The Biden administration’s review of the Afghanistan withdrawal largely blamed former President Donald Trump.
The document, published Thursday, mentions “Trump” 16 times, and cast criticism on the former administration for leaving “difficult realities” behind for President Joe Biden and “severely” constraining him.
The review criticized Trump for ordering talks with the Taliban, ordering the drawdown of U.S. troops, and negotiating a withdrawal deadline for May 1 of 2021, while not giving Biden plans on how to conduct the final withdrawal during the Trump to Biden transition.
“President Biden had committed to ending the war in Afghanistan, but when he came into office he was confronted with difficult realities left to him by the Trump Administration. President Biden asked his military leaders about the options he faced, including the ramifications of further delaying the deadline of May 1. He pressed his intelligence professionals on whether it was feasible to keep 2,500 troops in Afghanistan and both defend them against a renewed Taliban onslaught and maintain a degree of stability in the country. The assessment from those intelligence professionals was that the United States would need to send more American troops into harm’s way to ensure our troops could defend themselves and to stop the stalemate from getting worse,” the document read.
Biden’s August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan left 13 Americans dead.
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – AUGUST 10: Displaced Afghans wait for aid handouts at a makeshift camp from the northern provinces desperately leaving their homes behind on August 10, 2021 in Kabul, Afghanistan. The Taliban has taken control of six provincial capitals, among other towns and trade routes, since the United States accelerated withdrawal of its forces this year. Afghan families from Kunduz, Takhar and Baghlan provinces have arrived in Kabul in greater numbers, fleeing the Taliban advance. (Photo by Paula Bronstein /Getty Images)
The Biden administration also cast blame on the Trump administration for creating a “backlog” of people seeking Special Immigrant Visas and hollowing “out much of the career workforce.”
Trump’s campaign responded to Biden’s claims by saying the current administration is “trying to gaslight the American people.”
“Biden and his administration are trying to gaslight the American people for their disastrous withdrawal in Afghanistan that directly led to American deaths and emboldened the terrorists,” Trump’s spokesperson Steven Cheung told the Daily Caller.
“Biden’s complete erosion of American deterrence can be directly assigned blame for Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine, Kim’s decision to restart missile launches, and Xi’s pending decision to invade Taiwan and Chinese spy balloons surveilling American. And those are only the nation-state threats we’re aware of. The world has become a more dangerous place under Joe Biden,” Cheung added.