\n\n“On a rainy day in early May, weeks after President Joe Biden announced the U.S. exit from Afghanistan, senior leaders from across the government gathered in the basement of the Pentagon for a broad interagency drill to rehearse the withdrawal plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the exercise, top Pentagon leaders including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley stressed the need for American troops to get out of the country as quickly as possible to protect against renewed Taliban attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their plan called for the military to draw down to zero within 60 days of Biden\u2019s official order, or roughly mid- to late-June \u2014 far sooner than the Sept. 11 deadline the president originally set. One of the most crucial decisions involved handing over Bagram Air Base to the Afghans as the last step of the withdrawal once U.S. forces were so depleted that they could no longer reasonably secure what had been the hub of the American military effort there for the past 20 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAll of them made the same argument,\u201d said one defense official, who was in attendance at the drill on May 8, and whose account includes previously unreported details. \u201cSpeed equals safety,\u201d the person said, referring to the message conveyed by the military leaders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The military brass had done a remarkable 180. For the first four months of 2021, as the White House reviewed the withdrawal timeline inherited from the Trump administration, Austin and Milley, as well as senior military commanders, urged Biden to leave a few thousand troops in Afghanistan indefinitely. Both were overruled<\/a>. Once that happened, the Pentagon embraced as quick a withdrawal as possible, including from Bagram. And the Pentagon stuck to that approach through the beginning of July, regardless of the conditions on the ground.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n …<\/p>\n\n\n\n “At every stage of the withdrawal, the White House went along with the Pentagon\u2019s recommendations, accepting a timetable that ended up going faster than Biden laid out in the spring. When the Taliban started to sweep through northern Afghanistan in the summer, different plans were discussed but never altered. The priority for the Pentagon was to protect U.S. troops and pull them out, even as diplomats and Afghan allies stayed behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By early August, when it was clear Kabul would fall sooner than expected, the American military presence was down to fewer than 1,000 troops. It was too late to reverse course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n None of the civilian officials who were at the May 8 meeting at the Pentagon questioned the military\u2019s rapid drawdown plan, according to multiple officials. Those attendees included national security adviser Jake Sullivan and his deputy, Jon Finer; CIA Director William Burns; Samantha Power, the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development; Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the ambassador to the United Nations. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was not present, but was represented by his deputy, Brian McKeon. Besides Austin and Milley, other Pentagon officials included Gens. Frank McKenzie and Austin Scott Miller, the commanding generals of U.S. Central Command and U.S. Forces-Afghanistan, respectively, who joined via secure video.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n …<\/p>\n\n\n\n “This account of the military\u2019s withdrawal from Afghanistan is based on interviews with 17 current and former officials \u2014 most of whom requested anonymity in order to speak candidly without fear of retribution. Their accounts shed new light on the Pentagon\u2019s decision to hand over Bagram, and the back and forth between senior military leaders and the White House leading up to the American exit from Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Spokespeople for the National Security Council and the State Department declined to comment on the May drill.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n …<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The military\u2019s first priority was getting its troops out of Afghanistan as soon as possible after the initial May 1 deadline, in case of renewed Taliban attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The proposal assumed that the Afghans would control the base for at least a few months after the American withdrawal, allowing the U.S. to use the base for an evacuation if needed, the official said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But as the drawdown neared completion in June and early July, some military officials were concerned that it was moving too quickly. This was one reason brass pushed American contractors to leave the country early, rather than on the administration timeline, said the former senior defense official.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe one-stars and two-stars.\u2026 They are very discouraged because I think it shows some serious flaws in our four-star leadership,\u201d the person said. \u201cTo me that was a big mistake by our military: they didn\u2019t have to get them out that fast and they could have kept open some other options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe military should\u2019ve pushed back harder and not pulled their people out the minute they didn\u2019t win the argument with Blinken and Biden.\u201d” <\/p>\n\n\n\n …<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Within hours of the Americans leaving on July 1, looters descended<\/a> on the base, grabbing gas canisters and some laptops. Afghan officials said the U.S. left behind millions of small items, including bottles of water and ready-made meals known as MREs, as well as thousands of civilian vehicles, hundreds of armored vehicles, and some small weapons and ammunition for the Afghan troops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n