The State Department and the White House hindered efforts by US military leaders to prepare evacuation of embassy personnel and allies from Afghanistan for weeks before Kabul's fall, said a media report citing an Army investigative report.
The American military would have been "much better prepared to conduct a more orderly" evacuation "if policymakers had paid attention to the indicators of what was happening on the ground," The Washington Post quoted Navy Rear Adm. Peter Vasely, the top US commander on the ground during the operation, as saying in the 2,000-page report.
The report also revealed that on August 9, President Joe Biden's advisers convened to discuss a possible closure of the embassy, but unanimously agreed it was still "premature", according to Sputnik.
The report also documented the until now unknown violence American personnel faced; for example, one exchange of gunfire during which two Taliban fighters were killed after allegedly threatening a group of US marines and Afghan civilians, and another incident in which US soldiers killed a member of an elite Afghan strike unit and wounded six others after they fired on the Americans, said Sputnik.
Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Farrell J. Sullivan wanted to prepare supplies to host 5,000 evacuees at the Kabul airport, but he was not allowed to discuss the possibility of a full-scale evacuation with anyone other than British officials, revealed the report.
The Taliban took over Afghanistan in mid-August, which led to the collapse of the previous government and mass evacuations from the Kabul airport. As crowds were amassed at the airport and the area was hit by terrorist attacks, the Taliban ordered that all foreign evacuations end. Later, evacuations resumed.
( With inputs from ANI )
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