US House Republicans are set to release a long-awaited report blasting Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration for failures surrounding the chaotic and deadly US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.

The report contends that the administration made its decision to evacuate non-combatants far too late, formally ordering it only on August 16, failed to communicate between departments in Washington and among officials in Afghanistan, and botched the paperwork for the departure of Afghan civilians eligible to leave the country.

It is the result of a three-year investigation led by Representative Michael McCaul, Republican chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

“America’s credibility on the world stage was severely damaged after we abandoned Afghan allies to Taliban reprisal killings – the people of Afghanistan we had promised to protect,” the report said.

“And the moral injury to America’s veterans and those still serving remains a stain on this administration’s legacy.”

House Republicans’ more than 350-page document is the product of hours of testimony – including with former Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley, US Central Command retired General Frank McKenzie and others who were senior officials at the time – seven public hearings and round-tables as well as more than 20,000 pages of State Department documents reviewed by the committees.

The withdrawal has become intensely politicised ahead of the November 5 US presidential election. Last month, the Republican nominee, former President Donald Trump, shot video for his campaign at Arlington National Cemetery where he appeared at a ceremony honouring troops killed in the evacuation.

US soldiers stand guard at the airport in Kabul in 2021. – AP

Trump has also attacked Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris over the exit from Afghanistan during campaign appearances, blaming them personally for the deaths at Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate.

On August 26, 2021, as US forces were trying to help Americans and Afghans flee as the Islamist Taliban movement took control of the country, a suicide attack at the Abbey Gate entrance to Kabul’s airport killed 13 Americans, compounding the US sense of defeat after two decades of war.

With Biden no longer running for re-election, Trump and his GOP allies have tried to elevate the withdrawal as a campaign issue against Harris, who is now Trump’s Democratic opponent in the presidential race.

The report by House Republican cites Harris’s overall responsibility as an adviser to Biden, but doesn’t point to specific counsel or action by Harris that contributed to the many failures.

Democrats have insisted that some blame for the messy end of the war – less than seven months into Biden’s presidency – should be laid at the feet of Trump, who began the withdrawal process by signing a deal with the Taliban in 2020.

Representative Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs panel, said in a letter to committee Democrats about the investigation:

“When former President Trump took office, there were approximately 14,000 American troops in Afghanistan. Days before leaving office, the former President ordered a further reduction to 2500.” 

Republican committee aides dismissed that contention as partisan politics, saying Biden could have ignored Trump’s agreement or enforced it, accusing officials who served during Biden’s presidency of allowing the Taliban to disregard its commitments.

Some 800,000 US service members served in Afghanistan following the US-led invasion triggered by the September 11, 2001, attack on the US by Afghanistan-based al Qaeda.

During the war, 2238 US service members died and nearly 21,000 were wounded. Independent estimates put the number of Afghan security forces and civilians killed at more than 100,000.

McCaul has subpoenaed Secretary of State Antony Blinken three times in connection with the Afghanistan investigation, most recently last week, saying that he wants him to testify in person.

Highlights of the report

Decision to withdraw

Republicans point to testimony and records that claim the Biden administration’s reliance on input from military and civilian leaders on the ground in Afghanistan in the months before the withdrawal was “severely limited”, with most of the decision-making taking place by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan without consultation with key stakeholders.

The report says Biden proceeded with the withdrawal even though the Taliban was failing to keep some of its agreements under the deal, including breaking its promise to enter talks with the then US-backed Afghan government.

Former State Department spokesperson Ned Price testified to the committee that adherence to the Doha Agreement was “immaterial” to Biden’s decision to withdraw, according to the report.

Earlier reviews have said Trump also carried out his early steps of the withdrawal deal, cutting the US troop presence from about 13,000 to an eventual 2500 despite early Taliban non-compliance with some parts of the deal, and despite the Taliban escalating attacks on Afghan forces.

The House report faults a longtime US diplomat for Afghanistan, former Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad – not Trump – for Trump administration actions in its negotiations with the Taliban. The new report says that Trump was following recommendations of American military leaders in making sharp cuts in US troop numbers in Afghanistan after the signing.

‘We were still in planning’ when Kabul fell

The report also goes into the vulnerability of US embassy staff in Kabul as the Biden administration planned its exit. Republicans claim there was a “dogmatic insistence” by the Biden administration to maintain a large diplomatic footprint despite concerns about the lack of security afforded to personnel once US forces left.

McKenzie, who was one of the two US generals who oversaw the evacuation, told lawmakers that the administration’s insistence at keeping the embassy open and fully operational was the “fatal flaw that created what happened in August,” according to the report.

The committee report claims that State Department officials went as far as watering down or “even completely rewriting reports” from heads of diplomatic security and the Department of Defence that had warned of the threats to US personnel as the withdrawal date got closer.

“We were still in planning (when Kabul fell)," Carol Perez, the State Department's acting undersecretary for management at the time of the withdrawal, testified to the committee.