The Biden Administration on Thursday was set to share with Congress its after-action reports on the 2021 military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“As you all know, over these many months departments and agencies key to the withdrawal, conducted thorough, internal after-action reviews, each of them examining their decision-making processes, as well as how those decisions were executed,” national security spokesperson John Kirby said during Thursday’s daily White House briefing. “Today they are making those reviews available to relevant committees in the Senate and House.”
Republicans, who took majority control of the House in January, held their first hearing on the military withdrawal in March, saying there has never before been a full accounting of the situation, during which 13 U.S. service members and 20 others were wounded when a member of the terrorist organization ISIS-K detonated a suicide bomb near Kabul airport.
The suicide bombing along with the rapid collapse of Afghanistan’s government and military have led to a refugee crisis amid the Taliban’s takeover. The U.S. left behind an estimated 78,000 Afghans who worked for the U.S.
At Thursday’s White House briefing, Kirby defended President Biden’s decision to end the 20-year war as “the right one.”
“The United States has long ago accomplished its mission to remove from the battlefield the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11,” Kirby pointed out. He further asserted that since ending ground war in Afghanistan, “America’s on a stronger, more strategic footing more capable to support Ukraine and to meet our security commitments around the world, as well as the competition with China.”
He went on to blame much of the botched withdrawal on poor planning by “the previous Administration,” which Kirby said had limited the options available to Biden.
The Trump Administration had agreed to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan by May 2021. Former President Trump had said in 2020, “Now it’s time for somebody else to do that work.”
However, on April 14, 2021 President Biden announced that it was “time to end the forever war,” declaring that all U.S. troops would be removed from Afghanistan by September 11 of that year.
Biden’s presidential transition team asked to see the Trump Administration’s plans for withdrawal, Kirby said on Thursday. “They asked to see plans for a security transition to the Afghan government, and they ask to see plans to increase the processing for special immigrant visas. None were forthcoming.”
Kirby went on to say the “first lesson” of the Afghanistan withdrawal is “transitions matter.”
He added that “our experience in Afghanistan informed our decision to set up a small group of experts for worst-case scenario planning on Ukraine, including simulation exercises and our ability to forcefully and firmly speak publicly about the risks we saw of a pending invasion.”
The Administration’s reports will reportedly be provided to lawmakers via a secure portal so members can access them electronically.
The White House will also publicly release a 10-page unclassified summary on the withdrawal.
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