‘WE LOST THE AFGHAN WAR’

WASHINGTON: America’s top military officer has conceded the US “lost” the 20-year war in Afghanistan, in which 2400 US military personnel died and 20,750 were wounded.

“It is obvious to all of us that the war in Afghanistan did not end on the terms we wanted,” the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley told the House Armed Services Committee. “The war was a strategic failure,” he added.

General Milley was giving evidence about the chaotic evacuation following the Taliban’s sweeping victory.

“It wasn’t lost in the last 20 days or even 20 months,” he said. “There was a cumulative effect to a series of strategic decisions that go way back.”

He cited the 2003 decision to invade Iraq, which shifted US troops away from Afghanistan, as well as “not effectively dealing with Pakistan as a (Taliban) sanctuary”.