The Democratic administration’s summary, drawn from the secret State and Defense Department reviews sent to Congress, sparked an angry response from Republican lawmakers who demanded the documents for their own investigation of the withdrawal.
Michael McCaul, the Republican chairman of the US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Relations, strongly criticized the US administration. McCaul said in a statement that Biden ordered the withdrawal and was “responsible for colossal failures in planning and execution.”
“President Biden’s choices on how to implement the withdrawal from Afghanistan were severely constrained by the conditions created by his predecessor,” the summary of the reviews said. The previous administration provided no plans for how to conduct the final withdrawal or evacuation of Americans or Afghan allies.
The withdrawal, which ended America’s longest war, saw tens of thousands of desperate Afghans fleeing the return of hardline Taliban rule and besieging Kabul International Airport, with some handing children over to US forces or storming departing planes and clinging to them.
The summary said the Trump administration had “eliminated” refugee support services and stopped processing immigrant visas for thousands of Afghans wanting to leave because they worked for the US government, leaving a backlog.
The 12-page summary places some of the blame for the chaos of the withdrawal and evacuation on flawed US intelligence and military assessments that failed to predict how quickly the Taliban would seize power and that Afghan security forces would control Kabul.
The Taliban swept into Afghanistan in August 2021 as the previous Western-backed government in Kabul collapsed with surprising speed and the last US troops withdrew.
The United States had made an agreement with the Taliban under Biden’s predecessor, Republican President Donald Trump, to withdraw all American forces.