Harris Blames Trump for Botched Afghanistan Withdrawal as Report Faults White House for ‘Willful Blindness’

The Harris-Walz campaign is blaming former President Donald Trump for the Biden-Harris administration’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, saying Trump left “zero plans for an orderly withdrawal.” The comments came days ahead of the release of a new congressional report that concluded that the Biden-Harris administration was “willfully blind” to a series of warnings from military officials on the ground in Afghanistan not to withdraw troops quickly, leading to widespread chaos and the death of 13 U.S. military servicemembers, among other consequences.

Referring to a prior accord agreed to by the U.S. and the Taliban under the Trump administration (what became known as the Doha Agreement) that stipulated that U.S. troops would withdraw from Afghanistan under certain conditions, the Harris campaign claimed on Friday that the Trump deal created a “virtually impossible” deadline and left “the Biden-Harris administration with zero plans for an orderly withdrawal — only a dangerous, costly mess.”

But as an exhaustive new report on the Afghanistan withdrawal conducted by the House Foreign Affairs Committee recounted, the Taliban violated the terms of the February 2020 Doha Agreement by continuing to attack U.S. and coalition forces in the following months. “For that reason, President Trump decided to maintain 2,500 U.S. troops in the country until he left office on January 20, 2021,” the report explained.

Three months after President Biden was sworn in, he used the Doha Agreement as a pretext for a full withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country, something that he had publicly been in favor of since the Obama administration. “It is perhaps not what I would have negotiated myself, but it was an agreement made by the United States government, and that means something,” he stated in April 2021.

But as the House report observed, “The evidence proves President Biden’s decision to withdraw all U.S. troops was not based on the security situation, the Doha Agreement, or the advice of his senior national security advisors or our allies. Rather, it was premised on his longstanding and unyielding opinion that the United States should no longer be in Afghanistan.”

In a statement from House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) announcing the release of the House report Monday, he summarized what occurred as a result of Biden’s rigid position to withdraw. “Our investigation reveals the Biden-Harris administration had the information and opportunity to take necessary steps to plan for the inevitable collapse of the Afghan government, so we could safely evacuate U.S. personnel, American citizens, green card holders, and our brave Afghan allies. At each step of the way, however, the administration picked optics over security.”

McCaul continued, “As a result of the Biden-Harris administration’s failure to plan for all contingencies, the U.S. government conducted an emergency evacuation without the necessary personnel, supplies, and equipment. The administration’s dereliction of duty placed U.S. servicemembers and U.S. State Department personnel in mortal danger, where the Taliban — our sworn enemy — became the first line of defense. As a direct result of the failure to plan for all contingencies, 13 U.S. servicemembers and 170 Afghans were murdered in a terrorist attack at Abbey Gate on August 26, 2021, and 45 U.S. servicemembers and countless Afghans were injured. This was preventable.”

As noted by National Review, the 354-page report “is the culmination of an investigation that included public hearings, closed-door transcribed interviews, and analysis of more than 20,000 pages of State Department documents, despite obstruction and obfuscation from the Biden administration at every turn.”

In comments to The Washington Stand, Lt. Col. (Ret.) Bob Maginnis, an author and 20-year Army veteran, elaborated on the continuing fallout from the Biden-Harris administration’s hurried withdrawal from Afghanistan.

“It is true President Trump wanted us out of Afghanistan, but not the way it happened under Biden,” he pointed out. “There was a plan in place that was condition-based. Unfortunately, the Biden people saw the exit sign and ignored the conditions. They blindly pushed against the military’s cautions to rush us out of that country, which not only resulted in needless death but quickly re-installed our enemy, the Taliban, in power. Now we have zero intelligence about that terrorist regime, which threatens our interests in that region and ultimately here at home.”

Maginnis further explained that “the Biden administration gave too much credence at the time to its State Department leadership when it came to decisions about withdrawing from Afghanistan. Our military professionals both in Afghanistan and the Pentagon cautioned against a rapid exit but were ignored by the diplomats. The consequences of that poorly advised exit decision tragically cost many lives and today Afghanistan is once again a terrorist haven and is threatening that region and our security.”

“It’s also clear that the State Department imposed on our few remaining soldiers a dangerous set of rules of engagement that cost 13 American servicemember lives at Abbey Gate three years ago,” he added. “Why? Because our snipers couldn’t stop the suspected suicide bomber, a tactical decision that ought to be made for commanders at the scene not by diplomats at Foggy Bottom. Foreign policy and fighting wars are complex enterprises. Unfortunately, the Biden White House from the start was full of ideologues and not manned by seasoned professionals who understand the details of international relations and the conduct of war.”

Maginnis, who serves as Family Research Council’s senior fellow for National Security, went on to share his concerns about the possible repercussions of a Harris victory in November.

“My fear is that if Kamala Harris is elected, she will get us into more wars,” he remarked. “Meanwhile, our armed forces can’t recruit sufficient volunteers to fill the ranks. Therefore, we will be seriously endangered in the future for lack of sufficient personnel and may have to revert to conscription. This time, even our daughters will be drafted because of policies that began with Obama that pushed women in combat.”

Maginnis concluded, “Why would anyone vote for someone that pushes us into more wars and at the same time advances personnel policies that discourage recruitment? That’s a recipe for disaster.”