The head of the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, acknowledged on Tuesday that the withdrawal from Afghanistan was a “strategic failure” , although he specified that this situation had not been reached after a twenty-day administration, but by the “effects of twenty years” of war. “There have been four presidents, twenty commanders, seven or eight heads of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , dozens of defense secretaries (…) and results like this are not determined by the last five or twenty days , or by the last year,” he said. Milley in his appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“The results in a war like this, a strategic failure, the enemy is in charge in Kabul, there is no other way to describe it, they are the result of an accumulation of events over twenty years, not 20 days . There are a lot of strategic, operational and tactical lessons to be learned, ”he explained.
The general also wanted to make it clear that already at the end of 2020 he advised both the administration of Donald Trump and the current administration of the president, Joe Biden, that carrying out “an accelerated withdrawal” could “put at risk” the achievements made. in Afghanistan, as well as causing “damage” to the global credibility of the United States and the “collapse of the Afghan government.”
Milley appeared on Tuesday along with the rest of the Pentagon’s top hierarchical officials, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and United States Central Command General Frank McKenzie , to answer questions from Congress for the first time after the chaotic and hasty departure from Afghanistan following the arrival of the Taliban in August.
Austin has also recognized that the withdrawal “was not perfect” , but has asked to keep in perspective that it was “the largest airlift carried out in the history of the United States and it was done in 17 days.” ” We got so many people out of Kabul so quickly that we ran into capacity and management problems in other bases outside Afghanistan,” explained Austin, who nonetheless insisted that the troops were “ready” and that while it was “A strategic failure” was also a “logistical success.”
The Secretary of Defense has remarked that while the Pentagon estimated that between 70,000 and 80,000 people could have been evacuated at this time from the Hamid Karzai Airport in Kabul, finally the Army has been able to remove more than 124,000 people from the country, about 7,000 per day, on planes that sometimes managed to take off “every 45 minutes.”
Surrender of the Afghan Army
Austin recalled that the collapse of the Afghan government “took everyone by surprise”, that “it would be dishonest to say otherwise” and has directly blamed former President Ashraf Ghani, as well as the “deep corruption” and “poor leadership” of the rest of high authorities of what happened.
“Uncomfortable truths”, he said, that failed to anticipate “the snowball effect” that also brought with it the pacts that the Taliban sealed with local leaders during the Doha accords, which for Austin, “had a demoralizing effect on the soldiers Afghans’. “We helped build a state, but we could not forge a nation,” said the Pentagon chief, who in turn lamented that the Afghan troops, after being trained, “vanished”, without even firing “a single shot” .
Some of the criticisms of General Milley have also been directed in this regard, who was “deeply” surprised by the rapid fall of the Afghan forces, since the information on the ground predicted that Kabul would resist until the spring of 2022. “There was none. Intelligence evaluation that would foresee the collapse of the government and army in eleven days, “he said.
“Many units fought in the end, but the vast majority laid down their weapons and vanished in a very, very short period of time. I think that has to do with will, leadership, “said Milley.
Death of civilians due to an “error”
For his part, Commander McKenzie has once again assumed full responsibility for the attack that killed eleven innocent civilians, including seven children, at the end of August when a United States Army drone bombed a residential complex in Kabul where he believed a member of the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) was located. “The matter is under investigation, but what I can tell you, and to reaffirm some of the things I said before, I am responsible for that . It happened in my area of responsibility, so I am the officer responsible for the attack, ”McKenzie insisted during his turn to speak.
“I was not under pressure and no one under my chain of command was. We act on the basis of reading reports and investigations. We have acted several times on this basis and we have been successful in preventing attacks “, but” this time, tragically, we were wrong, “he acknowledged.
McKenzie has also been cautious about the possibility of ruling out that the Taliban allow the Islamic State, Al Qaeda , or other terrorist organizations to use Afghan territory as a base of operations and has indicated that “it remains to be seen” what can happen in this regard.
