"WASHINGTON -- U.S.-trained Afghan security forces said they were shocked at the U.S.'s abrupt withdrawal and were ill-equipped to defend Afghanistan against the Taliban, according to a government watchdog report released Wednesday, the first published report to interview Afghan forces since the U.S. war ended Aug. 30.
The 43-page report by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction concluded that the U.S.'s 20-year $90 billion training mission created a local security force that couldn't operate on its own, but rather depended on the U.S. to pay troop salaries, on contractors to maintain their equipment, and on U.S. and allied airstrikes to combat the Taliban.
"Most significantly, the United States was ill-equipped to undertake the security sector assistance mission," the report concluded.
At the same time, the U.S.-backed Afghan government had no national security strategy when the U.S. said it had reached a deal with the Taliban to leave the country.
"After 20 years of training and development, the ANDSF never became a cohesive, substantive force capable of operating on its own," the report found, referring to the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces. "The U.S. and Afghan governments share in the blame."
The Pentagon on Tuesday rejected suggestions that the U.S. mission in Afghanistan failed.
"I don't believe we would at all agree that our departure from Afghanistan was a mistake," Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday, addressing questions about a different report on the war. "Our troops had fought there for 20 years, had accomplished the mission for which they were sent. There has been no 9/11-like attack on the United States since the attack that emanated from Afghanistan. And in the process, we certainly made improvements in Afghanistan."
No single U.S. or allied agency was in charge of training and equipping Afghan forces.The U.S. and its allies funded the provision of 600,000 weapons, 300 aircraft, 80,000 vehicles, communications, night-vision goggles and biometric systemsto the Afghans, the report concluded, but the Afghans couldn't sustain the advanced weapons without U.S. help.
While the U.S. saw an exit plan in the February 2020 agreement with the Taliban that called for U.S. forces to leave Afghanistan by Aug. 31, 2021, the Afghans loyal to the U.S.-backed Kabul government viewed it as an abandonment. Shortly after the Trump administration signed the pact, U.S. forces began limiting their airstrikes and the Taliban began positioning itself to take control of Afghanistan.
By April 2021, when President Biden said that U.S. forces would leave by summer, some Afghan forces hadn't been paid in months, and some began striking deals with the Taliban. Others abandoned their posts altogether, the report found.
It took the Taliban less than a month -- Aug. 7 to Sept. 5 -- to capture all of the country's 34 provinces. By Aug. 14, the Taliban had entered Kabul. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, and over the next 15 days, the remaining U.S. personnel moved to Hamid Karzai International Airport and evacuated 122,000 Americans, third-country citizens and Afghans. Despite U.S. promises that Afghans who worked alongside allies wouldn't be left behind, thousands remained in the country as the final C-17 took off minutes before the Aug. 31 deadline." [1]
1. World News: U.S., Kabul Faulted in Afghan Withdrawal
Youssef, Nancy A.
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 19 May 2022: A.11.
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