Biden defends withdrawal despite U.S. rout, as detractors see needless fiasco in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON — Nearly two decades after Texas’ George W. Bush led the nation to war in Afghanistan to root out terrorists behind the Sept. 11 attacks, the Taliban were suddenly back in control Monday after a chaotic U.S. withdrawal.

They decried the bungled drawdown and tragic miscalculations about the Afghan government’s ability to hold out against insurgents. For those who’d demanded withdrawal for years, the humiliation of a rout dampened the joy they’d expected when a seemingly endless conflict came to an end.

“This was a huge error on the part of our national leadership, starting with the president,” Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican, said Monday at Camp Swift, a Texas National Guard training center east of Austin.

Cornyn accused Biden of leaving in place “no transitional support for our Afghan partners” and warned that terrorists will thrive in the newly created power vacuum.

“It is a painful lesson that we’ve learned that what happens in Afghanistan does not stay in Afghanistan,” Cornyn said. “There’s no question that al-Qaeda and ISIS and other terrorist organizations will use this as an opportunity to reconstitute themselves and be a threat not only in the region, but to the American homeland.”

Cruz called for a “thorough investigation into how this catastrophe unfolded” as soon as U.S. personnel are safely evacuated.

Late Monday, Bush issued a statement focused on the need to evacuate Afghan allies.

“The Afghans now at the greatest risk are the same ones who have been on the forefront of progress inside their nation,” he said. “In times like these, it can be hard to remain optimistic. Laura and I will steadfastly remain so. Like our country, Afghanistan is also made up of resilient, vibrant people.”

In a nationally televised address hours earlier, President Joe Biden conceded that “this did unfold more quickly than we anticipated.”

But he argued that former President Donald Trump had left him no viable option after cutting the number of troops from 15,000 to 2,500 over the span of his presidency, and in any case, “there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces.”

“I inherited a deal that President Trump negotiated with the Taliban,” Biden said. “How many more generations of America’s daughters and sons would you have me send to fight Afghanistan’s civil war?”

He insisted that the U.S. objectives had been achieved years ago: find the terrorists behind Sept. 11 and degrade the future threat.

“Our mission in Afghanistan was never supposed to be nation-building,” he said.

He made the same point in mid-April when he set a Sept. 11 withdrawal deadline.

Cruz lauded him at the time. As the senator acknowledged Monday, “I have long called for the U.S. to withdraw from Afghanistan. Wars must have ends. Multiple administrations failed to advance deliberative, vetted, and secure withdrawal.”

Trump, too, embraced Biden’s deadline at the time, complaining mainly that he’d already waited too long.

“Getting out of Afghanistan is a wonderful and positive thing to do,” Trump said then, boasting that “I made early withdrawal possible.”

The collapse of the Afghan government has given Republicans fresh hope for a big win in the 2022 midterms. Trump called it “the most embarrassing military outcome in the history of the United States.”

Even in his own party, Biden had few defenders.

Texas Democrats focused on the humanitarian mission of rescuing Afghan translators, women’s rights activists and others now facing execution.

Sen. Mark Warner, the Virginia Democrat who chairs the intelligence committee, called the situation “devastating” and vowed “tough but necessary questions about why we weren’t better prepared for a worst-case scenario involving such a swift and total collapse of the Afghan government and security forces.”

Lawmakers with access to classified briefings in recent months said the U.S. military and intelligence communities were under no illusions. They warned that a U.S. pullout would be disastrous at this point.

Rep. Michael McCaul of Austin, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called Taliban takeover an “unmitigated disaster of epic proportions.”

He accused Biden of fecklessly sticking to a drawdown schedule Trump had set in early 2020 that hinged on the Taliban observing a ceasefire and cutting ties with al-Qaeda, the group responsible for hijackings that brought down the Twin Towers 20 years ago next month.

The Taliban fell far short on both counts.

“The issue at hand is not whether we should have withdrawn. It is the president’s failure to plan for the fallout that withdrawal would cause,” McCaul said. “His inaction has caused a massive crisis that threatens the lives of Americans, of Afghans, and of our allies. A crisis that has destroyed our standing in the world.”

In 2016, Trump promised voters that he would end “endless” wars, including the one in Afghanistan.

Under a cease-fire deal struck in February 2020 by U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, the Taliban agreed to sit down for negotiations with the Afghan government, and ensure the country would not be used as a safe harbor for terrorists.

In exchange, Washington pledged to pull out all U.S. forces by May 1 of this year, starting with a drawdown from 13,000 to 8,600 within the first four months. The U.S. also vowed to help release 5,000 prisoners and ease economic sanctions on the insurgents.

“Today is a day for hope,” Khalilzad said at a signing ceremony in Doha, Qatar, with Taliban political leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.

Trump moved ahead with reducing the U.S. footprint despite obvious violations by the Taliban.

Biden, who likewise promised voters to get the United States out of a deeply unpopular conflict, also ignored red flags.

On May 1, 2003, Bush’s defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, declared an end to “major combat” in Afghanistan. The occupation would last 18 more years.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Houston, a retired Navy SEAL who lost his right eye in a 2012 explosion in Helmand Province, during his third deployment In Afghanistan, said the country’s overnight transformation into a fundamentalist state showed the naiveté of demands for “no more endless wars” — a critique aimed not only at Biden.

“When your entire foreign policy is built upon an emotional slogan, this is what you end up with: a new terrorist safe haven and millions of women and children now under the rule of the Taliban,” he said.

Some voices were more shrill.

Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Lubbock, a retired Navy admiral who served as White House physician, said the incompetence Biden has shown in Afghanistan is egregious enough to justify his removal for mental incapacity under the 25th Amendment.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, who has railed for years at Congress’ refusal to scrap an expansive grant of presidential war-making power after Sept. 11, had also lauded Biden for moving ahead with withdrawal.

“I welcome President Biden’s announcement that he will continue President Trump’s efforts to bring our troops home from Afghanistan,” he said in April.

On Monday, he focused on the execution.

“The disaster unfolding in Kabul, Afghanistan — as American Humvees, drones, and other assets fall into the hands of the Taliban radicals — is the direct, and predictable, consequence of the incompetence and failed leadership of American politicians.”