The State Department did not do enough groundwork before the collapse of the US-backed Afghan government. This is indicated in the analysis of the work of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs during the evacuation of American and Afghan allies, carried out by the Biden administration.
The report contains accusations against the administrations of former President Donald Trump and current US leader Joe Biden for their actions before and after the withdrawal of US troops from Kabul in August 2021.
Republicans have accused Biden of failing to take responsibility for intelligence failures that led to the Taliban takeover of the country and scenes of chaos at Kabul airport where 13 Marines were killed in a suicide bombing .
The Biden administration released sections of the State Department report on the Friday before the Independence Day holiday, but hid much of the document from the public. The National Security Council’s analysis of the pullout was released in April just before Easter, with the administration declining to release internal Pentagon and State Department estimates.
A State Department task force helped evacuate approximately 2,000 Afghan citizens in July-early August 2021, weeks before August 31, 2021, when the withdrawal was due to be completed. They were eligible to apply for a special visa program for Afghans.
However, the State Department “failed to create a broader task force amid the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan,” the report said. And because the military planned to evacuate American citizens and Afghan allies, “it was unclear who within the State Department was leading the process,” the document notes.
“The decisions by President Trump and President Biden to end the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan have had serious implications for the viability of the Afghan government and its security,” the report said.
“These decisions are outside the scope of this analysis, but the review team concluded that during both top-level administrations, insufficient attention was paid to considering the worst possible scenarios and how quickly they were addressed. could materialize.”
As the Taliban took control of key cities faster than most U.S. officials expected, Kabul’s fate became uncertain, the report said. State Department employees began receiving “massive calls and messages” from lawmakers, other government departments and members of the public pleading for help in rescuing those trapped in this country.
Employees working on the evacuation also faced conflicting instructions that did not correspond to the actual situation at the time, the report said.
The State Department learned lessons from failures in Afghanistan and applied them to evacuations before and during the war in Ukraine, as well as during the crisis in Sudan, a senior State Department official said Friday during a briefing. briefing. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in accordance with rules established by the department.
Officials declined to say why the report was released before the holiday weekend.
Representative Michael McCall, a Republican from Texas who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called on the US administration to release the full report. “This is yet another blatant attempt to cover up the Biden administration’s culpability in the chaotic and deadly evacuation from Afghanistan,” the Republican lawmaker said in a statement.
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