Joe Biden rejects US Army report on botched Afghan withdrawal, flawed White House strategy

US President Joe Biden on Feb. 10 rejected the claims that his administration “failed to recognize” the gravity of the internal security situation in Afghanistan, and were reluctant to draft a safe evacuation plan for the US troops stationed in Kabul, the Americans, and Afghan allies. “There was no good time to get out of Afghanistan,” insisted the US commander in chief Joe Biden on Thursday, dismissing the investigative report based on testimonies from US military officers that were involved in Afghan evacuation efforts, and was published by the US Army. 

The sworn testimony from the US Army officers was first reported by The Washington Post newspaper that spoke with military sources under the protection of the Freedom of Information Act.

The explosive investigative report focused on the chaotic evacuation led by the US armed forces at the Abbey Gate at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, and the circumstances that jeopardized the security of the troops. As many as 170 Afghans and 13 US service members were killed in the ISIS-K bomb blast, despite that the warnings of the looming terrorist act threat were conveyed to the US president, and was well known among the allies such as the UK that evacuated its troops the night before.

US Marines during Kabul evacuations. [Credit: AP]

Biden administration was 'holding off' evacuations, demonstrated 'no sense of urgency' 

The US Army accuses Biden administration of “holding off” an evacuation plan, undermining the prospects of the collapse of the former US-backed Afghan government of then-President Ashraf Ghani, neglecting of a possibility of the Taliban's takeover in Afghanistan, and not heeding terrorist attack seriously during the closing days of the frantic Kabul evacuations, citing “administrative failure”. 

"I'm rejecting them,” President Biden said Thursday in a sitdown interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, when pressed on the military officials' accounts in the Army report.

When further interrogated whether his  administration was in denial about the situation, that led to the fall of Kabul, Biden responded: "Look, there is no good time to get out, but if we had not gotten out, they acknowledged we would have had to put a hell of a lot more troops back in.” 

People run alongside a US Air Force C-17 transport plane as it moves down a runway of the Kabul airport. [Credit: AP]

US president Biden told Holt that his administration would have to significantly increase the military presence, combat troops in Afghanistan, and Washington would’ve been “back in this war of attrition.” The leaked notes from the White House Situation Room meeting in the US Army report revealed that the White House and State Department, in fact, were “too late in reacting to the Taliban’s final offensive.”

Some senior Biden administration officials had also pushed back against the Taliban’s political siege of the central Asian country, and had resisted the efforts by military commanders to prepare an evacuation of embassy staffers and Afghan allies with due planning ahead. 

The 2,000-page investigative report, which the US President rejected in the interview to be aired on Sunday by NBC explains that previously, there have been unreported instances of violence directed at US forces by the Taliban as the tensions had been building up and the hardline Islamist regime was gaining prominence across several provinces. The report also noted that there was a fierce gun battle between Marines and Taliban fighters that killed two terrorists on Afghan soil in days leading to the evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport.

Taliban were in full control of Kabul's international airport.  [Credit: AP]

There was 'immense pressure' on American troops, Biden administration 'disagreed' with military's own analysis

There was “immense pressure” on the American troops, and while there was no immediate response from the Biden administration, the Taliban swept into Kabul on Aug. 15 and had captured the entire country, including the Afghan Presidential palace, forcing the then leader Ashraf Ghani to flee. US commanders “had to enter into a security pact” with the Taliban for safe evacuations as the report criticised the Biden administration’s handling of the Afghan crisis. US President’s lack of attention to the Taliban gaining traction “undermined commanders’ ability to ready their forces,” the US Army testimony revealed. 

US troops would have been “much better prepared to conduct a more orderly operation if policymakers had paid attention to the indicators of what was happening on the ground,” Navy Rear Adm. Peter Vasely, the top US commander in Afghanistan said in the report. 

US military had earlier pitched to use the Bagram Air Base for the evacuations, and sending Afghan government forces to help secure the road there, Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Farrell Sullivan said in US Army report. But Biden administration ordered troops to exit US military’s largest defense base in Afghanistan and then ordered the evacuations via Karzai Airport for outbound flights.

The administration lamented that the airbase, located approximately 30 miles north of Kabul “was too far away” and would require more military presence, and subsequently sending more American troops. Biden administration turned to Afghan government, for key decisions including evacuations, which had already surrendered to the Taliban.

View shows the Kandahar US Base in Kandahar province south of Kabul, Afghanistan. [Credit: AP]

Taliban poses for a photograph while raising flag at the Ghazni provincial governor's house. [Credit: AP]

“Everyone clearly saw some of the advantages of holding Bagram, but you cannot hold Bagram with the force level that was decided,” Marine Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, head of US Central Command, said in a statement to the Washington Post. After the US abandoned Bagram, the largest base for the US military during the 20-year war, it was ransacked by the Taliban and the military equipment left behind due to short notice was all stolen. Gen McKenzie “wasn’t surprised” as the US military had been questioning the effectiveness of the Biden administration’s evacuation plans. 

“There are profound frustrations; commanders, particularly subordinate commanders, they see very clearly the advantages of other courses of action. However, we had a decision, and we had an allocation of forces. You proceed based on that,” Gen McKenzie said in the report. 

There “might have been other plans that we would have preferred but when the president makes a decision, it’s time for us to execute the president’s decision,” he added.

US Marines with Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force - Crisis Response - Central Command providing assistance during evacuation.  [Credit: AP]

[Credit: AP]

There were also disagreements between military officials and US diplomats about the dates of evacuations. Gen Vasely who took command in Afghanistan in July “was trying to get the Ambassadors to see the security threat for what it really was,” as he pushed for evacuations on Aug. 12, three days before the Taliban took over the country but Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan asked him to “push up the timetable.”

“The embassy needed to position for withdrawal, and the Ambassador didn’t get it,” he asserted in his testimony, adding that his predecessor, Army Gen. Austin Miller had warned him that there will be resistance among the senior embassy officials, that later proved to be true as US Ambassador Ross Wilson objected to withdrawal and reducing American diplomatic presence in Afghanistan. 

“There was a lack a sense of urgency,” Sullivan, a Marine general said in his testimony, criticising the National Security Council officials analysis that if evacuations started early it would signal that United States “has failed.”

Vasely meanwhile revealed that he had warned that Afghan government would collapse after the US carried out 10 airstrikes against the Taliban, which neutralized over a 100 terrorists. “We were killing them in bunches, destroying tactical vehicles, and they kept coming,” he asserted. Despite the chaos, and lives of the US troops at stake, 13 Marines killed in a bomb blast and scores of Afghan allies left behind to face reprisal of the Taliban, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby called the evacuation a “historic achievement”.