The US state department has released a damning report on the handling of the 2021 evacuation from Afghanistan by both the Biden and Trump administrations, in a move that has thrown the spotlight on the top diplomats of each.
The review, which remains classified in parts, concluded that a lack of senior–level consideration of worst–case scenarios had serious consequences for the viability of the former US–backed Afghan government.
The Biden White House has defended its predecessor and the current president’s handling of the chaotic US pullout and evacuation effort, pointing to the need to end what it called “a war with no end in sight” and repair the damage done by decades of war.
However, the report found decisions by the previous and current US administrators had significant implications, and that a lack of clear direction had “inhibited” the evacuation effort. It also highlighted how “knowledge management and communication across various lines of effort was problematic”.
White House press secretary Karine Jean–Pierre told the media that naming a 7th-floor principal from the secretary of state’s team “would have improved coordination across different lines of effort”.
The report also acknowledged that the speed of the US troop drawdown “compounded the difficulties the department faced”. This came despite Washington once committing more than 100,000 troops to the Afghan conflict. The findings of the report have reflected badly, but not directly by name, on the current secretary of state, Antony Blinken.
The chaotic evacuation saw crowds of desperate Afghans attempting to board aircraft at Kabul airport, while an Islamic State suicide attack outside an airport gate killed 13 US servicemembers and more than 150 Afghans. The state department’s review praised the performance of the US embassy personnel who worked under tough conditions, but criticism of the evacuation efforts remains.
A spokesman for Donald Trump was equally scathing, placing the blame solely on the current president’s shoulders. “There’s only one person responsible for the disastrous pullout of Afghanistan – Joe Biden,” he said.
However, a senior state department official briefing the media declined to go into details regarding “how the administration settled on the core conclusions” presented in its White House report.
The state department’s release of the review on the Fourth of July holiday weekend has raised more questions than it has answered. But, as the US embarks on a new mission abroad, it will need to answer to the simmering political tension sparked by the damning report.
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