The collapse of the U.S.-backed government was assured once the United States telegraphed its plan to withdraw from Afghanistan, according to a scathing new report from the watchdog that Congress created to oversee the U.S. reconstruction effort there.
The most important factor leading to Afghanistan’s fall to the Taliban was the U.S.-Taliban agreement in February 2020, in which the Trump administration committed to withdrawing U.S. forces, and President Joe Biden’s subsequent announcement that he would honor that plan, says the report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction released today.
Those pronouncements devastated morale among the U.S.-backed Afghan forces, which were heavily reliant on U.S. contractors and troops to keep the Taliban in check.
