State Department report on evacuation from Afghanistan in 2021 criticizes Biden and Trump

A State Department report on Friday criticized the management of the United States evacuation operation from Afghanistan in 2021, stating that the decisions of President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump had “serious consequences for the viability” and security of the former Washington-backed government in Kabul.

The report also took aim at, but did not name Secretary of State Antony Blinken, noting that the agency’s crisis management task force was not expanded and noting the absence of a senior diplomat “to oversee all elements of the response to the crisis.

The review is a contribution to a report released by the White House in April. But his critical findings were not reflected in that earlier document, which effectively called into question the Trump administration’s lack of planning for the chaotic US troop withdrawal and evacuation operation in August 2021.

“I can’t speak to that internal coordination part and how the administration came to the central conclusions that it presented” in April, a senior State Department official told reporters at a briefing.

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