliban’s failure to adhere to the Doha Agreement, the ongoing presence of terrorism in Afghanistan, the capabilities of the Afghan government and military with and without U.S. support, and dissent from Nato allies on the US plan to withdraw,” the report said.
“The Taliban were in breach of key elements of the Doha Agreement, [though] the Biden-Harris administration claimed to be assessing the Taliban’s compliance therewith,” it added further.
“In reality, the conditions were entirely irrelevant to them.”
Biden decided to withdraw, despite all military advice being against it, stated the document.
“Despite President Biden’s public assertions to the contrary, our investigation has revealed the secretary of defence, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the commander of US Central Command, the Secretary of State, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the commander of NATO’s Resolute Support Mission and United States Forces-Afghanistan all advised against withdrawing all US troops from the country — both during and after the interagency review,” the report said.
INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY AND NATO ADVICE IGNORED TOO
The concerns raised by the international community were raised too, even by Nato nations, which were in support of the US.
Several key players in Afghanistan had also advised against it, reveals reports.
“General Haibatullah Alizai — former Afghan Army general — informed the committee majority staff that he pleaded for more time from American commanders on the ground, saying, ‘Just tell your leadership to stay with us for two more years. â€æ We’re going to take the initiative â€æ it’s in our favour, and we can defeat the Taliban,’ ” the report recalls.
The report reveals how fixated the administration was on the optics of withdrawal.
The report also stated how Biden did not officially order an evacuation program which was non-combative in nature. This was until August 16, 2021, a day after Kabul fell to the Taliban.
“The failure to prepare for a NEO had ramifications not only for Americans and allies in Afghanistan, but US personnel on the ground forced to evacuate desperate civilians in a hostile environment,” the report said.
“Those concerns were sidelined by the Biden-Harris administration in favour of optics. Rather than concede their negligence, US service members and foreign service officers were directed to prioritise evacuating as many people as possible, no matter the threat posed to their lives.”
KAMALAS HARRIS MENTIONED SPARINGLY IN THE REPORT
Kamala Harris has not been mentioned a lot in this report. Even the sparse mention led to the resignation of a senior investigator, Jerry Dunleavy.
“Harris was the last person in the room when President Biden made the decision to withdraw all US forces from Afghanistan; a fact she boasted shortly after President Biden issued his go-to-zero order,” the report added.
Harris is also one of the 15 administration officials whom the report recommended Congress pass a resolution to condemn.
“It’s taken me two years to get to this point because of the obstruction — I’ve had to serve subpoena after subpoena,” said the panel’s chairman, Representative of Texas, Michael McCaul.
He blamed the Trump administration as well for not involving the Afghan government in the Doha Agreement, which happened on his watch.
“We have a lot of unanswered questions regarding the [Department of Defence] â€æ [about] what happened on the ground,” McCaul said.
“Everything we have seen and heard of Chairman McCaul’s latest partisan report shows that it is based on cherry-picked facts, inaccurate characterisations, and pre-existing biases that have plagued this investigation from the start,” said Sharon Yang, a representative for oversight and investigations at the White House.