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The White Home pushed again on a report launched Sunday by Republican lawmakers criticizing President Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, calling the report partisan and providing “little or nothing new.”
Texas Rep. Mike McCaul, the Republican chair of the committee, launched a GOP-led report disputing Biden’s claims that his arms have been tied to the settlement former President Trump had made with the Taliban establishing a deadline for U.S. withdrawal for the summer season of 2021. It additionally stated State Division officers had no plan for serving to People and allies out whereas there have been nonetheless troops within the area to guard them.
McCaul’s report additionally famous the failure to adequately reply to terror threats forward of the ISIS-Okay bombing at Abbey Gate on the Kabul airport that killed 13 U.S. service members and greater than 150 Afghan civilians, and that the Taliban possible had entry after the withdrawal to $7 billion in deserted U.S. weapons, and as much as $57 million in U.S. funds that have been initially given to the Afghan authorities.
On Monday, White Home Nationwide Safety Council communications adviser John Kirby defended Biden’s dealing with of the withdrawal from Afghanistan throughout a White Home briefing.
HOUSE DEMS ISSUE RESPONSE TO GOP REPORT ON BIDEN’S WITHDRAWAL FROM AFGHANISTAN
U.S. troopers stand guard behind barbed wire as Afghans sit on a roadside close to the army a part of the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, in August 2021. (Wakil Koshar/AFP through Getty Photos)
Kirby informed reporters the GOP report comes two years after their first report, including, “This one says little or nothing new.”
He then supplied a rundown of what he known as “precise info” that he thought-about vital.
“First, on the very day this administration took workplace, the Taliban was within the strongest place it had been in years. The Afghan authorities, the weakest,” Kirby stated. “The Trump administration lower a deal known as the Doha Settlement that mandated a whole U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and sure, that included Bagram Air Base, by the top of Could 2021.”
HOUSE GOP RELEASES SCATHING REPORT ON BIDEN’S WITHDRAWAL FROM AFGHANISTAN
Nationwide Safety Communications Advisor John Kirby pushed again Monday towards a report from GOP lawmakers that criticized the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. (Alex Wong/Getty Photos)
A part of the deal was that 5,000 Taliban fighters could be launched from jail, and in return, the Taliban agreed to not assault U.S. troops, he defined.
Kirby referred to testimony from former commander of U.S. Central Command, Gen. Frank McKenzie, who stated the Doha deal had a very pernicious impact on the Afghan authorities, and it demoralized them.
“They knew proper then and there that America was on its approach out,” Kirby stated. “Certainly, in October of 2020, then-President Trump ordered his army to hurry the exit from Afghanistan and have everyone depart by Christmas of that 12 months.
HOUSE COMMITTEE SUBPOENAS BLINKEN OVER AFGHANISTAN WITHDRAWAL
A U.S. Marine pulls an toddler over a barbed wire fence throughout an evacuation at Hamid Karzai Worldwide Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 19, 2021. (Omar Haidiri/AFP through Getty Photos)
“President Biden, for his half, confronted a stark alternative when he got here to workplace: Abide by the flawed settlement and finish America’s longest battle, or blow up the deal, lengthen the battle, and see a a lot smaller contingent of American troops again in fight with the Taliban,” Kirby added. “He selected the previous and was capable of purchase further time to arrange for that withdrawal all the best way into summer season, and we, as a nation, are safer for it.”
Kirby then introduced up what he known as “falsehoods” from the report. The primary subject he discovered was that there was in truth planning for evacuations starting within the spring of 2021.
Kirby stated the Division of Protection proposed further army items within the area so when a choice was reached to evacuate, they might be poised to reply.
AFGHAN GENERAL SAYS HIS COUNTRY HAS ONCE AGAIN BECOME ‘CRUCIBLE OF TERRORISM’
Afghanistan evacuees board a U.S. Air Pressure C-17 Globemaster III at Hamid Karzai Worldwide Airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 24, 2021. ( Grasp Sgt. Donald R. Allen/U.S. Air Forces Europe-Africa through Getty Photos)
He additionally stated there was no level in securing Bagram Air Base in the course of the evacuation as a result of it will have required 1000’s of further U.S. troops. It might even have required a “harmful trek by evacuees” throughout Taliban territory, making the evacuation much more tough.
Kirby additionally talked about that there was no handover of U.S. tools to the Taliban.
“That tools had been supplied to Afghan safety forces appropriately and with congressional approval over the course of 20 years of battle,” he stated. “That tools was left by these Afghan forces once they surrendered or stopped preventing.”
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Lastly, Kirby informed reporters the Biden administration didn’t deceive, lie or fail to be clear throughout, or after the withdrawal.
“We did the most effective we may day by day to maintain the American folks knowledgeable of what was taking place,” he stated. “We carried out our personal after-action stories and shared these, too, with the general public.”
Fox Information Digital’s Landon Mion contributed to this report.
Greg Wehner is a breaking information reporter for Fox Information Digital.
Story suggestions and might be despatched to Greg.Wehner@Fox.com and on Twitter @GregWehner.
White Home pushes again towards scathing report on Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan
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