that the plot was hatched in an Afghanistan ruled by the Taliban.
That resulted in George Bush launching a campaign against the Taliban regime.
Bush's focus on Iraq, however, which wasn't involved in 9/11, and Rumsfeld's belief that he could wage war with a minimum of forces, lead to us initially grossly under committing to Afghanistan.
Barack Obama committed to a surge there, which lead to the war being ultimately a low grade one, albeit one that Afghan forces did poorly in, overall.
Donald Trump arranged a deal with the Taliban to withdraw, which would ultimately mean its return to power. Joe Biden merely carried it out.
The White House released its long awaited report on the defeat in Afghanistan.
U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan
This document outlines the key decisions and challenges surrounding the U.S.
withdrawal from Afghanistan.
When he came into office, President Biden believed the right thing for the country was
to end the longest war in American history and bring American troops home. As he laid
out to the American people, after twenty years, the United States had accomplished its
mission in Afghanistan: to remove from the battlefield the terrorists who attacked the
United States on 9/11, including Osama bin Laden, and degrade the terrorist threat to
the United States. Over two decades, the United States had also—along with our
NATO allies and partners—spent hundreds of billions of dollars training and equipping
the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) and supporting successive
Afghan governments. At the outset, America’s goal was never to nation-build. But,
over time, this is what America drifted into doing. Two decades after the war had
started, America had become bogged down in a war in Afghanistan with unclear
objectives and no end in sight and was underinvesting in today’s and tomorrow’s
national security challenges.
President Biden’s choices for how to execute a withdrawal from Afghanistan were
severely constrained by conditions created by his predecessor. When President Trump
took office in 2017, there were more than 10,000 troops in Afghanistan. Eighteen
months later, after introducing more than 3,000 additional troops just to maintain the
stalemate, President Trump ordered direct talks with the Taliban without consulting with
our allies and partners or allowing the Afghan government at the negotiating table. In
September 2019, President Trump embolded the Taliban by publicly considering inviting
them to Camp David on the anniversary of 9/11. In February 2020, the United States
and the Taliban reached a deal, known as the Doha Agreement, under which the United
States agreed to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by May 2021. In return, the
Taliban agreed to participate in a peace process and refrain from attacking U.S. troops
and threatening Afghanistan’s major cities—but only as long as the United States
remained committed to withdraw by the agreement’s deadline. As part of the deal,
President Trump also pressured the Afghan government to release 5,000 Taliban
fighters from prison, including senior war commanders, without securing the release of
the only American hostage known to be held by the Taliban.
Over his last 11 months in office, President Trump ordered a series of drawdowns of
U.S. troops. By June 2020, President Trump reduced U.S. troops in Afghanistan to
8,600. In September 2020, he directed a further draw down to 4,500. A month later,
President Trump tweeted, to the surprise of military advisors, that the remaining U.S.
troops in Afghanistan should be “home by Christmas!” On September 28, 2021,
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Milley testified that, on November 11, he had
received an unclassified signed order directing the U.S. military to withdraw all forces
from Afghanistan no later than January 15, 2021. One week later, that order was
rescinded and replaced with one to draw down to 2,500 troops by the same date.
During the transition from the Trump Administration to the Biden Administration, the
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outgoing Administration provided no plans for how to conduct the final withdrawal or to
evacuate Americans and Afghan allies. Indeed, there were no such plans in place
when President Biden came into office, even with the agreed upon full withdrawal just
over three months away.
As a result, when President Biden took office on January 20, 2021, the Taliban were in
the strongest military position that they had been in since 2001, controlling or contesting
nearly half of the country. At the same time, the United States had only 2,500 troops on
the ground—the lowest number of troops in Afghanistan since 2001—and President
Biden was facing President Trump’s near-term deadline to withdraw all U.S. forces from
Afghanistan by May 2021, or the Taliban would resume its attacks on U.S. and allied
troops. Secretary of Defense Austin testified on September 28, 2021, “the intelligence
was clear that if we did not leave in accordance with that agreement, the Taliban would
recommence attacks on our forces.”
This experience underscores the critical importance of detailed and effective transition
coordination, especially when it comes to complex military operations for which
decisions and execution pass from one administration to the next, and consequential
deals struck late in the outgoing administration whose implementation will fall largely to
the incoming administration.
Decision to Leave
President Biden had committed to ending the war in Afghanistan, but when he came
into office he was confronted with difficult realities left to him by the Trump
Administration. President Biden asked his military leaders about the options he faced,
including the ramifications of further delaying the deadline of May 1. He pressed his
intelligence professionals on whether it was feasible to keep 2,500 troops in Afghanistan
and both defend them against a renewed Taliban onslaught and maintain a degree of
stability in the country. The assessment from those intelligence professionals was that
the United States would need to send more American troops into harm’s way to ensure
our troops could defend themselves and to stop the stalemate from getting worse. As
Secretary Austin testified on September 28, 2021, “If you stayed [in Afghanistan] at a
force posture of 2,500, certainly you’d be in a fight with the Taliban, and you’d have to
reinforce yourself.” Chairman Milley testified on September 29, 2021, “There’s a
reasonable prospect we would have to increase forces past 2,500, given the Taliban
very likely was going to start attacking us.” There were no signs that more time, more
funds, or more Americans at risk in Afghanistan would have yielded a fundamentally
different trajectory. Indeed, the speed with which the Taliban took over the country
showed why maintaining 2,500 troops would not have sustained a stable and peaceful
Afghanistan.
In early 2021, as these discussions were taking place, the intelligence and military
consensus was that the ANDSF would be able to effectively fight to defend their country
and their capital, Kabul. The ANDSF had significant advantages. Compared to the
Taliban, they had vastly superior numbers and equipment: 300,000 troops compared to
80,000 Taliban fighters, an air force, and two decades of training and support. The
Intelligence Community’s assessment in early 2021 was that Taliban advances would
accelerate across large portions of Afghanistan after a complete U.S. military withdrawal
and potentially lead to the Taliban’s capturing Kabul within a year or two. As late as
May 2021, the assessment was still that Kabul would probably not come under serious
pressure until late 2021 after U.S. troops departed.
Faced with these circumstances, President Biden undertook a deliberate, intensive,
rigorous, and inclusive decision-making process. His thinking was informed by
extensive consultations with his national security team, including military leaders, as
well as outside experts, Members of Congress, allies and partners. The President
asked for and received candid advice from a wide array of experts inside of and outside
of government. As Secretary Austin testified on September 28, 2021, “I am very much
satisfied that we had a thorough policy review, and I believe that all of the parties had
an opportunity to provide input. And that input was received.” Chairman Milley also
testified on September 28, 2021, that the commanders on the ground “were listened to”
and had an opportunity to share their advice.
The Administration engaged in intensive consultation at senior levels with allies, and the
President factored in their feedback and their differences of opinion. Secretary of State
Blinken testified on September 13, 2021, “I heard a lot of gratitude from allies and
partners about the work that our folks did in making sure that we could deliver on that
commitment [to consult] to them.” NATO Secretary-General Stoltenberg also rejected
the characterization the President did not consult allies in a September 10, 2021,
interview: “You see different voices in Europe, and some are talking about the lack of
consultation, but I was present in those meetings. Of course, the United States
consulted with European allies, but at the end of the day, every nation has to make their
own decision on deploying forces.”
Ultimately, President Biden refused to send another generation of Americans to fight a
war that should have ended for the United States long ago.
Planning for the Withdrawal
While recognizing the strategic necessity of withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan,
President Biden and his team were well aware of the challenges posed by withdrawing
from a warzone after twenty years—especially under the circumstances that they
inherited. The departing Trump Administration had left the Biden Administration with a
date for withdrawal, but no plan for executing it. And after four years of neglect—and in
some cases deliberate degradation—crucial systems, offices, and agency functions that
would be necessary for a safe and orderly departure were in disrepair.
When President Biden took office, the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program for
Afghans who had worked with our soldiers and diplomats required a 14-step process
based on a statutory framework enacted by Congress and involved multiple government
agencies. The Trump Administration’s disregard and even hostility toward our
commitment to Afghan allies led to a massive backlog of over 18,000 SIV applicants.
Despite drawing down troops and committing to a full withdrawal, the departing Trump
Administration had all but stopped SIV interviews. Refugee support services had been
gutted and personnel dramatically reduced, lowering admissions to historic lows and
forcing more than 100 refugee resettlement facilities in the United States to close. And
the Federal career workforce had been hollowed out. In November 2020, as President
Biden was preparing to take office, the Department of State employed 12 percent fewer
employees than it had four years earlier, leaving critical gaps.
Immediately after taking office—and even before he had made a final decision to leave
Afghanistan—President Biden instructed departments and agencies to begin doing the
necessary work to increase capacity, in part to facilitate a withdrawal on the timeline
required. During his first two weeks in office, President Biden signed Executive Order
14013 requiring departments and agencies to surge resources and streamline the
application process for SIV applicants. On February 2, the Department of State
resumed SIV interviews in Kabul. State doubled the number of SIV adjudicators at
Embassy Kabul and quintupled the number of staff processing SIV applications—from
10 to 50—in Washington, D.C. As a result of this surge, the United States went from
issuing 100 SIVs a week in March to more than 1000 a week in July, and, working with
Congress to streamline the process, reduced the average SIV processing time by more
than one year. In July, the United States issued a record number of SIVs to our Afghan
allies and began running the first ever SIV relocation flights.
From the beginning, President Biden directed that preparations for a potential U.S.
withdrawal include planning for all contingencies—including a rapid deterioration of the
security situation—even though intelligence at the time deemed this situation unlikely.
In March, before he had made his final decision, the President directed his top national
security officials—including the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the
National Security Advisor, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Director for
National Intelligence—to begin withdrawal planning and account for a full range of
contingencies. Once the President made his final decision, national security teams
accelerated the planning that was already underway. Throughout the spring and
summer, the National Security Council (NSC) staff hosted dozens of high-level planning
meetings, formal rehearsals of the withdrawal, and tabletop exercises to explore
scenarios for an evacuation as part of responsible planning for a range of
contingencies, even those that were actually worse than the worst-case predictions.
Throughout this period, a Non-Combatant Evacuation Operation (NEO) was treated as
a distinct possibility and the national security team started planning for it. In March,
departments and agencies were tasked with outlining plans for multiple scenarios,
including a security environment that would require the departure of all U.S. personnel
from Afghanistan. In April, departments and agencies were specifically tasked with
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updating the NEO planning documents. In May, NSC staff held a senior interagency
meeting that included a discussion of several specific complex issues related to a NEO,
including timing, evacuee destination sites, processing, vetting, and transport logistics.
It was agreed that—because of the extreme complexity and careful planning required—
a dedicated group of interagency experts would regularly convene to conduct NEO
planning. In a meeting of national security leadership that same month, departments
and agencies were tasked with ensuring relocation plans were ready in the event of a
significant deterioration in the security situation.
In line with that planning, in early summer, President Biden directed military assets to be
prepositioned in the region to be able to help with an evacuation on short notice. It was
this decision that later enabled the United States to respond and deploy quickly enough
to facilitate the successful evacuation of over 124,000 American citizens, permanent
residents, Afghan partners, and allies.
President Biden took the advice of his military commanders on the tactical decisions
regarding the operational retrograde of U.S. forces from Afghanistan, including the
dates they closed facilities, and he regularly asked them if there was anything else they
needed.
As planning intensified throughout the late spring and early summer, intelligence reports
continued to suggest that—even if the Taliban made gains in some Afghan provinces—
the capital, Kabul, would be more difficult for the Taliban to take and the ANDSF would
defend it. In addition, President Biden urged the Afghan government to take steps to
harden the resolve of the Afghan forces, including by empowering Acting Defense
Minister Bismillah Khan Mohammadi—who U.S. commanders had assessed to be a
capable combat leader— and pressed current and former Afghan officials to project a
united front of support for the Afghan forces.
As this experience underscored, when conducting contingency planning, it is necessary
to plan early and extensively for low probability, high-risk scenarios. In addition, in light
of the challenges of assessing psychological factors like “willingness to fight,” it is
especially important to incorporate creative analytic exercises in planning. Some of the
most accurate insights that surfaced in the months of planning on Afghanistan came
from conducting simulation exercises. Our experience in Afghanistan directly informed
the Administration’s decision to set up a small group of experts (“tiger team”) for
worst-case scenario planning on Ukraine—including simulation exercises—months
ahead of Russia’s invasion. We were ultimately relieved that, due to the bravery of the
Ukrainian people, the leadership of President Zelenskyy, and the rallying of support
from allies and partners with U.S. leadership, Russia’s invasion has failed to achieve its
objectives. But we were ready for a range of contingencies, and we remain ready.
Warning about Potential Evacuation
As the security situation in Afghanistan worsened over the summer, the Administration
grappled with the tension between highlighting growing warning signs of potential
collapse and undermining confidence in the Government of Afghanistan and Afghan
forces’ will to fight. Whenever a government is threatened by the prospect of collapse—
whether in Afghanistan or elsewhere—there is an obvious tension between signaling
confidence in the capabilities of the current government and providing warning of the
risks that it might fail.
Ultimately, the Administration made a decision to engage in unprecedently extensive
targeted outreach to Americans and Afghan partners about the risk of collapse,
including numerous security alerts and tens of thousands of direct phone calls and
messages to U.S. citizens in particular to leave Afghanistan, but to not broadcast loudly
and publicly about a potential worst-case scenario unfolding in order to avoid signaling a
lack of confidence in the ANDSF or the Afghan government’s position. This calculus
was made based on the prevailing intelligence and military view throughout the early
weeks of August that Kabul would hold beyond the end of the withdrawal. As Director
of National Intelligence Avril Haines stated on August 18, 2021, “[the collapse] unfolded
more quickly than [the Intelligence Community] anticipated.” In fact, the collapse was
more rapid than either the Taliban or the Afghan government expected.
In a destabilizing security environment, we now err on the side of aggressive
communication about risks. We did this in advance of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Months before the invasion, we proactively released intelligence with trusted partners.
That engagement broadened—and grew louder and more public—in the weeks leading
up to Russia’s invasion. This approach met strong objections from senior officials in the
Ukrainian government who were concerned such warnings would spark panic and
precipitate capital flight, damaging the Ukrainian economy. However, our clear and
unvarnished warnings enabled the United States to take advantage of a critical window
before the invasion to organize with our allies, plan the swift execution of our response,
and enable Americans in Ukraine to depart safely.
Triggering the Evacuation
Beginning in March, NSC staff led a rigorous process of reviewing conditions at the U.S.
Embassy to ensure the safety of all official U.S. personnel in Kabul, consistent with our
approach to all U.S. diplomatic posts around the world. A drawdown of U.S. personnel
on the ground was undertaken consistent with the threat environment, but core
personnel remained. Even as many Embassy personnel returned to the United States,
we sent more consular officers to Kabul to process SIV applications. The
Administration also made a decision to operate regular flights of SIVs starting in July,
rather than initiate a massive airlift evacuation at that time, in the expectation of
continuing embassy operations and SIV departures after the military withdrawal was
complete.
Intelligence indicated that the ANDSF would likely defend Kabul, and an order to begin
the NEO unnecessarily could have triggered a collapse by undermining confidence in
the ANDSF. Chairman Milley testified on September 28, 2021, that “[even during that
time, there was] no intel assessment that says the government’s going to collapse and
the military’s going to collapse in 11 days… [At that time, the assessments] are still
talking weeks, perhaps months.”
On August 6, the first provincial capital fell. As the Taliban gained control of territory,
President Biden asked his top national security leaders to assess whether to formally
begin the NEO. NSC convened a senior interagency meeting on August 8, which
unanimously recommended against beginning the NEO based on conditions on the
ground. National security leaders met on August 9 and concluded conditions on the
ground did not support triggering a NEO. On August 11, at the recommendation of his
senior military advisors, the President authorized the deployment of pre-planned assets
and personnel for a range of contingences. The President stayed in close contact with
his team, confirming daily they had what they needed. On August 13 and 14, Kabul
came under direct threat. On August 14, President Biden announced that, at the
recommendation of his diplomatic, military, and intelligence teams, he had formally
initiated the NEO and ordered the deployment of additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan
to support the evacuation.
We now prioritize earlier evacuations when faced with a degrading security situation.
We did so in both Ethiopia and Ukraine. When the capitals of both countries were
threatened, the President directed adjustments in the posture of the embassies by
drawing down or evacuating embassy personnel. In Ethiopia, we drew down all nonemergency personnel at the Embassy well in advance of any potential threat. We did
this despite the vigorous objections of the Ethiopian government. In Ukraine, we
decided to evacuate personnel nearly two weeks before Russia’s invasion, despite
concerns by some close allies, partners, and the Ukrainians themselves that doing so
would undermine confidence in Ukraine. This decision resulted in an orderly departure
and enabled our teams to safely carry out critical functions remotely for nearly three
months.
The Evacuation and the Attack at Abbey Gate
As a result of several months of contingency planning, troops had already been
prepositioned near Afghanistan in case they were needed, and the additional forces that
President Biden deployed on August 14 were on the ground in Kabul within 48 hours.
Within 72 hours they had secured Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA) so that
flights could resume.
Once the evacuation had been initiated, President Biden repeatedly gave clear direction
to prioritize force protection, relying on the advice of his senior military officials on how
best to proceed on operational decisions. As Secretary Blinken testified on September
14, 2021, “Because of that [earlier] planning [for a wide range of contingencies], we
were able to draw down our Embassy and move our remaining personnel to the airport
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within 48 hours.” The U.S. Government facilitated the safe departure of remaining
personnel and their families, roughly 2,500 people during the evacuation. To manage
the potential threat of a terrorist attack, the President repeatedly asked whether the
military required additional support to carry out their mission at HKIA. Senior military
officials confirmed that they had sufficient resources and authorities to mitigate threats,
including those posed by ISIS-K.
On August 25, the President was advised by senior military officials that continuing
evacuations for 48 more hours presented manageable risk to the force and the highest
possibility of success in evacuating American citizens and Afghan partners. The entire
national security team, including senior military officials, supported this commitment to
continuing operations, despite known risks, and the President accepted the
recommendation to extend evacuation operations for this period.
During the NEO, specific decisions about which gates would be used to access the
airport were made by commanders on the ground. On the afternoon of August 25, the
commanders decided to keep Abbey Gate open to facilitate the evacuation of U.K.
forces and Afghan partners. According to the 2021 U.S. Central Command report, “If
the JTF-CR [Joint Task-Force-Crisis Response] Commander decide to close Abbey
Gate while U.K. Forces were still processing evacuees, it would have isolated them at
Baron Hotel.” On the evening of August 26, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive
outside of Abbey Gate, killing 13 service members and 170 Afghans, while injuring 45
other service members, a tragic human toll. We continue to mourn the loss of the 13
heroes and vow to continue to support their families and the injured who survived. After
the horrific attack at Abbey Gate, the President consulted senior military officials on
whether to end the NEO immediately. He was advised the threat to U.S. forces was
manageable and to continue until August 31 to maximize the evacuations of Americans,
allied forces, and Afghan partners.
U.S. forces remained vigilant to protect against further attacks while the evacuation
proceeded. The day after the attack, August 27, the U.S. military launched a drone
strike in Nangarhar Province, killing two high profile ISIS-K individuals. On August 29,
as the evacuation neared completion—and in the aftermath of the horrific Abbey Gate
attack—reports emerged of movements of vehicles and individuals linked to the attack
on Abbey Gate, indicating that a further terrorist attack on U.S. personnel at HKIA could
be imminent. To counter the perceived immediate threat, the U.S. military launched a
drone strike in Kabul that mistakenly killed ten civilians. Among the causes of this tragic
error was that the high-risk and dynamic threat environment led the team to inaccurately
assess that the target posed an imminent threat to those on the ground.
The President received and accepted the unanimous advice of his top national security
officials to end the evacuation on August 31, given the high potential for escalating
attacks on U.S. troops should they stay any longer. From the beginning of the
evacuation on August 14 to its completion on August 31, U.S. military and civilian
personnel engaged in an around the clock effort to execute the largest airlift of noncombatants in U.S. history. As Secretary Austin explained on September 28, 2021, “On
military aircraft alone, we flew more than 387 sorties, averaging nearly 23 per day. At
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the height of this operation an aircraft was taking off every 45 minutes. And not a single
sortie was missed for maintenance, fuel, or logistical problems. It was the largest airlift
conducted in U.S. history, and it was executed in 17 days.”
The Department of Defense conducted detailed after-action reviews of the tragic attack
that took American and other lives at Abbey Gate and of the drone strike that tragically
killed ten civilians, and implemented their lessons learned. After the Kabul strike, the
Secretary of Defense ordered a 90-day review of how the Department of Defense could
better avoid civilian casualties in its activities, and has implemented new policies to do
so.
Keeping Our Promise to American Citizens and Afghan Partners
When President Biden made his decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan, he
made a commitment to provide every American who wanted to leave the opportunity to
leave. This was an unprecedented commitment—one that the United States has not
made in previous situations like Libya, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen, and Somalia when we
shut down U.S. embassies. In addition, because Americans are not required to register
with our embassies whenever they travel to, leave, or reside in a foreign country, it is
impossible to know with precision how many Americans are in a given country at a
given time. The U.S. Government went to extraordinary lengths to make good on this
promise. As Secretary Blinken testified on September 13, 2021, “We were intensely
focused on the safety of Americans in Afghanistan. In March, we began urging them to
leave the country. In total, between March and August, we sent 19 specific messages
with that warning, as well as offers of help, including financial assistance to pay for
plane tickets.” From August 14 through August 31, the Department reached out directly
to every American known to the U.S. Government, repeatedly and through multiple
channels—making 55,000 phone calls and sending 33,000 e-mails during those 17 days
alone—to help facilitate evacuations for those who wished to leave. Many were dual
citizens whose families had lived in Afghanistan for generations and chose to stay, and
some have chosen to reenter Afghanistan after the military withdrawal. Ultimately, the
U.S. Government evacuated over 6,000 American citizens from the country. We are
continuing to facilitate the departures of American citizens who chose to stay or
returned to Afghanistan despite our grave warnings. Since August 31, 2021 we have
facilitated the departure of more than 950 American citizens who sought assistance to
leave. Many doubted whether President Biden would be able to keep his promise—but
he did.
From the beginning, the President also made clear that the United States was
committed to assisting our Afghan partners. At the President’s direction, the entire
interagency pushed to accelerate the SIV program—and did so, surging resources to
this vital program, restarting SIV interviews paused by the previous administration,
increasing the number of staff processing SIV applications by more than fifteen-fold, and
reviewing every stage of the cumbersome application process. As a result of these
efforts, the U.S. government issued more SIVs in the months leading up to the fall of
Kabul than in any other period in the history of the program.
During the evacuation, approximately 70,000 vulnerable Afghans were evacuated by
the U.S. Government to overseas Defense Department facilities for security screening,
vetting, and the administration of public health vaccinations. The Department of State
began seeking transit agreements for Afghans with third countries in June, secured
agreements with Qatar and Kuwait in July, and negotiated arrangements with other
countries including Germany, Italy, Spain, UAE, Bahrain, Kosovo, and Albania. Setting
up this network of transit sites—“lily pads”—would not have been possible without the
support of international partners across the Middle East and Europe. Afghan evacuees
were then transported by air to eight Department of Defense domestic “safe havens.”
Those in need of special medical care were moved to Walter Reed National Military
Medical Center and nearby hotels. More than 10,000 State, Defense, and Homeland
Security personnel supported this unprecedented humanitarian effort. Veterans groups,
non-profits, state and local governments, companies, and other organizations worked
around the clock to assist the evacuation effort. From assisting SIV applicants with
paperwork, to donating resources to help resettle families, these partners were and
remain critical to our efforts.
Despite predictions to the contrary, we have and will continue to facilitate the departure
and resettlement of our Afghan partners through Enduring Welcome, our multi-year
effort to relocate those who worked with and for us to the United States through a
variety of legal immigration pathways. We have been proud to welcome approximately
100,000 Afghans as part of Operation Allies Welcome and now with Enduring Welcome.
We are also continuing to harness the resources and expertise we saw emerge during
the evacuations to help new Afghan arrivals and assist those who arrived last year with
integration. With the help of nine domestic refugee resettlement agencies and a
network of about 200 local affiliate organizations, each and every Afghan family has
been resettled into American communities. We also need Congress to act on
legislation, such as the Afghan Adjustment Act, to support those joining new
communities to become well settled and integrated.
We are now deliberate and clear about the support the U.S. government is able to
provide to Americans abroad in challenging country conditions, as well as the limits of
that support. We did this in Ukraine and Ethiopia. We proactively messaged about
risks and explained clearly and repeatedly that those who chose to remain could not
expect the U.S. Government to evacuate them. We also distinguished in our public
messaging between the populations that the U.S. Government could directly evacuate if
needed—primarily our own U.S. Government staff—and others who should heed our
warnings and plan for their own evacuations, such as private American citizens.
Rebuilding Long-Term Capacity
The withdrawal is over, but we need to continue to work to rebuild the systems that we
need to be able to respond to a future crisis. The Trump Administration had hollowed
out much of the career workforce, including at senior levels, at a moment when more
resources were needed. The capacity needed in a crisis is not something that can
simply be “turned on.” The steady state work of developing our workforce, building our
internal processes and forging partnerships is necessary to being able to manage an
unfolding crisis.
We are investing heavily in creating additional capacity: attracting, retaining, and
enhancing talent within the Federal workforce, which we regard as a fundamental
source of strength for our national security. We are also building new kinds of
partnerships. During the withdrawal, the resources and expertise of non-profits,
veterans service groups, companies, and other organizations were critical to our efforts.
Today, we are building on these partnerships to help new Afghan arrivals and assist
those who have already arrived with integration.
Putting the United States on Stronger Footing
When President Biden announced his decision to withdraw U.S. forces from
Afghanistan, some voices doubted that America would be on a safer and stronger
footing as a result. President Biden promised Americans that we would maintain an
enduring capacity to address terrorist threats in Afghanistan without thousands of boots
on the ground. In July 2022, he demonstrated that capability in the successful operation
that killed the emir of al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri. In addition, when the President
Biden made his decision in 2021, he rightly recognized that the terrorist threat of today
is more diverse and diffuse than it was in 2001. His decision to leave Afghanistan freed
up critical military, intelligence, and other resources to counter terrorist threats around
the world, including in Syria, Iraq, Somalia, and Yemen. The Administration has done
so successfully, including by eliminating ISIS leader Hajji Abdullah and a number of top
ISIS leaders in Syria and Somalia through continued U.S. counterterrorism efforts. We
also remain committed to supporting significant humanitarian assistance and standing
up for the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan, and we will continue to condemn
and isolate the Taliban for its appalling human rights record.
More broadly, when the President made the decision to leave Afghanistan, some
worried that doing so could weaken our alliances or put the United States at a
disadvantage on the global stage. The opposite has happened. Our standing around
the world is significantly greater, as evidenced by multiple opinion surveys. Our
alliances are stronger than ever. Finland has been admitted into NATO, and Sweden
will soon be admitted as well. We are strengthening our existing partnerships and
building new ones with nations around the world. On the global stage, America is
leading. We have rallied our allies and partners to support Ukraine and hold Russia
accountable for its aggression—and to rise to compete with China.
It is hard to imagine the United States would have been able to lead the response to
these challenges as successfully—especially in the resource-intensive way that it has—
if U.S. forces remained in Afghanistan today.
Ultimately, after more than twenty years, more than $2 trillion dollars, and standing up
an Afghan army of 300,000 soldiers, the speed and ease with which the Taliban took
control of Afghanistan suggests that there was no scenario—except a permanent and
significantly expanded U.S. military presence—that would have changed the trajectory.
As President Biden said on August 31, 2021, “When I hear that we could’ve, should’ve
continued the so-called low-grade effort in Afghanistan, at low risk to our service
members, at low cost, I don’t think enough people understand how much we have
asked of the 1 percent of this country who put that uniform on, who are willing to put
their lives on the line in defense of our nation…There is nothing low-grade or low-risk or
low-cost about any war.”
Did I say defeat?
Yes I did.
Well, the reality of it is that Trump abandoned the country and was slowed in his surrender by the military, but it was completed by President Biden. Shameful all the way around.
Ironically, the departure from the Central Asian country may have paid off by allowing the US to play the role it is in Ukraine, which is sort of a happy accidental byproduct of it, as well as a monumental misread of events by Putin. The withdrawal was shameful none the less.
The United States and a coalition of Allies, including its principal western allies, on this day in 2003, commenced operations against Iraq. The war commenced with air operations.
The causa belli of the undeclared war was Iraq's lack of cooperation with weapons inspectors.
President Bush went on the air and stated:
At this hour, American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.
Congress is just now considering a bill to deauthorize military force in Iraq, which at this point would be more symbolic than anything else.
The initial invasion went well and swiftly, but the war yielded to a post-war, war, against Islamic insurgents that lasted until 2011. Iraq has remained unstable, but not Baathist, and it has retained democracy, although frequently only barely. Iran has gained influence in the country, which has a large Shiia population, which was not expected.
The war remains legally problematic in that it was a full scale invasion of a foreign power with no declaration of war, setting it apart from any post World War Two war, with perhaps the exception of the war in Afghanistan, that had that feature but lacked such a declaration. At least arguably it was illegal for that reason. Amongst other things, Art 1, Section 8, of the Constitution provides that Congress has the power to:
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
Presidents are the commanders in chief of the armed forces, and in Washington's day actually took to the field with it, so it would not be correct to assume that only Congress can deploy troops, even into harm's way. But full scale wars. . . that seems pretty exclusively reserved to Congress.
The war also came while the U.S. was already fighting, albeit at a low level, in Afghanistan, and the Iraq episode would prove to be a distraction from it, leading in no small part to that first war ended, twenty years later, inconclusively.
The war redrew the political map of the Middle East, which it was intended to do, so to that extent it was at least a partial success, although it took much longer than expected. It's effect on the national deficit, discussed this past week by NPR, is staggering and the nation still is nowhere near paying for it, something that will have very long term consequences for the nation going forward, and providing a reason, amongst others, that undeclared wars should not really be engaged in. Congress, for its part, simply chose not to debate the topic in that context, an abrogation of its duty, although it did authorize military action in another form.
The war contributed to the rise of ISIL, which was later put down. It increased Syrian instability, which has yet to be fully addressed.
It also contributed to a rising tide of military worship in the US, while ironically would be part of the right wing reaction to "forever wars" that gave rise to Donald Trump.
One of only two wars, the other being the First Gulf War, initiated by a Republican President since World War Two, the war had huge initial support from the left and the right, something that many of the same people who supported it later conveniently forgot.
Well, unfortunately, this year has been and will continue to be sufficiently newsworthy war wise that we now have a part two of this thread.
This has been mostly brought about due to the US abandonment of Afghanistan.
August 8, 2021
Taliban v. Afghan Government
Everyone knows the stakes and what is occurring, but the Taliban took the city of Sheberghan yesterday, one of a growing number of cities it's taken.
Some analysts have tried to qualify the increasing number of Taliban captures by noting that these areas are largely unoccupied, and the Afghan commandos are still fighting. But that's trying to put a shine on something that doesn't deserve it. The Afghan forces are collapsing, save for the commandos, now that Western forces have left, tired of what always promised to be a long fight requiring a societal transformation. The U.S. Air Force has increased its missions, somehow, to the region recently, but things look very bad indeed.
August 9, 2021
Lebanon
The Lebanese Maronite Patriarch has called upon the Lebanese army to disarm Hezbollah. This follows upon his earlier statements to the effect that all military power in the country should be in the hands of the army alone, and nobody else, a position well within the confines of Catholic understanding on the legitimacy of militaries being vested in the state. The Maronite Church is in communion with the Catholic Church.
August 12, 2021
Taliban v. Afghan Government
In spite of outnumbering the Taliban and having an air force, the Afghan government's forces are rapidly collapsing and the Taliban is now in control of 2/3s of the country.
The US is clearly not going to reverse its decision to withdraw, but at this point the Taliban takeover of the country is turning into a route, and there should be no doubt that this is a US defeat due to a complete lack of will on the American part to do anything about the situation combined with a bizarre collapse of morale on the Afghan government forces side.
Cont:
US sending troops into Afghanistan to help evacuate embassy staff
Headline from the Trib.
It's Saigon 1975 all over again.
Cont:
The US is sending in 3,000 troops into Afghanistan in order to facilitate the withdrawal from the embassy.
The President of Afghanistan has been transported out of the country.
The US is evacuating its embassy personnel.
Cont:
Official: Taliban to declare Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
August 17, 2021
President Biden delivered a speech yesterday on Afghanistan. He stated:
Good afternoon.
I want to speak today to the unfolding situation in Afghanistan,
the developments that have taken place in the last week and the steps we’re
taking to address the rapidly evolving events.
My national security team and I have been closely monitoring the
situation on the ground in Afghanistan and moving quickly to execute the plans
we had put in place to respond to every contingency, including the rapid
collapse we’re seeing now.
I’ll speak more in a moment about the specific
steps we’re taking. But I want to remind everyone how we got here and what
America’s interests are in Afghanistan.
We went to Afghanistan almost 20 years ago with clear goals: get
those who attacked us on Sept. 11, 2001, and make sure Al Qaeda could not use
Afghanistan as a base from which to attack us again. We did that. We severely
degraded Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. We never gave up the hunt for Osama bin Laden
and we got him.
That was a decade ago. Our mission in Afghanistan was never
supposed to have been nation-building. It was never supposed to be creating a
unified, centralized democracy. Our only vital national interest in Afghanistan
remains today what it has always been: preventing a terrorist attack on
American homeland.
I’ve argued for many years that our mission should be narrowly
focused on counterterrorism, not counterinsurgency or nation-building. That’s why
I opposed the surge when it was proposed in 2009 when I was vice president. And
that’s why as president I’m adamant we focus on the threats we face today, in
2021, not yesterday’s threats.
Today a terrorist threat has metastasized well beyond Afghanistan.
Al Shabab in Somalia, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Al Nusra in Syria,
ISIS attempting to create a caliphate in Syria and Iraq and establishing
affiliates in multiple countries in Africa and Asia. These threats warrant our
attention and our resources. We conduct effective counterterrorism missions
against terrorist groups in multiple countries where we don’t have permanent
military presence. If necessary, we’ll do the same in Afghanistan. We’ve
developed counterterrorism over-the-horizon capability that will allow us to
keep our eyes firmly fixed on the direct threats to the United States in the
region, and act quickly and decisively if needed.
When I came into office, I inherited a deal
that President Trump negotiated with the Taliban. Under his agreement, U.S.
forces would be out of Afghanistan by May 1, 2021, just a little over three
months after I took office. U.S. forces had already drawn down during the Trump
administration from roughly 15,500 American forces to 2,500 troops in country.
And the Taliban was at its strongest militarily since 2001.
The choice I had to make as your president was either to follow
through on that agreement or be prepared to go back to fighting the Taliban in
the middle of the spring fighting season. There would have been no cease-fire
after May 1. There was no agreement protecting our forces after May 1. There
was no status quo of stability without American casualties after May 1. There
was only the cold reality of either following through on the agreement to
withdraw our forces or escalating the conflict and sending thousands more
American troops back into combat in Afghanistan, and lurching into the third decade
of conflict.
I stand squarely behind my decision. After 20 years, I’ve
learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces.
That’s why we’re still there. We were cleareyed about the risks. We planned for
every contingency. But I always promised the American people that I will be
straight with you.
The truth is, this did unfold more quickly than we had
anticipated. So what’s happened? Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled
the country. The Afghan military collapsed, sometimes without trying to fight.
If anything, the developments of the past week reinforced that ending U.S.
military involvement in Afghanistan now was the right decision.
American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and
dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves. We
spent over a trillion dollars. We trained and equipped an Afghan military force
of some 300,000 strong. Incredibly well equipped. A force larger in size than
the militaries of many of our NATO allies. We gave them every tool they could
need. We paid their salaries, provided for the maintenance of their air force,
something the Taliban doesn’t have. Taliban does not have an air force. We
provided close air support. We gave them every chance to determine their own
future. What we could not provide them was the will to fight for that future.
There are some very brave and capable Afghan special forces
units and soldiers. But if Afghanistan is unable to mount any real resistance
to the Taliban now, there is no chance that one year — one more year, five more
years or 20 more years — that U.S. military boots on the ground would have made
any difference.
Here’s what I believe to my core: It is wrong to order American
troops to step up when Afghanistan’s own armed forces would not. The political
leaders of Afghanistan were unable to come together for the good of their
people, unable to negotiate for the future of their country when the chips were
down. They would never have done so while U.S. troops remained in Afghanistan
bearing the brunt of the fighting for them. And our true strategic competitors,
China and Russia, would love nothing more than the United States to continue to
funnel billions of dollars in resources and attention into stabilizing
Afghanistan indefinitely.
When I hosted President Ghani and Chairman
Abdullah at the White House in June, and again when I spoke by phone to Ghani
in July, we had very frank conversations. We talked about how Afghanistan
should prepare to fight their civil wars after the U.S. military departed. To
clean up the corruption in government so the government could function for the
Afghan people. We talked extensively about the need for Afghan leaders to unite
politically. They failed to do any of that. I also urged them to engage in
diplomacy, to seek a political settlement with the Taliban. This advice was
flatly refused. Mr. Ghani insisted the Afghan forces would fight, but obviously
he was wrong.
So I’m left again to ask of those who argue that we should stay:
How many more generations of America’s daughters and sons would you have me
send to fight Afghanistan’s civil war when Afghan troops will not? How many more
lives, American lives, is it worth, how many endless rows of headstones at
Arlington National Cemetery? I’m clear on my answer: I will not repeat the
mistakes we’ve made in the past. The mistake of staying and fighting
indefinitely in a conflict that is not in the national interest of the United
States, of doubling down on a civil war in a foreign country, of attempting to
remake a country through the endless military deployments of U.S. forces. Those
are the mistakes we cannot continue to repeat because we have significant vital
interest in the world that we cannot afford to ignore.
I also want to acknowledge how painful this is to so many of us.
The scenes that we’re seeing in Afghanistan, they’re gut-wrenching,
particularly for our veterans, our diplomats, humanitarian workers — for anyone
who has spent time on the ground working to support the Afghan people. For
those who have lost loved ones in Afghanistan, and for Americans who have
fought and served our country in Afghanistan, this is deeply, deeply personal.
It is for me as well.
I’ve worked on these issues as long as anyone. I’ve been
throughout Afghanistan during this war, while the war was going on, from Kabul
to Kandahar, to the Kunar Valley. I’ve traveled there on four different
occasions. I’ve met with the people. I’ve spoken with the leaders. I spent time
with our troops, and I came to understand firsthand what was and was not
possible in Afghanistan. So now we’re focused on what is possible.
We will continue to support the Afghan people. We will lead with
our diplomacy, our international influence and our humanitarian aid. We’ll
continue to push for regional diplomacy and engagement to prevent violence and
instability. We’ll continue to speak out for the basic rights of the Afghan
people, of women and girls, just as we speak out all over the world.
I’ve been clear, the human rights must be the center of our
foreign policy, not the periphery. But the way to do it is not through endless
military deployments. It’s with our diplomacy, our economic tools and rallying
the world to join us.
Let me lay out the current mission in Afghanistan: I was asked
to authorize, and I did, 6,000 U.S. troops to deploy to Afghanistan for the
purpose of assisting in the departure of U.S. and allied civilian personnel from
Afghanistan, and to evacuate our Afghan allies and vulnerable Afghans to safety
outside of Afghanistan. Our troops are working to secure the airfield and
ensure continued operation on both the civilian and military flights. We’re
taking over air traffic control. We have safely shut down our embassy and
transferred our diplomats. Our diplomatic presence is now consolidated at the
airport as well.
Over the coming days we intend to transport
out thousands of American citizens who have been living and working in
Afghanistan. We’ll also continue to support the safe departure of civilian
personnel — the civilian personnel of our allies who are still serving in
Afghanistan. Operation Allies Refuge, which I announced back in July, has
already moved 2,000 Afghans who are eligible for special immigration visas and
their families to the United States. In the coming days, the U.S. military will
provide assistance to move more S.I.V.-eligible Afghans and their families out
of Afghanistan.
We’re also expanding refugee access to cover other vulnerable
Afghans who work for our embassy. U.S. nongovernmental organizations and
Afghans who otherwise are a great risk in U.S. news agencies — I know there are
concerns about why we did not begin evacuating Afghan civilians sooner. Part of
the answer is some of the Afghans did not want to leave earlier, still hopeful
for their country. And part of it because the Afghan government and its
supporters discouraged us from organizing a mass exodus to avoid triggering, as
they said, a crisis of confidence.
American troops are performing this mission as professionally
and as effectively as they always do. But it is not without risks. As we carry
out this departure, we have made it clear to the Taliban: If they attack our
personnel or disrupt our operation, the U.S. presence will be swift, and the
response will be swift and forceful. We will defend our people with devastating
force if necessary. Our current military mission is short on time, limited in
scope and focused in its objectives: Get our people and our allies as safely
and quickly as possible. And once we have completed this mission, we will
conclude our military withdrawal. We will end America’s longest war after 20
long years of bloodshed.
The events we’re seeing now are sadly proof that no amount of
military force would ever deliver a stable, united, secure Afghanistan, as
known in history as the graveyard of empires. What’s happening now could just
as easily happen five years ago or 15 years in the future. We have to be
honest, our mission in Afghanistan made many missteps over the past two
decades.
I’m now the fourth American president to preside over war in
Afghanistan. Two Democrats and two Republicans. I will not pass this
responsibility on to a fifth president. I will not mislead the American people
by claiming that just a little more time in Afghanistan will make all the
difference. Nor will I shrink from my share of responsibility for where we are
today and how we must move forward from here. I am president of the United
States of America, and the buck stops with me.
I’m deeply saddened by the facts we now face. But I do not
regret my decision to end America’s war-fighting in Afghanistan and maintain a
laser focus on our counterterrorism mission, there and other parts of the
world. Our mission to degrade the terrorist threat of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan
and kill Osama bin Laden was a success. Our decades-long effort to overcome
centuries of history and permanently change and remake Afghanistan was not, and
I wrote and believed it never could be.
I cannot and will not ask our troops to fight on endlessly in
another country’s civil war, taking casualties, suffering life-shattering
injuries, leaving families broken by grief and loss. This is not in our
national security interest. It is not what the American people want. It is not
what our troops who have sacrificed so much over the past two decades deserve.
I made a commitment to the American people when I ran for president that I
would bring America’s military involvement in Afghanistan to an end. While it’s
been hard and messy and, yes, far from perfect, I’ve honored that commitment.
More importantly, I made a commitment to the
brave men and women who serve this nation that I wasn’t going to ask them to
continue to risk their lives in a military action that should’ve ended long
ago. Our leaders did that in Vietnam when I got here as a young man. I will not
do it in Afghanistan.
I know my decision will be criticized. But I would rather take
all that criticism than pass this decision on to another president of the
United States, yet another one, a fifth one. Because it’s the right one, it’s
the right decision for our people. The right one for our brave service members
who risked their lives serving our nation. And it’s the right one for America.
Thank you. May God protect our troops, our
diplomats and all brave Americans serving in harm’s way.
While a little surreal, given that President Biden is carrying out, albeit badly, what President Trump set in motion, and which was also set to conclude badly, former President Trump has called on President Biden to resign "in disgrace".
I'd concur that the situation is disgraceful, but it's a disgrace they both share.
The putative Emirate declared an "amnesty" and invited women to join their new government, but in keeping with Sharia law. It's unclear what this means.
The United Nations called for an end to the fighting and for the government to be inclusive.
August 19, 2021
President Biden stated yesterday that US troops would remain in Afghanistan until all American citizens are out of the country.
August 27, 2021
And this just gets more and more pathetic, in the true and original meaning of the word.
The debacle of surrender to the Taliban, and this is effectively what is occurring, saw the predictable death of American servicemen at the apparent hands of a new Afghanistan based terrorist group. That's tragic in and of itself, but it also emphasizes that this is a massive American retreat.
And it's a retreat shared by two Presidents. President Trump got it rolling last year with his abandonment and absurd negotiations with the Taliban, and it is being completed by President Biden. Those yelling at Biden now, and he deserves to be yelled at, seem to forget that this debacle was commenced by Trump.
August 28, 2021
One of the Marines killed in the ISIL-K attack in Afghanistan was from Bondurant Wyoming.
Governor Gordon Orders Flags
Be Flown at Half-Staff Statewide Through August 30
CHEYENNE, Wyo. - Governor Mark Gordon, pursuant to President Joe
Biden's Proclamation, has ordered both the U.S. and State of Wyoming flags be
flown at half-staff statewide immediately to honor and
pay our respects to the U.S. service members and other victims killed in the
terrorist attack on August 26, 2021, in Kabul, Afghanistan. Flags should remain
lowered until sunset on August 30, 2021.
The Presidential Proclamation follows:
HONORING THE VICTIMS OF THE ATTACK IN
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN
- - - - - - -
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION
As a mark of respect for the U.S. service members and other
victims killed in the terrorist attack on August 26, 2021,
in Kabul, Afghanistan, by the authority vested in me as
President of the United States by the Constitution and the laws
of the United States of America, I hereby order that the flag
of the United States shall be flown at half-staff at the
White House and upon all public buildings and grounds, at all
military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels of
the Federal Government in the District of Columbia and
throughout the United States and its Territories and possessions
until sunset, August 30, 2021. I also direct that the flag
shall be flown at half-staff for the same length of time at all
United States embassies, legations, consular offices, and other
facilities abroad, including all military facilities and naval
vessels and stations.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
twenty-sixth day of August, in the year of our Lord
two thousand twenty-one, and of the Independence of the
United States of America the two hundred and forty-fifth.
--END--
The US carried out a retaliatory drone strike in ISIL-K and the President vowed to hunt down the perpetrators of the attack.
August 30, 2021
A drone strike apparently thwarted a second ISIL-K attack yesterday.
The weekend news shows were extremely interesting. Secretary Blinken was making the rounds with his excuses, something he's been having to do the last couple of weeks. He was grilled on stating that the Taliban had provided "assurances" that anyone wishing to leave Afghanistan could do so. 100,000 Afghans have already left via airport evacuations, an amazing number. Blinken came across poorly, as the line he has to feed isn't credible.
Former National Security Adviser H. R. McMasters was on Meet The Press and was very interesting.
One thing that's become very obvious is that the Biden Administration, and the late Trump Administration, expected Afghanistan to fall, just not as quickly as it did, meaning they were essentially taking the same approach there that the US did in leaving Vietnam. Of note, more than one security official was of the view that a minimal ongoing US troop commitment would have allowed the government to survive indefinitely.
August 31, 2021
In a final set of days marked by disgrace, the United States completed its withdrawal from the country.
The last U.S. soldier in the country, at least officially, was Army Maj. Gen. Chris Donahue.
September 1, 2021
President Biden, yesterday:
THE PRESIDENT: Last night in Kabul, the United States ended 20 years of war in Afghanistan — the longest war in American history.
We completed one of the biggest airlifts in history, with more than 120,000 people evacuated to safety. That number is more than double what most experts thought were possible. No nation — no nation has ever done anything like it in all of history. Only the United States had the capacity and the will and the ability to do it, and we did it today.
The extraordinary success of this mission was due to the incredible skill, bravery, and selfless courage of the United States military and our diplomats and intelligence professionals.
For weeks, they risked their lives to get American citizens, Afghans who helped us, citizens of our Allies and partners, and others onboard planes and out of the country. And they did it facing a crush of enormous crowds seeking to leave the country. And they did it knowing ISIS-K terrorists — sworn enemies of the Taliban — were lurking in the midst of those crowds.
And still, the men and women of the United States military, our diplomatic corps, and intelligence professionals did their job and did it well, risking their lives not for professional gains but to serve others; not in a mission of war but in a mission of mercy. Twenty servicemembers were wounded in the service of this mission. Thirteen heroes gave their lives.
I was just at Dover Air Force Base for the dignified transfer. We owe them and their families a debt of gratitude we can never repay but we should never, ever, ever forget.
In April, I made the decision to end this war. As part of that decision, we set the date of August 31st for American troops to withdraw. The assumption was that more than 300,000 Afghan National Security Forces that we had trained over the past two decades and equipped would be a strong adversary in their civil wars with the Taliban.
That assumption — that the Afghan government would be able to hold on for a period of time beyond military drawdown — turned out not to be accurate.
But I still instructed our national security team to prepare for every eventuality — even that one. And that’s what we did.
So, we were ready when the Afghan Security Forces — after two decades of fighting for their country and losing thousands of their own — did not hold on as long as anyone expected.
We were ready when they and the people of Afghanistan watched their own government collapse and their president flee amid the corruption and malfeasance, handing over the country to their enemy, the Taliban, and significantly increasing the risk to U.S. personnel and our Allies.
As a result, to safely extract American citizens before August 31st — as well as embassy personnel, Allies and partners, and those Afghans who had worked with us and fought alongside of us for 20 years — I had authorized 6,000 troops — American troops — to Kabul to help secure the airport.
As General McKenzie said, this is the way the mission was designed. It was designed to operate under severe stress and attack. And that’s what it did.
Since March, we reached out 19 times to Americans in Afghanistan, with multiple warnings and offers to help them leave Afghanistan — all the way back as far as March. After we started the evacuation 17 days ago, we did initial outreach and analysis and identified around 5,000 Americans who had decided earlier to stay in Afghanistan but now wanted to leave.
Our OperationAllies Refuge ended up getting more than 5,500 Americans out. We got out thousands of citizens and diplomats from those countries that went into Afghanistan with us to get bin Laden. We got out locally employed staff of the United States Embassy and their families, totaling roughly 2,500 people. We got thousands of Afghan translators and interpreters and others, who supported the United States, out as well.
Now we believe that about 100 to 200 Americans remain in Afghanistan with some intention to leave. Most of those who remain are dual citizens, long-time residents who had earlier decided to stay because of their family roots in Afghanistan.
The bottom line:Ninety-eight percent of Americans in Afghanistan who wanted to leave were able to leave.
And for those remaining Americans, there is no deadline. We remain committed to get them out if they want to come out. Secretary of State Blinken is leading the continued diplomatic efforts to ensure a safe passage for any American, Afghan partner, or foreign national who wants to leave Afghanistan.
In fact, just yesterday, the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution that sent a clear message about what the international community expects the Taliban to deliver on moving forward, notably freedom of travel, freedom to leave. And together, we are joined by over 100 countries that are determined to make sure the Taliban upholds those commitments.
It will include ongoing efforts in Afghanistan to reopen the airport, as well as overland routes, allowing for continued departure to those who want to leave and delivery of humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan.
The Taliban has made public commitments, broadcast on television and radio across Afghanistan, on safe passage for anyone wanting to leave, including those who worked alongside Americans. We don’t take them by their word alone but by their actions, and we have leverage to make sure those commitments are met.
Let me be clear: Leaving August the 31st is not due to an arbitrary deadline; it was designed to save American lives.
My predecessor, the former President, signed an agreement with the Taliban to remove U.S. troops by May the 1st, just months after I was inaugurated. It included no requirement that the Taliban work out a cooperative governing arrangement with the Afghan government, but it did authorize the release of 5,000 prisoners last year, including some of the Taliban’s top war commanders, among those who just took control of Afghanistan.
And by the time I came to office, the Taliban was in its strongest military position since 2001, controlling or contesting nearly half of the country.
The previous administration’s agreement said that if we stuck to the May 1st deadline that they had signed on to leave by, the Taliban wouldn’t attack any American forces, but if we stayed, all bets were off.
So we were left with a simple decision: Either follow through on the commitment made by the last administration and leave Afghanistan, or say we weren’t leaving and commit another tens of thousands more troops going back to war.
That was the choice — the real choice — between leaving or escalating.
I was not going to extend this forever war, and I was not extending a forever exit. The decision to end the military airlift operations at Kabul airport was based on the unanimous recommendation of my civilian and military advisors — the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and all the service chiefs, and the commanders in the field.
Their recommendation was that the safest way to secure the passage of the remaining Americans and others out of the country was not to continue with 6,000 troops on the ground in harm’s way in Kabul, but rather to get them out through non-military means.
In the 17 days that we operated in Kabul after the Taliban seized power, we engaged in an around-the-clock effort to provide every American the opportunity to leave. Our State Department was working 24/7 contacting and talking, and in some cases, walking Americans into the airport.
Again, more than 5,500 Americans were airlifted out. And for those who remain, we will make arrangements to get them out if they so choose.
As for the Afghans, we and our partners have airlifted 100,000 of them. No country in history has done more to airlift out the residents of another country than we have done. We will continue to work to help more people leave the country who are at risk. And we’re far from done.
For now, I urge all Americans to join me in grateful prayer for our troops and diplomats and intelligence officers who carried out this mission of mercy in Kabul and at tremendous risk with such unparalleled results: an airma- — an airlift that evacuated tens of thousands to a network of volunteers and veterans who helpedidentify those needing evacuation, guide them to the airport, and provided them for their support along the way.
We’re going to continue to need their help. We need your help. And I’m looking forward to meeting with you.
And to everyone who is now offering or who will offer to welcome Afghan allies to their homes around the world, including in America: We thank you.
I take responsibility for the decision. Now, some say we should have started mass evacuations sooner and “Couldn’t this have be done — have been done in a more orderly manner?” I respectfully disagree.
Imagine if we had begun evacuations in June or July, bringing in thousands of American troops and evacuating more than 120,000 people in the middle of a civil war. There still would have been a rush to the airport, a breakdown in confidence and control of the government, and it still would have been a very difficult and dangerous mission.
The bottom line is: There is no evacuatio- — evacuation from the end of a war that you can run without the kinds of complexities, challenges, and threats we faced. None.
There are those who would say we should have stayed indefinitely for years on end. They ask, “Why don’t we just keep doing what we were doing? Why did we have to change anything?”
The fact is: Everything had changed. My predecessor had made a deal with the Taliban. When I came into office, we faced a deadline — May 1. The Taliban onslaught was coming.
We faced one of two choices: Follow the agreement of the previous administration and extend it to have — or extend to more time for people to get out; or send in thousands of more troops and escalate the war.
To those asking for a third decade of war in Afghanistan, I ask: What is the vital national interest? In my view, we only have one: to make sure Afghanistan can never be used again to launch an attack on our homeland.
Remember why we went to Afghanistan in the first place? Because we were attacked by Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda on September 11th, 2001, and they were based in Afghanistan.
We delivered justice to bin Laden on May 2nd, 2011 — over a decade ago. Al Qaeda was decimated.
I respectfully suggest you ask yourself this question: If we had been attacked on September 11, 2001, from Yemen instead of Afghanistan, would we have ever gone to war in Afghanistan — even though the Taliban controlled Afghanistan in 2001? I believe the honest answer is “no.” That’s because we had no vital national interest in Afghanistan other than to prevent an attack on America’s homeland and their fr- — our friends. And that’s true today.
We succeeded in what we set out to do in Afghanistan over a decade ago. Then we stayed for another decade. It was time to end this war.
This is a new world. The terror threat has metastasized across the world, well beyond Afghanistan. We face threats from al-Shabaab in Somalia; al Qaeda affiliates in Syria and the Arabian Peninsula; and ISIS attempting to create a caliphate in Syria and Iraq, and establishing affiliates across Africa and Asia.
The fundamental obligation of a President, in my opinion, is to defend and protect America — not against threats of 2001, but against the threats of 2021 and tomorrow.
That is the guiding principle behind my decisions about Afghanistan. I simply do not believe that the safety and security of America is enhanced by continuing to deploy thousands of American troops and spending billions of dollars a year in Afghanistan.
But I also know that the threat from terrorism continues in its pernicious and evil nature. But it’s changed, expanded to other countries. Our strategy has to change too.
We will maintain the fight against terrorism in Afghanistan and other countries. We just don’t need to fight a ground war to do it. We have what’s called over-the-horizon capabilities, which means we can strike terrorists and targets without American boots on the ground — or very few, if needed.
We’ve shown that capacity just in the last week. We struck ISIS-K remotely, days after they murdered 13 of our servicemembers and dozens of innocent Afghans.
And to ISIS-K: We are not done with you yet.
As Commander-in-Chief, I firmly believe the best path to guard our safety and our security lies in a tough, unforgiving, targeted, precise strategy that goes after terror where it is today, not where it was two decades ago. That’s what’s in our national interest.
And here’s a critical thing to understand: The world is changing. We’re engaged in a serious competition with China. We’re dealing with the challenges on multiple fronts with Russia. We’re confronted with cyberattacks and nuclear proliferation.
We have to shore up America’s competitive[ness] to meet these new challenges in the competition for the 21st century. And we can do both: fight terrorism and take on new threats that are here now and will continue to be here in the future.
And there’s nothing China or Russia would rather have, would want more in this competition than the United States to be bogged down another decade in Afghanistan.
As we turn the page on the foreign policy that has guided our nat- — our nation the last two decades, we’ve got to learn from our mistakes.
To me, there are two that are paramount. First, we must set missions with clear, achievable goals — not ones we’ll never reach. And second, we must stay clearly focused on the fundamental national security interest of the United States of America.
This decision about Afghanistan is not just about Afghanistan. It’s about ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries.
We saw a mission of counterterrorism in Afghanistan — getting the terrorists and stopping attacks — morph into a counterinsurgency, nation building — trying to create a democratic, cohesive, and unified Afghanistan -– something that has never been done over the many centuries ofAfghanistan’s history.
Moving on from that mindset and those kind of large-scale troop deployments will make us stronger and more effective and safer at home.
And for anyone who gets the wrong idea, let me say it clearly. To those who wish America harm, to those that engage in terrorism against us and our allies, know this: The United States will never rest. We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down to the ends of the Earth, and we will — you will pay the ultimate price.
And let me be clear: We will continue to support the Afghan people through diplomacy, international influence, and humanitarian aid. We’ll continue to push for regional diplomacy and engagement to prevent violence and instability. We’ll continue to speak out for basic rights of the Afghan people, especially women and girls, as we speak out for women and girls all around the globe. And I’ve been clear that human rights will be the center of our foreign policy.
But the way to do that is not through endless military deployments, but through diplomacy, economic tools, and rallying the rest of the world for support.
My fellow Americans, the war in Afghanistan is now over. I’m the fourth President who has faced the issue of whether and when to end this war. When I was running for President, I made a commitment to the American people that I would end this war. And today, I’ve honored that commitment. It was time to be honest with the American people again. We no longer had a clear purpose in an open-ended mission in Afghanistan.
After 20 years of war in Afghanistan, I refused to send another generation of America’s sons and daughters to fight a war that should have ended long ago.
After more than $2 trillion spent in Afghanistan — a cost that researchers at Brown University estimated would be over $300 million a day for 20 years in Afghanistan — for two decades — yes, the American people should hear this: $300 million a day for two decades.
If you take the number of $1 trillion, as many say, that’s still $150 million a day for two decades. And what have we lost as a consequence in terms of opportunities? I refused to continue in a war that was no longer in the service of the vital national interest of our people.
And most of all, after 800,000 Americans serving in Afghanistan — I’ve traveled that whole country — brave and honorable service; after 20,744 American servicemen and women injured, and the loss of 2,461 American personnel, including 13 lives lost just this week, I refused to open another decade of warfare in Afghanistan.
We’ve been a nation too long at war. If you’re 20 years old today, you have never known an America at peace.
So, when I hear that we could’ve, should’ve continued the so-called low-grade effort in Afghanistan, at low risk to our service members, at low cost, I don’t think enough people understand how much we have asked of the 1 percent of this country who put that uniform on, who are willing to put their lives on the line in defense of our nation.
Maybe it’s because my deceased son, Beau, served in Iraq for a full year, before that. Well, maybe it’s because of what I’ve seen over the years as senator, vice president, and president traveling these countries.
A lot of our veterans and their families have gone through hell — deployment after deployment, months and years away from their families; missed birthdays, anniversaries; empty chairs at holidays; financial struggles; divorces; loss of limbs; traumatic brain injury; posttraumatic stress.
We see it in the struggles many have when they come home. We see it in the strain on their families and caregivers. We see it in the strain of their families when they’re not there. We see it in the grief borne by their survivors. The cost of war they will carry with them their whole lives.
Most tragically, we see it in the shocking and stunning statistic that should give pause to anyone who thinks war can ever be low-grade, low-risk, or low-cost: 18 veterans, on average, who die by suicide every single day in America — not in a far-off place, but right here in America.
There’s nothing low-grade or low-risk or low-cost about any war. It’s time to end the war in Afghanistan.
As we close 20 years of war and strife and pain and sacrifice, it’s time to look to the future, not the past — to a future that’s safer, to a future that’s more secure, to a future that honors those who served and all those who gave what President Lincoln called their “last full measure of devotion.”
I give you my word: With all of my heart, I believe this is the right decision, a wise decision, and the best decision for America.
Thank you. Thank you. And may God bless you all. And may God protect our troops.
September 6, 2021
Taliban v. Afghan Warlords
The last Afghan province not to be in Taliban control fell yesterday.
September 11, 2021
United States in the Middle East; and
Yemeni Civil War
The United States has pulled its missile defense systems from Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia has been active in the civil war in Yemen and has been receiving occasional missile strikes from inside the country.
September 29, 2021
United States v. Taliban and the United States and China.
Gen. Milley testified yesterday before Congress.
It'll be interesting to see what the reaction to his testimony will be. Right wing Americans have been creeping up on accusing Milley of treason due to his late Trump administration call to the Chinese, which is discussed below, while his testimony yesterday makes it plain that he didn't really agree with the disgraceful American departure from Afghanistan, which the same demographic has been upset about, while at the same time also ignoring Trump's role in brining that about. People, and often the same people, will probably be both praising and condemning what the general had to say.
Here's Gen. Milley testimony before Congress: Text
Of specific interest on Afghanistan:
And perhaps most importantly, for US national security, that Taliban has never renounced Al-Qaeda or broke its affiliation with them. We the United States adhered to every condition. In the fall of 2020 my analysis was that an accelerated withdrawal without meeting specific and necessary conditions risks losing the substantial gains made in Afghanistan, damaging US worldwide credibility, and could precipitate a general collapse of the ANSF and the Afghan government resulting in a complete Taliban takeover or general civil war. That was a year ago. My assessment remained consistent throughout. Based on my advice and the advice of the commanders, then Secretary of Defense, Esper, submitted a memorandum on nine November recommending to maintain US forces at a level between about 2500 and 4500 in Afghanistan until conditions were met for further reduction. Two days later on 11, November, 2020, I received an unclassified signed order directing the United States military to withdraw all forces from Afghanistan no later than 15, January, 2021.
After further discussions regarding the risks associated with such a withdrawal, the order was rescinded. On 17 November we received a order, to reduce levels to 2,500 plus enabling forces no later than 15 January. When president Biden was inaugurated, there were approximately 3,500 US troops, 5,400 NATO troops and 6,300 contractors in Afghanistan with a specified task of train, advise and assist along with a small contingent of counter terrorism forces. The strategic situation at inauguration was stalemate. The Biden administration through the National Security Council process conducted a rigorous interagency review of the situation in Afghanistan in February, March and April. During this process, the views of the joint chiefs of staff, all of us, the CENTCOM commander, General McKenzie, the [US 4A commander 00:33:49], General Miller and myself were all given serious consideration by the administration. We provided a broad range of options and our assessment of their potential outcomes. The cost benefit, risk to-… of their potential outcomes. The cost, benefit, risk to force, and risk to mission were evaluated against the national security objectives of the United States. On 14 April, the president announced his decision, and the US military received a change of mission to retrograde all US military forces, maintain a mall contingency force of 600 to 700 to protect the embassy in Kabul until the Department of State could coordinate contractor security support, and also to assist Turkey to maintain the Karzai International Airport, and transition the US military to an over-the-horizon counterterrorism support and security force assistance. It is clear, it is obvious the war in Afghanistan did not end on the terms we wanted with the Taliban now in power in Kabul. Although the NEO was unprecedented, and is the largest air evacuation history evacuating 124,000 people, it came at an incredible cost of 11 Marines, one soldier, and a Navy corpsman. Those 13 gave their lives so that people they never met will have an opportunity to live in freedom.
And we must remember that the Taliban was and remains a terrorist organization, and they still have not broken ties with Al-Qaeda. I have no illusions who we are dealing with. It remains to be seen whether or not the Taliban can consolidate power, or if the country will further fracture into civil war, but we must continue to protect the United States of America and its people from terror attacks coming from Afghanistan. A reconstituted Al-Qaeda or ISIS with aspirations to attack the United States is a very real possibility, and those conditions to include activity in ungoverned spaces could present themselves in the next 12 to 36 months. That mission will be much harder now, but not impossible, and we will continue to protect at the American people. Strategic decisions have strategic consequences. Over the course of 4 presidents, 12 secretaries of defense, 7 chairman, 10 CENTCOM commanders, 20 commanders in Afghanistan, hundreds of congressional delegation visits, and 20 years of congressional oversight, there are many lessons to be learned.
Milley on the rapid collapse:
I think, Senator, we absolutely missed the rapid 11-day collapse of the Afghan military and the collapse of their government. I think there was a lot of intelligence that clearly indicated that after we withdrew, that it was a likely outcome of a collapse of the military and collapse of the government. Most of those intelligence assessments indicated that that would occur late fall, perhaps early winter. Kabul might hold till next spring. It depends on when the intel assessment was written. So after we leave, the assessments were pretty consistent that you’d see a general collapse of the government and the military.
Gen. Milley: (56:03) While we were there, though, up through 31 August, there’s no intel assessment that says the government’s going to collapse and the military’s going to collapse in 11 days that I’m aware of. And I’ve read, I think, pretty much all of them. And even as late as the 3rd of August, and there’s another one on the 8th of August, et cetera, they’re still talking weeks, perhaps months, et cetera. General McKenzie can illuminate on his own views on the same topic. He gave his assessments at the same time. And although General Miller did, in many, many assessments, say rapid, fast, hard for collapse, he also centered into the October-November timeframe as opposed to August.
Milley and McKenzie on the Trump Doha Agreement.
Mr. Reed: (44:56) Now, General Milley and General McKenzie, did the Doha Agreement affect the morale of the Afghan forces? I.e., was there a sense now that even though it was months away, that the United States was leaving since we had agreed to leave?
Gen. Milley: (45:17) I’ll let Frank talk the details, but my assessment is yes, Senator, it did affect the morale of the Afghan security forces.
Gen. McKenzie: (45:26) Sir, it’s my judgment that the Doha Agreement did negatively affect the performance of the Afghan forces, in particular by some of the actions that the government of Afghanistan was required to undertake as part of that agreement.
Gen. Milley on the overall defeat.
I mentioned that there’s been four presidents, 20 commanders on the ground, seven or eight chairman as joint chiefs, dozens of secretaries of defense, et cetera. The outcomes like this are not determined in the last five days, the last 20 days, or the last year for that matter. Outcomes in a war like this, an outcome that is a strategic failure, the enemy is in charge in Kabul. There’s no way else to describe that. That outcome is a cumulative effect of 20 years, not 20 days.
General Milley: (02:23:23) There are a huge amount of strategic, operational and tactical lessons that need to be learned from this. Some of them in the military sphere, the narrow military sphere. One of them, for example, is the mirror imaging of the building of the Afghan National Army based on American doctrine, tactics, techniques, and procedures. That made a military that may, I’m going to wait full evaluation, but may have been overly dependent upon us, our presence, contractors, and higher tech systems, in order to fight a counterinsurgency war. That’s one area that needs to be fully explored. Another is the intel. How did we miss collapse of an army in a government that big, that fast in only 11 days? That needs to be pulled apart. Then there are other factors that are not strictly military, but things like the legitimacy of the government, corruption, the parasitic nature of the police forces. That there’s a whole series of 10 or 20 that I wrote down just a week or two ago, that need to be looked at, and looked at in depth, and very seriously and comprehensively over time.
Gen. Milley on some yes and no questions:
Senator Blackburn: (02:40:10) These are yes or no questions, so quick answers are appreciated. General Milley, were there options given for keeping American troops in Afghanistan, rather than the unconditional, chaotic withdrawal?
Senator Blackburn: (02:40:52) Had Bagram stayed open, would our support to the Afghan Air Force have been more effective in your view?
General Milley: (02:40:59) I’m sorry, I didn’t catch the last part.
Senator Blackburn: (02:41:01) If Bagram had stayed open, would our support to the Afghan Air Force have been more effective in your view? Yes or no.
General Milley: (02:41:11) Frankly, I’m not sure on that one, because most of the Afghan Air Force was at different bases, specifically at HKIA.
I haven't discussed the Milley China incident as I haven't thought that there's been enough clarity on it to really comment. Some right wing Americans, as noted, have been accusing him of treason for speaking to his Chinese counterpart during the final days of the Trump Administration.
My take so far is this had been as follows. He had two conversations with
the Chinese, and one with Pelosi. That’s about all we really knew until yesterday, when we got his version.
At a 40,000 foot level, the Chairman assuring a foreign
military that an exercise is just an exercise, probably isn’t outside of his
normal duties, if that’s all he said, and that's what he's represented. That would be in the nature
of avoiding Able Archer type misunderstandings, assuming that a foreign
military leader would really believe what you had to say. I frankly doubt
that if the Chairman calls his Chinese equivalent, that really does much for
the Chinese figure in reality. I.e., if he’s really worried, he probably
doesn’t feel relieved and take the weekend off. Indeed, the fact that you
got a call might make you more nervous than you were before, if you were
nervous.
The Pelosi matter is of a different character. The
Chairman probably has to take a call from senior members of Congress, but the
question is what was really said. We know what Woodward said was said in his book, which brought this to a head,
but we don’t really know what was said in context. What Miley says is that Pelosi quested Trum's mental state, and that he didn't comment on that and noted that he wasn't qualified to do so. He assured her that there are procedures in place to revent an "illegal" launching of nuclear weapons.
Of course, without answering the question, or venturing an
opinion, lurking in the background of this is the question of what occurs if
the Chairman is truly fearful that a President (we’ll make it abstract, just
“a” President) has actually gone unhinged and is about to engage in an unlawful
act using the military.
I.e, would using the military to launch a war by
an unhinged occupant of the Oval Office be an unlawful act, and if you know
that this is what was occurring, what would your duty have been as
Chairman? The question there would be whether a Chairman in this position
would be justified in determining not to follow the orders, if he could, or to
inform other civilian authorities of his fears.
I'll further note that in my view using a nuclear weapon in a first strike would always be an unquetionably illegal act, although my view is a minority view.
I'll further note that no matter what Gen. Milley may have told Congressman Pelosi, a President may very clearly launch a nuclear strike on his own initiative. That's the problem.
I guess while treading onto dangerous ground, I’ll note
this, although it really puts me out on to thin ice and I’m risking making
everyone mad. Theodore Roosevelt was 42 years old when he became
President. Franklin Roosevelt was 51. Ronald Reagan, who seemed
ancient at the time, was 69.
Most Presidents have been in their 50s when they took
office.
There's a reason for that.
It's only in the last decade, as baby boomers reached their
70s, that we’ve suddenly started electing really old men as President.
Trump was old (70 when he took office), and he was competing against Clinton
who didn’t graduate from high school yesterday. Biden is old. Trump
is claiming he’ll run again and Biden has asserted he will too. Locally,
the legislature here is thinking about upping the judicial retirement age from
70 to 75. Statistically 25% of people in their 70s have some mental
impairment to some degree (again, not wanting to make everyone mad), and
upwards of 50% do once people hit their 80s. In the 60s, it’s 1 in 8,
which is relatively low.
I know that the two aren’t directly connected, but for the
last six years I’ve heard plenty of speculation on whether Trump, and then
Biden, have some cerebral impacts of aging going on. In a country where
the median age is 38, the sudden shift to senior leaders in the White House and
Congress to leaders whose median age may be in their 70s, may be creating some
unique problems, and if it keeps up indefinitely, it probably will.
So what's a general to do?
Well, the entire episode may in fact be quite overblown. Here's what Gen. Milley on his China call:.
Thank you, Chairman. And if I could, I know
that there’s some issues in the media that are of deep concern to many members
on the committee, and with your permission, I’d like to address those for a
minute or two. Again, I’ve submitted memorandum for the committee to take a
look at.
Mr. Chairman, I’ve served this nation for 42 years. I’ve spent years in combat,
and I’ve buried a lot of my troops who died while defending this country. My
loyalty to this nation, its people, and the Constitution hasn’t changed and
will never change as long as I have a breath to give. My loyalty is absolute,
and I will not turn my back on the fallen. With respect to the Chinese calls, I
routinely communicated with my counterpart General Li with the knowledge and
coordination of civilian oversight. I am specifically directed to communicate
with the Chinese by Department of Defense guidance, the policy dialogue system.
These military-to-military communications at the highest level are critical to
the security of the United States in order to de-conflict military actions,
manage crisis, and prevent war between great powers that are armed with the
world’s most deadliest weapons. The calls on 30 October and 8 January were
coordinated before and after with Secretary Esper and Acting Secretary Miller’s
staffs and the interagency.
The specific purpose of the October and January calls were generated by
concerning intelligence which caused us to believe the Chinese were worried
about an attack on them by the United States. I know, I am certain, that
President Trump did not intend to attack the Chinese, and it is my directed
responsibility, and it was my directed responsibility by the secretary, to
convey that intent to the Chinese. My task at that time was to de-escalate. My
message, again, was consistent. Stay calm, steady, and de-escalate. We are not
going to attack you. At Secretary of Defense Esper’s direction, I made a call
to General Li on 30 October. Eight people sat in that call with me, and I read
out the call within 30 minutes of the call ending. On 31 December, the Chinese
requested another call with me. The deputy assistant secretary of defense for
Asia Pacific policy helped coordinate my call, which was then scheduled for 8
January, and he made a preliminary call on 6 January.
11 people attended that call with me, and readouts of this call were
distributed to the interagency that same day. Shortly after my call ended with
General Li, I personally informed both Secretary of State Pompeo and White
House Chief of Staff Meadows about the call, among other topics. Soon after
that, I attended a meeting with Acting Secretary Miller, where I briefed him on
the call. Later that same day on 8 January, Speaker of the House Pelosi called
me to inquire about the president’s ability to launch nuclear weapons. I sought
to assure her that nuclear launch is governed by a very specific and deliberate
process. She was concerned and made various personal references characterizing
the president. I explained to her that the president is the sole nuclear launch
authority, and he doesn’t launch them alone, and that I am not qualified to
determine the mental health of the president of the United States.
There are processes, protocols, and procedures in place, and I repeatedly
assured her that there is no chance of an illegal, unauthorized, or accidental
launch. By presidential directive and secretary defense directives, the
chairman is part of the process to ensure the president is fully informed when
determining the use of the world’s deadliest weapons. By law, I am not in the
chain of command, and I know that. However, by presidential directive and DOD
instruction, I am in the chain of communication to fulfill my legal statutory
role as the president’s primary military advisor. After the Speaker Pelosi
call, I convened a short meeting in my office with key members of my staff to
refresh all of us on the procedures which we practiced daily at the action
officer level. Additionally, I immediately informed Acting Secretary of Defense
Miller of Speaker Pelosi’s phone call. At no time was I attempting to change or
influence the process, usurp authority, or insert myself in the chain of
command. But I am expected, I am required, to give my advice and ensure that
the president is fully informed on military matters. I am submitting for the
record a more detailed and unclassified memorandor that I believe you all now
have, although late, and I welcome a thorough walkthrough on every single one
of these events. And I’d be happy in a classified session to talk in detail
about the intelligence that drove these calls. I’m also happy to make available
any email, phone logs, memoranda, witnesses, or anything else you need to
understand these events. My oath is to support the Constitution of the United
States of America against all enemies foreign and domestic, and I will never
turn my back on that oath. I firmly believe in civilian control of the military
as a bedrock principle, essential to the health of this republic, and I’m
committed to ensuring that the military stays clear of domestic politics. I
look forward to your questions, and thank you, Chairman, for the extra time.
September 29, 2021 cont.
United States v. Taliban
For the ultimate Boomer "they're all the Vietnam War" angle on our cut and run from Afghanistan you can check out Slate, the online magazine, which presents the argument that Milley and company said that the Taliban had regarded August 31 as the final terminal withdrawal date from Afghanistan and, the article relates, that Biden knew that leaving any troops behind would have been regarded as a violation of that.
For primitives like the Taliban, I'd note, that might be true, but I'd also note that just argues for abrogating the Doha agreement, which Biden was free to do. It was an agreement, not a treaty.
Anyway, Slate argues that Milley says that this would have requierd the US to commit 30,000 men, and hence Biden wisely avoided a trap.
Slate also states that this goes back to Biden's youth when there were always more men needed to win the Vietnam War.
I don't know if this was Biden's logic, but hence the Boomer problem. At its height, the US had 500,000 men in Vietnam. We never had anywhere near that in Afghanistan. 30,000 men is two American divisions. Not that major of an commitment, frankly.
The article is entitled:
We Now Know Why Biden Was in a Hurry to Exit Afghanistan
He made several missteps, but on the big picture, he was right.
BY FRED KAPLAN
Well, if every war involves the Tet Offensive of 1968, this might be right.
But they don't.
The real problem, unaddressed, with the war in Afghanistan, is Pakistan, fwiw. Pakistan was our supply route, the refuge for the Taliban, and the locus of their intellectual inspiration.
September 30, 2021
United States v. the Taliban.
I watched some of the later testimony on C-Span when it was
rebroadcast in the evening. It was well
worth watching.
At one point both Milley and McKenize summed up what they
think went wrong in Afghanistan. They
way they had it was:
The war
had reached a point of stalemate, and appeared likely to be in that condition indefinitely.
The Doha Agreement was signed and at that point
that changed. The military lost confidence that the US would be there to back
it up and began to erode.
The US, in keeping with the Doha Agreement
withdrew its air support of the Afghan military. That made things worse as the
Afghan military had become accustomed to operating with it. Milley was particularly critical of having
the Afghan military “mirror” the American military.
At that point, Milley was of the view that
retaining 2,500 troops in the country would have kept the status quo
(stalemate) and prevented the country collapsing to the Taliban.
It was Milley’s view that the Taliban would have
regarded that as a violation of the Doha Agreement and would have attacked U.S.
forces. This would have required additional US forces being committed, which
Milley estimated would have brought the number to 4,000 (one publication is
claiming he said 30,000, but that’s not what he said when I heard him so that
must have come from some other statement perhaps in some other context. The
same publication, which is supporting Biden’s decision, specifically related
this to his youth and recollections of the U.S experience in Vietnam in regard
to the military’s estimates of troops required.)
The US actually began to draw down its forces
from Doha forward. They were withdrawn for the most part prior to the disastrous
extraction of civilian personnel. Particularly
surprising to me was the number of contractors removed, which somewhat
outnumbered military personnel at the start, something nobody followed up on
but which Milley noted as particularly significant and which he specifically
pointed out.
In addition, I'd note, the formate of the testimony is odd with each member of the committee limited to five minutes. For the most part the questions were good ones, even though they featured the typical Congressional long rambling introduction into the question which drives trial lawyers nuts. A couple of GOP figures, including Matt Goetz, used their time to launch into attacks on the witnesses, with at least two demanding Gen. Milley's resignation. The Chairman at one point launched into a really long monologue which was ineffective and demonstrated, in my view, a misunderstanding on the point of the hearings, emphasizing his view that Biden was unquestionably right in bringing the war to an end, which at least in my view is in fact pretty questionable.
