WASHINGTON: The United States (US) on Thursday released a long-awaited review of the shocking US departure from Afghanistan, acknowledged there had been huge intelligence failure in not forecasting rapid Afghan Taliban victory, but defending overall Washington conduct.
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National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said, “We did not get things right over intelligence”. John Kirby told the media following the classified report was sent to the US Congress. He added “ending a conflict, any war, is not an easy task, certainly not following 20 years”.
In a declassified document, the White House accused conditions created by Donald Trump for the way the planned 2021 forces withdrawal turned into a collapse, terminating in an anxious evacuation from Afghanistan’s capital Kabul airport.
But it also admitted that the American intelligence services had also failed to understand the weakness of the Afghan government’s forces and strength of the Taliban that Western nations had spent years sustaining up.
The pullout of US troops, ending on August 30, 2021, traumatized the US and its allies as Afghan Taliban swept aside Western-trained Afghan troops within a few weeks.
Thirteen US personnel and at least 170 Afghans were killed in an August 26 suicide bombing at the airport, where military airlift operation managed to get over 120,000 people out of Afghanistan in a matter of days.
Kirby admitted that they did not forestall how fast the Afghan forces were going to crinkle”.
