Let’s dive into what’s going on here, because this report is a bombshell and digs deep into what went wrong during the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan. Now, this isn’t just a quick glance at events; this is a 350-page dissection of the situation that reveals how mismanagement at every level led to the chaos and heartbreak we all saw.
First up, the report draws an unsettling parallel between Biden’s push to exit Afghanistan and his urgency to pull the U.S. out of Vietnam as a senator back in the 70s. The takeaway here is that Biden’s foreign policy, in the eyes of these Republicans, has a pattern of cutting ties with strategic partners at the worst possible times. This point sets the stage for the rest of the report, which paints a picture of how things went so wrong.
Biden’s administration stuck to the Doha agreement, a deal made between Trump and the Taliban. But here’s the kicker: according to this report, Biden didn’t have to stick to it because the Taliban were already breaking the deal’s conditions.
Yet, he did, keeping Trump’s negotiator, Zalmay Khalilzad, in the picture, signaling continuity in the approach. As it turns out, leaving the Afghan government out of those talks was a massive mistake, further weakening an already fragile regime.
NATO allies weren’t too thrilled either. The British Chief of Defense even warned that pulling out under these conditions would hand a victory straight to the Taliban. This wasn’t just a U.S. problem—our closest partners saw this as a colossal error.
And let’s not gloss over how unprepared the administration was to evacuate Americans and allies from the country. Despite months of warnings, the State Department didn’t act fast enough. Military leaders warned that there weren’t enough troops on the ground to facilitate a safe evacuation, but the State Department brushed these concerns aside, displaying what the report calls a "lack of understanding of the risk."
The worst part of it all? Thousands of Afghans who helped the U.S., like interpreters, were left behind. The bureaucratic process to get them out was painfully slow, and by the time the last U.S. plane left, the majority of those eligible for Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) were stranded. And the U.S. didn’t even seem to know who they were evacuating at some points, processing people with no documentation.
Then came the Abbey Gate bombing—a tragic and preventable disaster. Despite intelligence warnings, the gate was kept open due to requests from British forces, leading to the deaths of 13 U.S. service members and over 150 Afghans. The ISIS-K terror cell responsible for the attack had been operating nearby, and the report notes that the U.S. missed the chance to strike them before the bombing.
In the aftermath, the Taliban wasted no time seizing American weapons and funds, and things have only gotten worse for the Afghan people. Women’s rights have taken a devastating hit, with girls being sold as child brides, and hundreds of former government officials have been executed or disappeared.