WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden’s administration on Thursday laid the blame on his predecessor, President Donald Trump, for the deadly and chaotic 2021 withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan that brought about some of the darkest moments of Biden’s presidency.
The White House publicly released a 12-page summary of the results of the “hotwash” of U.S. policies around the ending of the nation’s longest war, taking little responsibility for its own actions and asserting that Biden was “severely constrained” by Trump’s decisions.
It acknowledges the evacuation of Americans and allies from Afghanistan should have started sooner but blames the delays on the Afghan government and military, and on U.S. military and intelligence community assessments.
The National Security Council, rather than an independent entity, drafted the brief document with input from Biden. The administration said detailed reviews conducted by the State Department and the Pentagon, which the White House said would be transmitted privately to Congress on Thursday, are highly classified and will not be released publicly.
“President Biden’s choices for how to execute a withdrawal from Afghanistan were severely constrained by conditions created by his predecessor,” the White House summary states, noting that when Biden entered office, “the Taliban were in the strongest military position that they had been in since 2001, controlling or contesting nearly half of the country.”
Trump responded by accusing the Biden administration of playing “a new disinformation game” to distract from “their grossly incompetent SURRENDER in Afghanistan.” On his social media site, he said, “Biden is responsible, no one else!”
The report also faults overly optimistic intelligence community assessments about the Afghan army’s willingness to fight, and says Biden followed military commanders’ recommendations for the pacing of the drawdown of U.S. forces.
“Clearly we didn’t get it right,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Thursday, but sidestepped questions about whether Biden regrets his decisions and actions leading up to the withdrawal.
Kirby said the purpose of the report “is not accountability,” but rather “understanding” what happened to inform future decisions.
The White House asserts the mistakes of Afghanistan informed its handling of Ukraine, where the Biden administration was credited for supporting Kyiv’s defense against Russia’s invasion. The White House says it simulated worst-case scenarios prior to the February 2022 invasion and moved to release intelligence about Moscow’s intentions months beforehand.
“We now prioritize earlier evacuations when faced with a degrading security situation,” the White House said.
Republicans in Congress sharply criticized the Afghanistan withdrawal, focusing on the deaths of 13 service members in a suicide bombing at Kabul’s airport, which also killed more than 100 Afghans.
Former Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, who was badly wounded in the explosion, told a congressional hearing last month that the withdrawal “was a catastrophe” and “there was an inexcusable lack of accountability.”
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., tweeted Thursday that the withdrawal was “an unmitigated fiasco,” adding that “Passing the buck in a blame-shifting report won’t change that.”
Hundreds of people gather Aug. 16, 2021, near a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport plane at the perimeter of the international airport in Kabul, Afghanistan.
The administration’s report appears to shift any blame in the Aug. 26, 2021, suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport, saying it was the U.S. military that made one possibly key decision.
“To manage the potential threat of a terrorist attack, the President repeatedly asked whether the military required additional support to carry out their mission at HKIA,” the report said, adding, “Senior military officials confirmed that they had sufficient resources and authorities to mitigate threats.”
Biden blamed the February 2020 agreement Trump reached with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, saying it boxed the U.S. into leaving the country. Analysts blamed the agreement for undercutting the U.S.-backed government, which collapsed the following year.
The Afghan government released roughly 5,000 Taliban prisoners after the Doha agreement as a condition of having peace talks with the Taliban. Kirby noted that release and other examples of what he said was a “general sense of degradation and neglect” inherited by Biden.
The agreement also gave the U.S. the right to withdraw from the accord if Afghan peace talks failed — which they did.
The agreement required the U.S. to remove all forces by May 1, 2021. Biden pushed a full withdrawal to September but declined to delay further, saying it would prolong a war that had long needed to end.
Since the withdrawal, the U.S. carried out a successful operation to kill al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri — the group’s No. 2 leader during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks — which the White House has argued is proof it can still deter terrorist groups in Afghanistan.
A February report by the U.S. government’s special inspector for Afghanistan placed the most immediate blame for the Afghan military’s collapse on both the Trump and Biden administrations, and cited the speed with which Biden insisted on carrying out the withdrawal: “Due to the (Afghan security force’s) dependency on U.S. military forces, the decision to withdraw all U.S. military personnel and dramatically reduce U.S. support to the (Afghan security forces) destroyed the morale of Afghan soldiers and police.”
UN: Afghanistan is world's most repressive country for women
An Afghan woman weaves a carpet at a traditional carpet factory in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, March 6, 2023. After the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, women have been deprived of many of their basic rights. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Afghan women weave wools for making carpets at a traditional carpet factory in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, March 6, 2023. After the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, women have been deprived of many of their basic rights. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Afghan women weave wools for making carpets at a traditional carpet factory in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, March 6, 2023. After the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, women have been deprived of many of their basic rights. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Afghan women weave wools for making carpets at a traditional carpet factory in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, March 6, 2023. After the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, women have been deprived of many of their basic rights. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
An Afghan woman weaves a carpet at a traditional carpet factory in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, March 6, 2023. After the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, women have been deprived of many of their basic rights. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Afghan girls weave a carpet at a traditional carpet factory in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, March 6, 2023. After the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, women have been deprived of many of their basic rights. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Afghan women weave wools for making carpets at a traditional carpet factory in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, March 6, 2023. After the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, women have been deprived of many of their basic rights. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
An Afghan woman works in a sewing workshop in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, March 6, 2023. After the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, women have been deprived of many of their basic rights. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Afghan women weave wools for making carpets at a traditional carpet factory in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, March 6, 2023. After the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, women have been deprived of many of their basic rights. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Afghan women work in a sewing workshop in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, March 6, 2023. After the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, women have been deprived of many of their basic rights. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
An Afghan woman cleans wools for making carpets at a traditional carpet factory in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, March 5, 2023. After the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, women have been deprived of many of their basic rights. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
An Afghan girl works at a traditional carpet factory in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, March 5, 2023. After the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, women have been deprived of many of their basic rights. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
An Afghan woman weaves wool for making carpets at a traditional carpet factory in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, March 5, 2023. After the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, women have been deprived of many of their basic rights. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
An Afghan woman cleans customers's shoes in a street in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, March 5, 2023. After the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan, women have been deprived of many of their basic rights. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
