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 palms have been tied to the settlement former President Trump had made with the Taliban establishing a deadline for U.S. withdrawal for the summer time of 2021. It additionally stated State Division officers had no plan for serving to Individuals 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 seemingly 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 Pictures)
Kirby instructed 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 referred to as “actual facts” that he thought of necessary.
“First, on the very day this administration took office, the Taliban was in the strongest position it had been in years. The Afghan government, the weakest,” Kirby stated. “The Trump administration cut a deal called the Doha Agreement that mandated a complete U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and yes, that included Bagram Air Base, by the end of May 2021.”
HOUSE GOP RELEASES SCATHING REPORT ON BIDEN’S WITHDRAWAL FROM AFGHANISTAN
Nationwide Safety Communications Advisor John Kirby pushed again Monday in opposition to a report from GOP lawmakers that criticized the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. (Alex Wong/Getty Pictures)
A part of the deal was that 5,000 Taliban fighters can 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 right then and there that America was on its way out,” Kirby stated. “Certainly, in October of 2020, then-President Trump ordered his army to hurry the exit from Afghanistan and have everyone go away by Christmas of that 12 months.
HOUSE COMMITTEE SUBPOENAS BLINKEN OVER AFGHANISTAN WITHDRAWAL
A U.S. Marine pulls an infant over a barbed wire fence during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 19, 2021. (Omar Haidiri/AFP via Getty Images)
“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 conflict, or blow up the deal, lengthen the conflict, and see a a lot smaller contingent of American troops again in fight with the Taliban,” Kirby added. “He selected the previous and was in a position to purchase extra time to arrange for that withdrawal all the way in which into summer time, and we, as a nation, are safer for it.”
Kirby then brought up what he called “falsehoods” from the report. The first issue he found was that there was in fact planning for evacuations beginning in the spring of 2021.
Kirby said the Department of Defense proposed additional military units in the region so when a decision was reached to evacuate, they would be poised to respond.
AFGHAN GENERAL SAYS HIS COUNTRY HAS ONCE AGAIN BECOME ‘CRUCIBLE OF TERRORISM’
Afghanistan evacuees board a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III at Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 24, 2021. ( Master Sgt. Donald R. Allen/U.S. Air Forces Europe-Africa via Getty Images)
He also said there was no point in securing Bagram Air Base during the evacuation because it would have required thousands of additional U.S. troops. It would also have required a “harmful trek by evacuees” across Taliban territory, making the evacuation even more difficult.
Kirby also mentioned that there was no handover of U.S. equipment to the Taliban.
“That tools had been supplied to Afghan safety forces appropriately and with congressional approval over the course of twenty years of conflict,” he said. “That tools was left by these Afghan forces after they surrendered or stopped preventing.”
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Finally, Kirby told reporters the Biden administration did not deceive, lie or fail to be transparent during, or after the withdrawal.
“We did the very best we may each day to maintain the American folks knowledgeable of what was occurring,” he said. “We performed our personal after-action reviews and shared these, too, with the general public.”
Fox News Digital’s Landon Mion contributed to this report.
