New Delhi: An abrupt and uncoordinated withdrawal from Afghanistan and years of problems with planning and oversight of US assistance contributed to the collapse of the Western-backed government in Kabul and the Taliban takeover of the country soon after American forces departed, reported WSJ, citing a report of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction released on Monday. According to the report, inadequate accountability for the weapons and equipment sent to Afghanistan and a dearth of systemic planning were also significant contributors to the country’s military breakdown. The document, which was previously reported by The Wall Street Journal, also criticises the Department of Defence for giving inadequate answers to queries, missing deadlines, and delaying responding to official inquiries. In the days leading up to and during the US-pullout, the Afghan National Defence and Security Forces (ANDSF) looked to disintegrate, allowing the Taliban to swiftly recapture Kabul and the rest of Afghanistan. US had no ‘political will’ The swift disintegration was brought on by the United States having no “political will” or “dedicated resources to initiate the wholesale development of another nation’s army,” Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko concluded in his final report. “Due to the ANDSF’s dependency on US military forces, the decision to withdraw all US military personnel and dramatically reduce US support to the ANDSF destroyed the morale of Afghan soldiers and police,” the report quoted Sopko as saying in the document summary. As the United States had created a force “that could not operate independently and set unrealistic milestones for ANDSF capability development,” the eventual collapse “was predictable,” he said. What’s more, bad planning and limited oversight on billions of dollars in weapons and equipment given to Afghan’s forces added to the mess. American troops ended up leaving roughly $7.2 billion in weapons and equipment including at least 78 aircraft and over 40,000 vehicles for the Taliban to possibly use. The report to Congress, meant to update lawmakers on why the Afghan government collapsed so rapidly when US forces departed after 20 years of war, blamed both the Trump and Biden administrations for the mess. While the Trump administration’s agreement with the Taliban in 2020 to pull US forces “set in motion a series of events crucial to understanding the ANDSF’s collapse,” the decision by both President Donald Trump and Biden to leave “fundamentally altered every subsequent decision by US government agencies, the Ghani administration, and the Taliban,” the report states. Biden announces US pullout Months after taking office in 2021, President Joe Biden announced that he would pull the US military from Afghanistan, a decision that followed the US-Taliban agreement signed under the Trump administration in 2020 to do the same thing. “Keeping thousands of troops grounded and concentrated in just one country at a cost of billions each year makes little sense to me,” Biden said in in April 2021 when announcing the decision. “I’m now the fourth United States president to preside over American troop presence in Afghanistan … I will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth,” he added. With inputs from agencies Read all the Latest News , Trending News , Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
An abrupt withdrawal from Afghanistan and years of problems with planning contributed to the collapse of the Western-backed government in Kabul and the Taliban takeover of the country soon after American forces departed, the government’s watchdog for Afghanistan reconstruction revealed
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