US State Department review of Afghanistan evacuation critical of Joe Biden, Donald Trump

Washington, July 1

A US State Department report on Friday criticised the handling of the 2021 evacuation from Afghanistan, saying decisions by President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump to withdraw troops had “serious consequences for the viability” and security of the former US-backed government.

Adverse findings in the report also reflected badly on Secretary of State Antony Blinken, without naming him. They included the department’s failure to expand its crisis-management task force as the Taliban advanced on Kabul in August 2021 and the lack of a senior diplomat “to oversee all elements of the crisis response.”

“Naming a 7th floor principal...would have improved coordination across different lines of effort,” said the report, referring to the State Department’s top floor where Blinken and senior diplomats have offices. The review, and a similar Pentagon study, contributed to a report released by the White House in April. But the State Department review’s critical findings were not reflected in the White House report. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended Biden’s handling of the Afghan pullout. “He had to make a decision,” she said.

The United States had poured “billions of dollars into a war with no end in sight” and that “he wanted to stop that, he wanted to end that,” she said. Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump, wrote in an email: “There’s only one person responsible for the disastrous pullout of Afghanistan - Joe Biden.”

The White House report effectively blamed the chaotic US pullout and evacuation operation on a lack of planning and troop reduction rounds by Trump following a 2020 deal with the Taliban to withdraw US forces. “I can’t speak to that internal coordination piece and how the administration settled on the core conclusions that it presented” in April, a senior State Department official said.

The official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, declined to say why the review dated March 2022 was withheld from release until the eve of the July 4 holiday weekend. The US troop pullout and evacuation of US and allied officials, citizens and Afghans at risk of Taliban retribution saw crowds of desperate Afghans trying to enter Kabul airport and men clinging to aircraft as they taxied down runways. — Reuters