Washington
CNN
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At the height of the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan there were only 36 State Department officials on the ground at the Kabul airport to process Afghans who were trying to evacuate, according to a soon-to-be released report from House Republicans, despite the department’s claims that they had surged resources to handle the crowds desperately trying to flee.
This figure – which meant there was “roughly one consular officer for every 3,444 evacuees” – is one of several previously undisclosed details outlined in the highly critical report examining the chaotic US withdrawal last August.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans’ report, which is being published around one year after the country’s capital fell to the Taliban, reveals additional new details about the Biden administration’s failure to adequately plan for and execute the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. The report, a final draft of which was obtained by CNN, also says the administration did not accurately portray the nature of the events on the ground and failed to put a plan in place to prevent American-trained Afghan commandos from being recruited by America’s adversaries.
“A lot of the Biden administration’s evacuation plans were done in the spring 2021 – some even before the president announced the withdrawal. And they were never updated despite the Taliban battlefield gains, despite the deteriorating security situation, and despite the revised intelligence assessments,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
President Joe Biden announced in mid-April 2021 that the US would withdraw all remaining troops from Afghanistan by September 11 of that year – the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that launched America’s war there. While Biden long wanted to end US involvement in the Afghanistan war, he attributed the decision, in part, to the deal brokered with the Taliban by the Trump administration, which had a commitment to withdraw by May 1, 2021.
In the weeks and months that followed, bipartisan lawmakers urged the administration to ensure plans were in place to ensure the protection of Afghans who worked for the US during the nearly two-decade long conflict, including evacuation options.
Both the State Department and the Pentagon have conducted their own reviews of the withdrawal, but neither of the departments have released any findings. The Pentagon’s review is ongoing while the State Department concluded theirs in March, according to a source familiar with the review. The delay of its release is due, in part, to an interagency review process layered with concerns about politics, optics and effective implementation of lessons learned.
The House report found that it was not until mid-June 2021 that the US Embassy in Kabul held an Operational Planning Team (OPT) meeting with members of the US military and US diplomats focused on pre-planning for non-combatant evacuation operations (NEO). The meeting was described by one US military officer involved as “the first time” that the embassy began “looking at the possibility of NEO.”
Because of the “complete lack of proper planning by the Biden administration” there were consequences: evacuation flights “were taking off at only about 50% of their capacity” five days into the NEO, the report says. The report references slow processing at the gates and mayhem outside the gates – a government evacuation process so chaotic and disorderly that even staffers for Vice President Kamala Harris and first lady Jill Biden were contacting outside groups to try to get people out, representatives for the groups told the committee.
The report found that those who were able to get out on those…
Read More: House Republicans issue scathing report criticizing Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal