The U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 was the lowest point of Joe Biden’s presidency. The optics, including chaotic scenes at the barricaded Kabul International Airport and desperate Afghans clinging to U.S. transport planes, were grim. The entire withdrawal process was aired live on cable news networks, with former U.S. generals opining about how the U.S. was “abandoning” Afghanistan and its people to a brutal fate under the Taliban.
This grueling experience continues to hang over the Biden administration like a headache that never goes away. But on April 6, the White House sought to issue an antidote in the form of an internal report outlining why the withdrawal proceeded the way it did, who was at fault for the lackluster implementation and what lessons the administration learned in the process. The 12-page summary released to the public was an attempt at closure. Unfortunately, it brought even more problems for the White House.
The document reads less like an impartial record than a defense brief. Seemingly, whatever went wrong during the withdrawal was the prior administration’s fault — and whatever went right, including the fact that more than 120,000 people were airlifted out of Afghanistan, was the result of Biden’s prudent interagency planning.
