{"id":1917259,"date":"2023-04-20T15:25:34","date_gmt":"2023-04-20T19:25:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/us-government-watchdog-blames-both-biden-trump-for-afghanistan-collapse\/"},"modified":"2023-04-20T15:27:07","modified_gmt":"2023-04-20T19:27:07","slug":"us-government-watchdog-blames-both-biden-trump-for-afghanistan-collapse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/us-government-watchdog-blames-both-biden-trump-for-afghanistan-collapse\/","title":{"rendered":"US Government Watchdog Blames Both Biden, Trump for Afghanistan Collapse"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fus-government-watchdog-blames-both-biden-trump-for-afghanistan-collapse%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1917259&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div class=\"post_content\">\n<div class=\"aplayer_app\" data-source=\"https:\/\/vs1.youmaker.com\/assets\/2023\/0419\/d346e040-1004-4a80-ace7-98f0eb948562\/audio.mp3?length=2716461&#038;duration=226\"><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<p>A U.S. watchdog says the Trump and Biden administrations are to blame for the collapse of Afghanistan\u2019s government due to the U.S. withdrawal from the country in 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko testified to the House Oversight Committee (<a href=\"https:\/\/oversight.house.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/SIGAR-Testimony-23-22-TY.pdf\">pdf<\/a>) on April 19,\u00a0identifying five factors behind the collapse.<\/p>\n<p>One of them was that the Afghan government believed the United States would stay.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDespite many official pronouncements throughout the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations about the U.S. desire to exit Afghanistan, contradictory messaging by U.S. officials failed to convey the seriousness of U.S. intentions,\u201d Sopko wrote.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInconsistent U.S. policy statements amplified the confusion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sopko cited the Trump administration\u2019s 2020 deal with the Taliban, which had a conditions-based agreement to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan, and a joint U.S.\u2013Afghan government declaration reaffirming their commitment to militarily combat terrorism.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBoth the language of the U.S.\u2013Taliban agreement and statements by senior U.S. officials left open the possibility that the United States would not leave Afghanistan until all the agreement\u2019s conditions were met,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Sopko said that Biden\u2019s April 14, 2021, withdrawal announcement should have put an end to that speculation. However, he said, \u201cIt is unclear whether the Afghan government, and particularly President [Ashraf] Ghani, fully grasped its meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He also noted that Afghan\u2019s security forces were ill-prepared to fight the Taliban.<\/p>\n<p>The second factor he identified is the United States\u2019 leaving out the Afghan government and instead just negotiating with the Taliban.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe agreement likely led Taliban leaders to seek a resolution with the Afghan government on the battlefield rather than through peace talks,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Sopko\u2019s third factor is the Afghan government\u2019s wanting the Taliban \u201cto be integrated under the umbrella of the Republic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He wrote: \u201cA senior member of the Afghan negotiating team, Fatima Gailani, told SIGAR that President Ghani was convinced that President [Joe] Biden would win the 2020 election, and would start negotiations over again from scratch. Accordingly, he refused to relinquish power until the last possible moment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ghani fled Afghanistan on Aug. 15, 2021.<\/p>\n<p>The fourth factor Sopko noted is that the Taliban was unwilling to budge.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe U.S. promise to withdraw its military forces and the T<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A U.S. watchdog says the Trump and Biden administrations are to blame for the collapse of Afghanistan\u2019s government due to the U.S. withdrawal from the country in 2021. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) John Sopko testified to the House Oversight Committee (pdf) on April 19,\u00a0identifying five factors behind the collapse. One of them<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1797,"featured_media":1917260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[543],"tags":[7228,3620,5692,7385,5045,3634,6056],"class_list":["post-1917259","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-epoch-times","tag-afghanistan","tag-biden","tag-blames","tag-collapse","tag-government","tag-trump","tag-watchdog"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1917259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1797"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1917259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1917259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1917260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1917259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1917259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1917259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}