At a Pentagon briefing Tuesday, a day after Biden angrily blamed the airport debacle on everyone else but himself, national security advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters Biden was cornered by Trump’s exit plan scheduled for May 1.
“What has unfolded over the past month,” Sullivan said, “has proven decisively that it would have taken a significant American troop presence --- multiple times greater than what President Biden was handed --- to stop a Taliban onslaught.”
According to journalist Adam Housley, the CIA backed the May 1 withdrawal date because Afghanistan was still in its winter season. The late-August deadline set by Biden allowed the Taliban to mobilize, and over the spring months the Pentagon witnessed the now-mobilized Taliban sweep across the country while U.S. forces pulled back.
According to CNN, the Biden administration is now embroiled in a “blame game” over who warned who and when, a finger-pointing fight that involves the Pentagon, State Department, and the CIA.
Farther down in the CNN story, a picture emerges over what is happening now in Afghanistan: Military leaders warned the State Department weeks ago to abandon the embassy in Kabul, but that warning was ignored.
According to Bob Maginnis, a national security analyst at the Family Research Council, Biden refused to listen to his own military advisors as the Afghan National Army crumbled and retreated.
“I do believe that Trump would have listened,” Maginnis says. “I don't believe that Trump, being who he is, would have proceeded down a path that led to the chaotic rout that we saw over the last couple days in Afghanistan.”
A key issue being discussed on the news networks is the Doha agreement, a plan hammered out by the Trump administration and Taliban leaders in 2020. It promised a withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country by May 1. As part of that agreement, the Taliban promised to work with the U.S.-supporting Afghan government.
According to Maginnis, the Taliban predictably ignored that requirement and Biden did not hold them accountable. He insists Trump would have.
Secondly, another issue the Pentagon faced is watching the Afghan National Army wilt away at the first sign of Taliban aggression.
In the 1,800-word CNN story, the Afghan army is described as a “fiction” that cost $88 billion to arm and train only for the U.S. to learn it was a wasted effort. Corrupt Afghan military officers were paying non-existent soldiers and pocketing the money. It was also learned that many of the soldiers who did exist sold their weapons for cash and even stole the salaries of fellow soldiers.
What is missing from the CNN story: Blaming Donald Trump.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday, State Department spokesman Ned Price announced John Bass, a former Afghanistan ambassador, is on his way to Kabul to oversee the "logistics" of helping trapped Americans get out of the country. Price called that effort a "rather large, rather ambitious, expansive operation."
