WASHINGTON: The top general conceded in reciking reception on Wednesday that the United States “lost” a 20-year war in Afghanistan.
“Obviously, it is clear to all of us, that the war in Afghanistan does not end on the provisions we want, with the ruling Taliban in Kabul,” General Mark Milley, said Chairman of the US staff, said the DPR’s armed service committee.
“The war is a strategic failure,” Millley told the committee who heard the pull of US troops from Afghanistan and chaotic evacuation from the capital Kabul.
“It was not lost in the last 20 days or even 20 months,” Milley said.
“There is a cumulative effect on a series of strategic decisions that run back,” said General, the top military advisor for President Joe Biden, who ended the expiration of the presence of 20-year-old US troops in Afghanistan.
“Every time you get some phenomena like a lost war – and already, in our sense completing our strategic tasks to protect America against Al-Qaeda, but of course the final state is far different from what we want,” Milley said.
“So every time a phenomenon like that happens, there are many terrible causal factors,” he said.
“And we have to find out.
Many lessons learned here.” Milley registered a number of factors responsible for the US defeat to return to the opportunities missed to capture or kill Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Tora Bora immediately after the 2001 US invasion to Afghanistan.
He also quoted a decision in 2003 to invade Iraq, which transferred US forces from Afghanistan, “not effectively dealing with Pakistan as a sanctuary (Taliban),” and interesting advisors out of Afghanistan a few years ago.
Biden, in April, ordered a full withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan on August 31, following with the agreement reached by the Taliban by former President Donald Trump.
Milley and General Kenneth McKenzie, the US Central Command Commander, told the Senate Committee on Tuesday that they personally recommend that around 2,500 soldiers remain on the ground in Afghanistan.
The White House press secretary Jen PSaki said Biden had received the advice of “split” about what to do in Afghanistan, which was invaded by the United States after Al-Qaida’s attack on September 11, 2001 in New York and Washington.
“In the end, it was up to the head of the commander to make a decision,” said PSAKI.
“He made a decision that it was time to end the 20-year war.”