But the cuts to our troop strength had us already at the bare minimum before Biden took office after Trump ignored the General he appointed (not that who appointed who really matters much).
"Under the Doha agreement, the US would begin to withdraw its forces contingent upon Taliban meeting certain conditions, which would lead to a political agreement between the Taliban and the government of Afghanistan. There were seven conditions applicable to the Taliban and eight conditions applicable to the United States. While the Taliban did not attack US forces, which was one of the conditions, it failed to fully honor, any, any other condition under the Doha agreement.
Gen. Milley: (
31:22)
And perhaps most importantly, for US national security, that Taliban has never renounced Al-Qaeda or broke its affiliation with them. We the United States adhered to every condition.
In the fall of 2020 my analysis was that an accelerated withdrawal without meeting specific and necessary conditions risks losing the substantial gains made in Afghanistan, damaging US worldwide credibility, and could precipitate a general collapse of the ANSF and the Afghan government resulting in a complete Taliban takeover or general civil war. "
This was advice given to the president before he made the reductions down to 2500 US troops, which he ignored. Also the only thing keeping those men safe was the truce with the Taliban, which was going to end May 1st. What was the Generals plan after the truce ended if we decided to keep those 25 hundred troops, or more, on the ground?
Nobody said they thought the collapse would take days. Since Trump ignored the Conditions of the Accords and pulled most of our troops out and Biden didn't redeploy troops necessary to enforce them or continue the war, we left.
I'm just not liking the indictment of our military.....
