U.S. House Republicans’ report blames Biden for chaotic Afghan withdrawal

House Republicans blame Joe Biden for Afghanistan withdrawal chaos, downplaying Trump's role, despite systemic failures across administrations.

U.S. House Republicans on Sunday issued a scathing report on their investigation into the country’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, blaming the disastrous end of America’s longest war on President Joe Biden’s administration and minimising the role of former President Donald Trump, who had signed the withdrawal deal with the Taliban.

The partisan review lays out the final months of military and civilian failures, following Mr. Trump’s February 2020 withdrawal deal, that allowed America’s enemy fundamentalist Taliban to sweep through and conquer all of the country even before the last U.S. officials flew out on August 30, 2021. The chaotic exit left behind many American citizens, Afghan battlefield allies, women activists and others at risk from the Taliban.

But House Republicans’ report breaks little new ground as the withdrawal has been exhaustively litigated through several independent reviews. Previous investigations and analyses have pointed to a systemic failure spanning the last four presidential administrations and concluded that Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump share the heaviest blame.

Texas Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, who led the investigation as chairperson of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the GOP review reveals that the Biden administration “had the information and opportunity to take necessary steps to plan for the inevitable collapse of the Afghan government, so we could safely evacuate U.S. personnel, American citizens, green card holders, and our brave Afghan allies.”

“At each step of the way, however, the administration picked optics over security,” he said in a statement.

Sharon Yang, a White House spokesperson, said the Republican report was based on “cherry-picked facts, inaccurate characterisations, and preexisting biases.”

“Because of the bad deal former President Trump cut with the Taliban to get out of Afghanistan by May of 2021, President Biden inherited an untenable position,” either ramp up the U.S. war against a strengthened Taliban, or end it, Ms. Yang said in a statement.