The Biden administration has tried to pin the blame on former President Donald Trump and the foolish deal he struck with the Taliban last year for the disaster in Afghanistan. But a new Washington Post report detailing the decisions made by Biden’s team leading up to the fall of Kabul confirms that President Joe Biden is the only one responsible for the foreign policy disaster that has left 13 U.S. soldiers dead and hundreds of Americans stranded behind enemy lines.
The Biden administration was well aware that the Taliban was gaining ground throughout the region before Biden made the call to withdraw most of our military presence and air support from Afghanistan. But, for some reason, Biden’s team had convinced itself that Kabul’s fall was not imminent and that the Afghan military could hold its own — even though all of the available intelligence suggested the opposite. This was Biden’s first error, one that led to the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul and the American lives that have been lost as a result.
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Biden’s second error was just as devastating. The Washington Post reported that after the Afghan president fled the region, the U.S. military met with Taliban leaders and were given a choice: They could use U.S. forces to secure the entirety of Kabul, or they could give control of the city over to the Taliban.
From the report:
“We have a problem,” Baradar said, according to the U.S. official. “We have two options to deal with it: You [the United States military] take responsibility for securing Kabul or you have to allow us to do it.”
McKenzie responded and told the Taliban leader the U.S. only needed to secure the airport. Taliban terrorists then took over the city, set up checkpoints all around the airport, and began to prevent Afghan allies and even American citizens from reaching our forces on their own.
More from the Washington Post:
McKenzie, aware of those orders, told Baradar that the U.S. mission was only to evacuate American citizens, Afghan allies and others at risk. The United States, he told Baradar, needed the airport to do that.
This is damning for both Biden and the military officials who executed his decisions. It is clear that Kabul fell because of Biden’s ignorant confidence in the Afghan military and that the Taliban blocked Americans and Afghans eligible for evacuation from reaching the airport because Biden willingly handed them control of the city. If he had instead kept Kabul under U.S. control, there is a good chance the terrorist attack that cost 13 U.S. service members their lives last week would not have happened.
Biden owns this. His administration, not Trump’s, called the shots that turned our withdrawal into one of the most devastating foreign policy disasters of the last 50 years. And it’s well past time he took full responsibility for it.
