State Department report finds both Biden and Trump administrations mishandled Afghanistan withdrawal.

The Aug. 26, 2021, suicide bombings at Kabul Airport killed more than 180 people, including 13 members of the United States military, and marked an ugly end to America’s 20-year war against terror in Afghanistan.

Republicans have clamored for analyses of the blundered withdrawal for nearly two years, although the GOP’s rhetorical chorus has conclusively and uniformly laid sole responsibility for the calamity on the decisions, and alleged distracted indecision, by the Biden administration.

Democrats and Biden administration officials have countered that the genesis of the chaotic August 2021 evacuations was laid when former President Donald Trump signed the Doha Agreement with the Taliban in February 2020, consenting to deplete, and then totally withdraw, U.S. forces by May 2021, a drawdown they say that fostered the rapid deterioration of the Afghan government and turned a planned, orderly departure into a retreat debacle.

According to an 85-page ‘After Action Report’ (AAR) that analyzes the eight-month span between January-August 2021 released by the State Department on June 30, critics on all sides of the blame game are right: decision-makers in both administrations blundered.

“The decisions of both President Trump and President Biden to end the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan had serious consequences for the viability of the Afghan government and its security,” the AAR states in the first of the report’s 28 findings identifying mistakes made by administration officials, by intelligence agencies, by the Pentagon, and within the State Department.

The first finding also acknowledges that individual “decisions of both President Trump and President Biden” are “beyond the scope of this review,” but reflect a collective pattern that “there was insufficient senior-level consideration of worst-case scenarios and how quickly those might follow” within both administrations’ Afghanistan policies.

The report specifically chides the Biden administration for failing to respond quickly to the rapidly deteriorating security situation in Kabul in the summer of 2021 as the Taliban consolidated control of the country and the Afghan government collapsed. It cites miscommunication between the State Department and the Pentagon, between intelligence assessments and reality on the ground, and between those in Kabul and decision-makers in Washington.

Troop ‘Retrograde’ Accelerated Taliban Rout

When Biden assumed the presidency in January 2021, there were 2,500 U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, down from 13,000 in February 2020 when the Doha deal was signed.

On April 1, 2021, Biden said the United States would not begin withdrawing the last 2,500 combat troops in May as planned, but all would be gone by Aug. 31, 2021, to ensure the proper evacuation of American citizens and Afghan allies.

Early that month, only 650 U.S. combat troops remained in Afghanistan, all in Kabul to protect Hamid Karzai International Airport and the U.S. embassy.

The report cites the “retrograde” of U.S. armed forces set in motion by Trump’s Taliban Doha deal as the beginning of the end of the U.S. in Afghanistan.

“Mitigating the loss of the military’s key enablers” was never addressed in any evacuation scenario, which “compounded the difficulties” undermanned State Department officials found themselves as the Taliban closed in on Kabul and thousands of Afghans seeking to escape swelled around the airport.

“The speed of that retrograde compounded the difficulties the [State] Department faced,” the report states, citing the decision by the Biden administration to hand Bagram Air Base over to the Afghan government in July meant Hamid Karzai International Airport would be the only avenue for a noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO).

“U.S. military planning for a possible NEO had been underway for some time, but the Department’s participation in the NEO planning process was hindered by the fact that it was unclear who in the Department had the lead,” the report said.

Much of the confusion in Kabul can be at least partially attributed to instability within the new Biden administration, the AAR states.

During the January-August 2021 span examined in the AAR “many critical domestic and overseas Department positions were not filled by Senate-confirmed appointees, but rather career employees serving in an acting capacity” who “did an outstanding job under difficult circumstances” but were never certain who was in charge of what.

The “prolonged gaps in filling senior domestic or chief of mission positions overseas” contributed to the chaos, the report states, citing the then-vacant South and Central Asian Affairs deputy secretary position as an example of leadership voids that hamstrung the State Department and other agencies in Kabul in August 2021.

“No matter how qualified the ‘acting’ person is, it is not the same as having a confirmed official in position,” the report states.

Troop ‘Retrograde’ Accelerated Taliban Rout

When Biden assumed the presidency in January 2021, there were 2,500 U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, down from 13,000 in February 2020 when the Doha deal was signed.

On April 1, 2021, Biden said the United States would not begin withdrawing the last 2,500 combat troops in May as planned, but all would be gone by Aug. 31, 2021, to ensure the proper evacuation of American citizens and Afghan allies.

Early that month, only 650 U.S. combat troops remained in Afghanistan, all in Kabul to protect Hamid Karzai International Airport and the U.S. embassy.

The report cites the “retrograde” of U.S. armed forces set in motion by Trump’s Taliban Doha deal as the beginning of the end of the U.S. in Afghanistan.

“Mitigating the loss of the military’s key enablers” was never addressed in any evacuation scenario, which “compounded the difficulties” undermanned State Department officials found themselves as the Taliban closed in on Kabul and thousands of Afghans seeking to escape swelled around the airport.

“The speed of that retrograde compounded the difficulties the [State] Department faced,” the report states, citing the decision by the Biden administration to hand Bagram Air Base over to the Afghan government in July meant Hamid Karzai International Airport would be the only avenue for a noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO).

“U.S. military planning for a possible NEO had been underway for some time, but the Department’s participation in the NEO planning process was hindered by the fact that it was unclear who in the Department had the lead,” the report said.

Much of the confusion in Kabul can be at least partially attributed to instability within the new Biden administration, the AAR states.

During the January-August 2021 span examined in the AAR “many critical domestic and overseas Department positions were not filled by Senate-confirmed appointees, but rather career employees serving in an acting capacity” who “did an outstanding job under difficult circumstances” but were never certain who was in charge of what.

The “prolonged gaps in filling senior domestic or chief of mission positions overseas” contributed to the chaos, the report states, citing the then-vacant South and Central Asian Affairs deputy secretary position as an example of leadership voids that hamstrung the State Department and other agencies in Kabul in August 2021.

“No matter how qualified the ‘acting’ person is, it is not the same as having a confirmed official in position,” the report states.

Intelligence Reports Were Wrong

The AAR states the State Department relied on a July 2021 U.S. intelligence assessment that concluded Karzai’s Afghan government could survive between six-and-12 months without U.S. troops.

The report cites another U.S. intelligence assessment issued on Aug. 10, 2021, that said Kabul could hold out at least “30 to 90 days.” In reality, it fell five days later.

“With the sudden collapse of the Afghani government and the Taliban’s entry into Kabul on August 15, 2021,” the report said the State Department was faced with “a task of unprecedented scale and complexity … to coordinate and execute a massive humanitarian airlift and evacuation from a dangerous and often chaotic environment.”

The incorrect intelligence reports and uncertainty within the Biden administration combined to exacerbate the deterioration initiated by the Doha pact, the report said.

“Senior administration officials had not made clear decisions regarding the universe of at-risk Afghans who would be included by the time the operation started nor had they determined where those Afghans would be taken. That added significantly to the challenges the [State] Department and [Department of Defense] faced during the evacuation,” the AAR states.

The AAR praises individual State Department officials on the ground, noting they “responded with great agility, determination, and dedication, while taking on roles and responsibilities both domestically and overseas that few had ever anticipated.”

Nevertheless, the report maintains the State Department specifically and the Biden administration generally should “have been better prepared for a worst-case scenario, especially when it came to planning for a noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO) with the potential to expand into a large humanitarian airlift.”

The report begins with a statement honoring those lost on Aug. 26, 2021, noting they gave their lives to protect people in what is the largest evacuation in U.S. history.