In a report released on Friday by the State Department, the Biden administration’s crisis management and awareness leading up to and during the fall of Afghanistan have been criticized, confirming the claims of critics who have highlighted bureaucratic inertia and a lack of foresight as contributing factors to the chaos and violence witnessed during one of the administration’s darkest periods.
The report strongly condemns the U.S. government’s handling of the most severe evacuation crisis since the fall of Saigon. It states that both President Biden and his predecessor, Donald Trump, failed to fully grasp the implications of a U.S. military withdrawal on the stability of the Afghan government.
Furthermore, it highlights that the standard rotation of diplomatic personnel during the summer months resulted in personnel with limited experience and brief tenures in Afghanistan being tasked with managing the evacuation operations in the weeks leading up to the collapse of Kabul.