Geoff: A long-awaited after
action report on the U.S.
Withdrawal from Afghanistan has
identified a number of failings
that contributed to the chaos.
Ali rogin has the story.
Ali: The state department review
concluded that both the trump
and Biden administrations failed
to consider worst-case scenarios
for what would happen when U.S.
Troops withdrew.
The U.S. Government held back on
crisis preparation to avoid
signaling to the Afghan
government that it had lost
confidence.
And that the Biden
administration failed to appoint
a senior official to oversee all
elements of crisis response,
which led to confusion.
For more on this assessment, we
turn to Washington post national
security reporter Michael
Birnbaum.
Michael, thank you for joining
us.
What stuck out the most to you
in this report?
Michael: It is a sharply
critical work or.
Taking a look at failings mostly
in the state department more
broadly at the Biden and trump
white houses.
What stuck O O to me is a
chronicle of failures and
missteps that are on all levels.
From the highest levels,
thinking about the broad
consequences of the military
pullout of Afghanistan, how it
might have destabilized the
country, down to lower level
things such as the effect of the
pandemic and the covid lockdown
in summer 2021 that made it hard
for diplomats to even talk to
each other.
Everyoyo was locked down in
their rooms in the embassy for
bunch of critical weeks.
Ali: You mentioned it was a
critical report, but it was done
year ago.
Why is it released now?
Michael: That's been a subject
of a lot of criticism.
It's being released shortly
before a holiday weekend with no
notice.
There has been a lot of back and
forth with house Republicans and
other critics of the item
response to the Afghanistan
pullout -- Biden response to the
Afghanistan pullout.
Ultimately the house foreign
affairs committee chair
threatened to subpoenalinken.
He was pushing very hard to have
the document released.
Seems to be a response to it.
Ali: The report was conducted by
a former ambassador, Dan Smith.
Why did the state department
select someone no longer serving
in the department?
Michael: He is a senior, former
diplomat.
He led the state department
transition ahead of Hyden coming
intotoffice.
He is someone with a sterling
reputation.
He is a little independent since
he's no longer working inside
the agency.
The goal was to come up with --
if you look at the documents, it
is not a whitewash.
It is pretty tough and has
recommendations.
I think the goal is to come up
something that would actually
help the department improve,
that's certainly what diplomats
say is the goal.
Ali: One thing that stuck out to
us was despite the fact that
there were a lot of warnings at
the time, from diplomats, ngos,
members of the military, and it
S heavily reported at the
time, the fallout of the U.S.
Withdrawal from Afghanistan, but
this report doesn't go into
those warnings in detail.
It does make some oblique
references including one that as
conditions for tier --
deteriorated, some requested
more planning.
Did it surprise you that the
report did not seem to go into
the fact that there were
warnings from numerous channels?
Michael: That's a good point.
State department report, the
white house and Pentagon did
separate reports looking at
other aspects of the lead up to
the collapse of the Afghan
government.
I think this was intended to be
a document that looked at what
the state department could do.
It was looking at the process
largely of the failure, problems
of issuing Visas and the
bureaucratic aspects of the
operation.
But it did not go into deep tale
about broader issues and failure
to listen to warnings, which
there were, of problems in the
lead up.
Ali: As you mentioned, this
report was released on a Friday
afternoon before a long holiday
weekend.
Do you think that was deliberate
and do you think the messaging
coming out from the Biden
administration will change when
asked about Afghanistan given
the conclusions of this report?
Michael: It's hard to think this
wasn't elaborate.
The white house report was just
ahead of the Easter weekend in
April.
Reporters asked about the
timing.
We didn't get a comment about
whether this was deliberate, but
you can draw your own
conclusions.
This is a pretty standard way to
bury news that administrations
of both parties, that they don't
want eight attention to.
I think the Biden
administration, Tony blinken
sent an email to state
department employees today
acknowledging problems but
saying they have already taken
steps to address a lot of them I
don't think this is
fundamentally going to change
the Biden administrations
accounting of what really is one
of the worst marks of the
administration.
They offer a robust defense but
don't seem to budget much off of
it.
Ali: Michael, thank you for
joining us.
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