During the build-up to the withdrawal, intelligence cited by the Biden administration predicted that the country would remain stable and a Taliban takeover, although expected, would take a while to happen.
In the midst of this, the US State Department seemed to have made little preparation to remove tens of thousands of Afghans who we had pledged to get out of the country.
However, as US forces withdrew in 2021, the world was shocked at how swiftly the Taliban took control of the country and how easily the Afghan forces capitulated.
“The intelligence community did not say, back in June or July, that, in fact, this was going to collapse like it did,” Biden said in an old interview.
While the US military performed a near miracle in the resulting airlift out of Kabul, the evacuation is widely seen as a humiliating debacle of foreign policy and utter failure by the intelligence community
Biden’s handling of the Afghanistan pullout was unpopular among both Democrats and Republicans. A survey done by the Pew Research Center found that only 27% of people believe the Biden administration did an exemplary job in handling the withdrawal. It also found only 43% of Democrats and 6% of Republicans think the situation was handled properly.
SOFREP also reported last February that there were some 9,000 Americans abandoned by the Biden Administration during the pull-out. This number was determined by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which directly refutes the Biden administration’s previous estimates that around 100 to 200 Americans were left behind. Furthermore, 17,000 local Afghans who had been working with the US government for 20 years (thus making them eligible for the Afghan Special Immigrant Visa Program) were also left behind.
Abandoned Weapons and Equipment
According to the report, 78 aircraft worth $923.3 million initially for the Afghan government was left at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. However, the report noted that the aircraft were stripped of their military capabilities and made inoperable. Yet within hours of the Taliban taking over the country, there were pictures and videos of aircraft and helicopters with Afghan air force markings being flown.
Approximately 40,000 military vehicles, including 12,000 Humvees provided by the U.S. to the ANDSF, were left during the withdrawal. According to the report, the operational status of the vehicles is “unknown.” However, a number of Humvees were seen to be driven by the Taliban as videos of it had surfaced on the internet.
U.S. forces left behind $6.54 million worth, or 9,524 air-to-ground munitions; 300,000 weapons intended for the ANDSF; and around 1,537,000 “common small arms ammunitions” and “specialty munitions” valued at around $48 million.
Most of the communications equipment, night vision and surveillance equipment, demining and explosive disposal tools, as well as “biometric and positioning equipment” also remain in Afghanistan, according to the report.
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