The Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives has released initial reports and transcripts of its interviews with some officials involved in the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
According to this report, none of the reasons presented by President Joe Biden regarding the US withdrawal from Afghanistan were accurate.
Michael McCaul, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives, published the committee’s interviews with some American officials responsible for coordinating the evacuation process of non-combatants from Afghanistan.
The committee interviewed and published transcripts with Ross Wilson, former US ambassador to Kabul, and Sam Aranson, a diplomat providing consular services during the withdrawal process.
The committee stated that President Biden, after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, repeatedly claimed in speeches justifying his decision that Afghan government forces could defend their country without direct US military support.
Biden also claimed that the US had achieved its mission objectives in Afghanistan, which included killing Osama bin Laden, the former leader of Al-Qaeda, and rooting out the group.
Furthermore, the committee noted that despite the Doha Agreement signed between the Trump administration and the Taliban in 2020, the US was not compelled to withdraw from Afghanistan.
The committee argued that Biden’s reasons for the US withdrawal from Afghanistan were not valid, citing internal assessments indicating that Afghan forces could not withstand the Taliban without US air support, military advisors, and contractors.
Military leaders and senior NATO allies considered maintaining 2,500 US troops and 6,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan for counter-terrorism missions to be the best option.
Many diplomats in the Biden administration and American military personnel supported a conditional withdrawal from Afghanistan, but Biden rejected all such suggestions.
The committee criticized Biden’s government for delaying the evacuation of Afghan allies, leaving thousands of them stranded in Afghanistan or third countries.
According to the report, Biden’s administration repeatedly misled the American public about the situation in Kabul, issuing statements inconsistent with reports from the State Department and the military.
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