Washington: As the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s majority and minority members complete their review of the 2021 withdrawal from Kabul, the United States Department of State today criticised the House Foreign Affairs Committee Afghanistan Review, terming the midterm report of the US Congress on Afghanistan in 2022 as a “deep disservice” to the American people.
It also described the agreement between then-US President Donald Trump and the Taliban regarding the withdrawal of the entire US forces from Afghanistan by May 1, 2021, as a “flawed” agreement.
“It was, and remains, a flawed agreement that hampered efforts to end the war through negotiations among Afghans. As General [Kenneth F.] McKenzie, the CENTCOM [Central Command] Commander who served both the current and past administration, testified: “The signing of the Doha agreement had a pernicious effect on the government of Afghanistan and on its military…”. Due to this agreement, when the [President Joe] Biden Administration entered office it found a revitalized and emboldened Taliban, along with a decimated Afghan Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) programme and a complete lack of planning for a withdrawal,” it claimed.
As part of that agreement, the previous Trump Administration compelled the Afghan Government to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners, including several top war commanders helping the Taliban achieve their strongest position in 20 years. Meanwhile, the agreement reduced the US force presence to 2,500 troops. And while the Taliban had agreed to cease attacks on the US troops, it was contingent that all were withdrawn by the May 31 deadline.
While appreciating the Committee’s “longstanding” interest in Afghanistan policy, the State Department though, sought to clarify that it “strongly” believed in Congress’s independent role in shaping U.S. foreign policy.
At the same time, the State Department claimed that it was “frustrating” that time and time again, majority members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, along with their Republican counterparts in the House, “issued partisan statements, cherry-picked facts, withheld testimonies from the American people, and obfuscated the truth behind conjecture”.
Throughout the first half of 2021, the US Administration was constantly assessing the likelihood of then Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s government’s staying in power and considered multiple scenarios.
“Even the most pessimistic assessments did not predict the government forces in Kabul would collapse while U.S. forces remained,” the State Department claimed. It also referred to General Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said, “Nothing I or anyone else saw indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days.”
In an August 14, 2021, phone call to the US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, President Ghani had expressed his intent “to fight to the death” to stave off the Taliban takeover before subsequently fleeing the next day.
“Nonetheless, we planned and exercised a wide range of contingencies. Because of that planning, we were able to draw down our embassy and move the remaining personnel to the airport within 48 hours and the military, which had pre-positioned in the region, was able to secure the airport and start the evacuation within 72 hours,” the State Department claimed.
The U.S. Government achieved the largest airlift in U.S. history with approximately 120,000 Americans, Afghans, and third-country nationals departing Afghanistan in those final two weeks of August 2021.
However, in the three years since the end of the United States of America’s longest war, questions have been asked about what could have been done differently. The Department claimed it made every effort to answer these questions transparently – whether they be from Congress, members of the media, the American public, or our own workforce.
It, however, accused the report of “politicizing U.S. policy towards Afghanistan instead of focusing on bipartisan solutions”, and remarked, “There is little reason to believe the final report will be anything different than the conclusion of a blatantly partisan exercise”.
While pointing out that since 2021, it expended thousands of hours fulfilling congressional requests for documents, briefings, and interviews related to Afghanistan, the State Department also referred to the Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken testifying before House and Senate Committees 14 times on Afghanistan, including four times directly before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
It regretted that while the Department made every effort to answer questions transparently, “others sought to advance their own interests or agendas that have almost nothing to do with learning important lessons to strengthen American national security.
“Americans deserved to hear directly from their leaders on the decisions made to end America’s longest war and the steps taken to fulfil our commitment to the thousands of brave Afghans who stood side-by-side with the United States over the course of two decades,” it stated.
The Department provided approximately 20,000 pages of documents to Congress, conducted nine high-level briefings for committees and members of the House of Representatives and Senate, and made available or engaged 15 senior officials for transcribed interviews to House Foreign Affairs Committee staff and members. This included the Department taking the “unprecedented step” of providing Congress with a highly sensitive cable and internal memos related to the Department’s After-Action Review.
The State Department expressed its disappointment that Members of Congress continued distortion of the dissent cable – which remains classified – to further a political talking point, especially after the Department went to “extraordinary lengths” to allow members of the Foreign Affairs Committee the ability to review the document. This was the first time since the inception of the dissent channel during the Vietnam War this access had been granted.
“As the House Foreign Affairs Committee Majority and Minority members complete their review of the 2021 withdrawal from Kabul, the Department wants to especially recognize the dedicated State and Department of Defense professionals who showed extraordinary courage and tenacity as they worked tirelessly on the ground in Afghanistan, in Washington, and at other sites, alongside other critical U.S. Government and civil society partners, to evacuate and assist as many people as possible in the closing days of our presence in Kabul,” it demanded.
According to the State Department, ending America’s longest war was never going to be easy. But President Joe Biden pledged to do so, and within months of taking office, he made the difficult but necessary decision to end America’s 20 years of war in Afghanistan. He decided to bring the US troops home and end America’s longest war.
“This decision ensured another generation of Americans would not have to fight and die in Afghanistan — a full decade after Osama bin Laden had been brought to justice. It strengthened our national security by better positioning us to confront the challenges of the future and put the United States in a stronger place to lead the world. It freed up critical military, intelligence, diplomatic, and other resources to ensure we are better poised to respond to today’s threats to international peace and stability – whether that be Russia’s brutal and unprovoked assault on Ukraine, China’s increasingly assertive moves in the Indo-Pacific and around the world, or a persistent and global terrorist threat,” it stated.
One of the most persistent misunderstandings of the leadup to the withdrawal was that the State Department lacked a strategy, specifically a “Noncombatant Evacuation Operations [NEOs]” plan to close operations in Afghanistan.
The State Department claimed this was not accurate. It sought to explain that NEOs are partnerships between the Department, the U.S. military, and the host government to “assist the Department of State (DOS) in evacuating noncombatants, nonessential military personnel, selected host-nation citizens, and third-country nationals whose lives are in danger from locations in a host foreign nation to an appropriate safe haven and/or the United States”.
The planning for an NEO originates within the State Department before the President approves the action to bring in the military to assist in any needed evacuations.
“It is a whole-of-government action — planned and decided through a National Security Council process — and statements or suggestions that the Department has the sole authority to activate a NEO are inaccurate,” it claimed.
The State Department further claimed that its officials who spoke with the House Foreign Affairs Committee explained during their hours-long interviews that there was extensive planning by the State Department for a possible diplomatic exit from Afghanistan.
According to them, planning began in April 2021, with multiple inter-agency and embassy exercises, using a range of scenarios. The inter-agency developed detailed indicators and warnings to inform a decision to declare a NEO — including the encirclement or siege of Kabul, the closure of HKIA, resumed attacks on American forces, and a declared or demonstrated Taliban intent to take Kabul.
Brian McKeon, the Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources during the Afghanistan withdrawal and evacuation, described, there was the continued development of a NEO between the State Department, the Department of Defense, and CENTCOM – with the latter travelling to Kabul in July of 2021 to “further refine the NEO planning.”
Additionally, the U.S. government intended for the U.S. Embassy to remain open after the end of the war — a decision Congress broadly supported. So, while U.S. military forces would end combat operations, Department personnel planned to operate out of Embassy Kabul to assist Americans and Afghan allies, coordinate diplomatic and development activity and investments, and help protect and advance U.S. national security interests after August 2021.
Given those expectations, along with the continued operation of commercial flights out of Kabul until August 15, executing the NEO before that date would have signalled to the people of Afghanistan the U.S. had lost all confidence in the then-Afghan government and precipitated the very collapse we sought to avoid.
The government of Afghanistan controlled all 34 Provincial Capitals until August 6. Between August 6 and 14, they began to fall rapidly, crossing the indicator and warning trip wires established by the inter-agency. On August 14, the State Department initiated the NEO through an inter-agency agreement. On August 15, 2021, President Ghani abandoned his office and fled the country, and the Afghanistan Republic security services and government collapsed. The Taliban then entered Kabul.
Again, while the State Department formally triggered an NEO, it claimed the decision to do so was a collective, inter-agency one, coordinated by a National Security Council process that included multiple Principal and Deputies Committee meetings.
“Statements or suggestions that the Department has the sole authority to activate a NEO are false – moreover, principal-level discussions did not conclude a NEO should be initiated prior to the collective interagency decision that was reached on August 14,” it said.
A NEO is but one tool in the diplomatic toolbox, and one of last resort. And NEO planning was far from the only preparation the State Department took in the weeks and months leading up to August 2021.
In March 2021, the Department began urging Americans living in Afghanistan to leave the country. At the end of April, the State Department placed Embassy Kabul on ordered departure status. That same month, State senior leaders and officials travelled to the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan alongside Department of Defense personnel to prepare for the forthcoming absence of the United States military in the region. In total, between March and August, the Department sent 19 unique messages with warnings to Americans living in Afghanistan to leave, as well as offers of help, including financial assistance to pay for plane tickets.
Despite these efforts, when Kabul fell, approximately 6,000 American citizens remained in Afghanistan — almost all dual nationals who had been living in Afghanistan for years or decades. Almost all were evacuated by August 31, 2021, thanks to its “relentless effort” to identify them, contact them and help bring them to the airport, the State Department claimed.
“This effort included more than 55,000 phone calls and 33,000 emails in a two-week period. It was unprecedented in scope and scale,” it disclosed.
On August 31, 2021, several hundred American citizens remained in Afghanistan who could not or would not leave because they could not reach the airport, did not want to leave extended family members behind, or simply chose to remain. Between September 1 and the end of 2021, the State Department facilitated the departure of nearly 500 American citizens.
To date, the Administration has worked to resettle 165,000 Afghans who the American people have welcomed to communities across our country.
The State Department warned that although it respects the Congress and its Members who remain dedicated to reviewing the actions taken ahead of and during August 2021, “we will not stand by silently as the Department and its workforce are used to further partisan agendas”.
– global bihari bureau
Image by Amber Clay from Pixabay
