Gen. Mark Milley has assessed the US withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan and the subsequent evacuation effort from Kabul airport, where a terrorist attack killed at least 170 Afghans and 13 US servicemen, as a “logistical success but a strategic failure”.
The Chairman of the joint chiefs of staff had echoed the words of Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, from earlier in the extraordinary hearing of the Senate armed services committee to probe the hasty American withdrawal from the South Asian country. The operation that resulted in Taliban* Islamist group sweeping to power has received bipartisan criticism as “botched”.
Taliban fighters storm into the Kabul International Airport, wielding American supplied weapons, equipment & uniforms – after the U.S. Military have completed their withdrawal.
© Photo : Twitter/ Marcus Yam 文火
The Biden administration has been under fire for its scramble to evacuate Americans and allies, leaving tens of thousands of vulnerable Afghans behind.
Milley was appearing at the US Senate grilling alongside Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and the head of US Central Command, Gen Kenneth ‘Frank’ McKenzie during the first of two days of congressional hearings on Afghanistan.
“It is obvious the war in Afghanistan did not end on the terms we wanted… We must remember that the Taliban was and remains a terrorist organization and they still have not broken ties with al-Qaida. I have no illusions who we are dealing with. It remains to be seen whether or not the Taliban can consolidate power, or if the country will further fracture into civil war,” said the general.
According to all three military leaders, the Biden administration had been advised during its first months in office to retain a small US force of about 2,500 servicemen in the country. “Decision makers are not required in any manner or form to follow that advice,” said the general.
No clarification was offered regarding a claim by the US president in an earlier interview for ABC News that he had not received such advice.
“No one said that to me that I can recall,” Biden stated on 19 August.
When Republican senator Tom Cotton questioned why Milley had not resigned when that advice was rejected, the Chairman of the joint chiefs of staff responded: “It would be an incredible act of political defiance for a commissioned officer to just resign because my advice is not taken. This country doesn’t want generals figuring out what orders we’re going to accept and do or not. That’s not our job.”
‘Credibility ‘Damage’
The three military leaders were questioned by senators on why the Pentagon had failed to predict the rapid collapse of the western-backed Afghan government led by Ashraf Ghani, now in exile, and why evacuation of US citizens and vulnerable Afghans had not been launched sooner.
Members of the Taliban Intelligence Special Forces guard the military airfield in Kabul
© WANA NEWS AGENCY
Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin conceded that the collapse of the Afghan army in the final weeks of the war had taken top US army commanders by surprise.
“We need to consider some uncomfortable truths: that we did not fully comprehend the depth of corruption and poor leadership in their senior ranks, that we didn’t grasp the damaging effect of frequent and unexplained rotations by President Ghani of his commanders, that we did not anticipate the snowball effect caused by the deals that the Taliban commanders struck with local leaders,” said Austin.
He also defended the decision by the Biden administration to close Bagram Air Base in early July, using Kabul International Airport to carry out a massive evacuation after Taliban seized the capital on 15 August.
A man walks along a road outside Bagram Air Base, after all US and NATO troops left, some 70 Km north of Kabul on July 2, 2021.
© AFP 2023 / ZAKERIA HASHIMI
“Retaining Bagram would have required putting as many as 5,000 U.S. troops in harm’s way, just to operate and defend it… it would have contributed little to the mission that we had been assigned: that was to protect and defend our embassy some 30 miles away.”
The US Defence Secretary explained the necessity of wrapping up the evacuation by 31 August by a looming threat to US troops. In his 19 August interview, President Biden had vowed US forces would remain until all American citizens had been evacuated. However, after the last soldier left on 30 August, there were reports of more than a hundred Americans, most if not all dual nationals, left behind.
Screengrab of US Marine Michael Markland's viral video showing the chaos at Kabul's airport in the final days of the US presence there.
© Photo : Facebook / Michael Markland
“Staying longer than we did would have made it even more dangerous for our people and would not have significantly changed the number of evacuees we could get out,” said Austin.
General Milley similarly defended by the decision not to stay past the withdrawal deadline. “On the 1st of September we were going to go back to war again with the Taliban. That would have resulted in significant casualties on the U.S. side and would have put American citizens still on the ground there at significant risk,” he said.
Taliban soldiers stand in front of a sign at the international airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, September 9, 2021
© REUTERS / West Asia News Agency
Weighing in on the fallout from the Afghan withdrawal, General Milley said that US “credibility with allies and partners around the world and with adversaries” was now being reviewed. “I think ‘damage’ is one word that could be used, yes,” he conceded.
*A terrorist organization banned in Russia