The Biden administration, however, said Monday that maintaining the same number of U.S. forces in the country wasn’t an option, and a continued presence there would have required deploying more troops.
“Our top intelligence professionals assessed – and recent history had shown – that we’d ultimately need to send more American troops into harm’s way just to keep the stalemate in a 20-year war from degrading. The President rejected the impossible notion that a so-called low-grade effort could have maintained a stalemate. There’s nothing low-grade, low-risk, or low-cost about any war – and there were no signs that even more time, funds, or even more importantly Americans at risk in Afghanistan, would have yielded different results,” said National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson in an email.
Faulted for lack of preparation
The report also contends that the Biden administration squandered the months between April and August 2021, failing to adequately prepare for the laborious logistical undertaking that the withdrawal presented.
Namely, the White House failed to secure bases for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) or counterterrorism operations in countries bordering Afghanistan, the report says, and that failure has created a setback in the United States’ ability to deal with the resurgence of terrorist groups in Afghanistan.
But Biden and top military leaders have said the U.S. holds significant “over the horizon” capabilities to conduct counterterrorism operations from a distance. On July 31, CIA operatives used a remote-piloted aircraft to assassinate al-Qaida emir Ayman al-Zawahri, a key planner of the 9/11 terror attacks, in Kabul.
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August 16, 2022 at 12:14AM
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House Republicans ramp up pressure over Afghanistan exit - Roll Call
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