The White House admitted on Thursday a failure of the intelligence services, but generally defended the decision and the execution of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the only “scenario” possible.
US President Joe Biden transmitted to Congress on Thursday the classified documents relating to the withdrawal from Afghanistan, demanded for a long time in particular by the Republicans, and the White House took the opportunity to justify this decision which put an end, in August 2021, to America’s Longest War.
In a document summarizing how this withdrawal was designed and executed, the US executive concluded that there was no other “scenario” conceivable.
“Ultimately, after more than 20 years, more than $2 trillion spent, and the organization of an Afghan army of 300,000 troops, the speed and ease with which the Taliban took control of Afghanistan suggests that there was no other scenario that could have changed the trajectory, except for a permanent and significantly reinforced American military presence”, according to this account distributed to the press.
The Taliban regained power even before the last American soldier had left, and John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council, a body directly attached to Joe Biden, admitted that the Maison Banche had not anticipated this. lightning victory, nor the massive disaffection of the army and the Afghan authorities.
‘Clearly we got it wrong’ in terms of intelligence, he told a briefing, adding that Washington had also not ‘taken the full measure of the degree of corruption among Afghan officers’ .
“Ending any war is not easy, certainly not after 20 years,” he said, however, adding: “That doesn’t mean it wasn’t the sadness.”
A US withdrawal from Afghanistan “has always been President” Biden’s intention, the spokesperson said. The Democrat has repeatedly explained that the US military, having successfully completed its initial mission, which was to counter the terrorist threat in Afghanistan, had to redeploy its forces to deal with other threats.
The White House, on the other hand, instructed former Republican President Donald Trump: “It is also undeniable that the decisions made by the previous administration and the complete lack of preparation have clearly limited the options available.”
Donald Trump strongly criticized this statement, accusing “fools in the White House” of blaming him for this “disaster”.
“Biden is responsible, no one else!” he claimed on his Truth Social network.
John Kirby also praised the scale and speed of the evacuation operation led by the Americans, who released more than 120,000 people from Afghanistan in a few days, by air rotations.
“This chaos we are talking about, I have not seen it,” even declared the spokesperson.
The White House, without going so far as to openly acknowledge an error, nevertheless assures in the document released Thursday that Washington “now gives priority to earlier evacuations”, giving the example in particular of the evacuation of American diplomats from Ukraine.
The fact remains that this historic withdrawal has left, whatever John Kirby says, an impression of chaos, in the United States and beyond.
Images of Kabul airport surrounded by a crowd trying at all costs to board departing planes have gone around the world.
And America was shocked by the death of 13 American soldiers in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group which also killed 170 Afghans on August 26 near the airport.
On August 30, 2021, one minute before midnight, the last American soldier had flown out of the airport in the Afghan capital 24 hours ahead of the deadline set by the American president for the withdrawal of troops from the country.
06/04/2023 23:10:13 – Washington (AFP) – © 2023 AFP