The Maui News

Joint Chiefs chairman calls Afghan war a ‘strategic failure’

- By ROBERT BURNS LOLITA C. BALDOR

WASHINGTON — The top U.S. military officer called the 20-year war in Afghanista­n a “strategic failure” and acknowledg­ed to Congress on Tuesday that he had favored keeping several thousand troops in the country to prevent a collapse of the U.S.-supported Kabul government and a rapid takeover by the Taliban.

Republican­s on the Senate Armed Services Committee pointed to the testimony by Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as evidence that President Joe Biden had been untruthful when, in a television interview last month, he suggested the military had not urged him to keep troops in Afghanista­n.

Milley refused to say what advice he gave Biden last spring when Biden was considerin­g whether to comply with an agreement the Trump administra­tion had made with the Taliban to reduce the American troop presence to zero by May 2021, ending a U.S. war that began in October 2001. Testifying alongside Milley, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also refused to reveal his advice to Biden.

Milley told the committee, when pressed, that it had been his personal opinion that at least 2,500 U.S. troops were needed to guard against a collapse of the Kabul government and a return to Taliban rule.

Defying U.S. intelligen­ce assessment­s, the Afghan government and its U.S.-trained army collapsed in mid-August, allowing the Taliban, which had ruled the country from 1996 to 2001, to capture Kabul with what Milley described as a couple of hundred men on motorcycle­s, without a shot being fired. That triggered a frantic U.S. effort to evacuate American civilians, Afghan allies and others from Kabul airport.

Gen. Frank McKenzie, who as head of Central Command was overseeing U.S. troops in Afghanista­n, said he shared Milley’s view that keeping a residual force there could have kept the Kabul government intact.

“I recommende­d that we maintain 2,500 troops in Afghanista­n, and I also recommende­d early in the fall of 2020 that we maintain 4,500 at that time, those were my personal views,” McKenzie said. “I also had a view that the withdrawal of those forces would lead inevitably to the collapse of the Afghan military forces and eventually the Afghan government.”

The six-hour Senate hearing marked the start of what is likely to be an extended congressio­nal review of the U.S. failures in Afghanista­n. The length and depth of the hearing stood in contrast to years of limited congressio­nal oversight of the war and the hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars it consumed.

“The Republican­s’ sudden interest in Afghanista­n is plain old politics,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachuse­tts Democrat, who supported Biden’s decision to end U.S. involvemen­t there.

Austin and Milley are scheduled to appear Wednesday before the House Armed Services Committee to review the war.

The hearing at times was contentiou­s, as Republican­s sought to portray Biden as having ignored advice from military officers and mischaract­erized the military options he was presented last spring and summer.

Several Republican­s tried unsuccessf­ully to draw Milley, McKenzie and Austin into commenting on the truthfulne­ss of Biden’s statement to ABC News on Aug. 18, three days after the Taliban took control of Kabul, that no senior military commander had recommende­d against a full troop withdrawal when it was under discussion in the first months of Biden’s term.

When asked in that interview whether military advisers had recommende­d keeping 2,500 troops in Afghanista­n, Biden replied, “No. No one said that to me that I can recall.” He also said the advice “was split.”

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