WASHINGTON – Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told lawmakers Wednesday that the Trump administration didn’t leave behind plans for a negotiated withdrawal from Afghanistan for him to use when he took over the Pentagon.
“There was no handoff to me of any plans for withdrawal,” Austin testified Wednesday before the House Armed Services Committee. “In terms of hand-off from administration to administration, secretary to secretary, there was no handoff to me.”
Austin’s remarks came after General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told lawmakers that the failures in Afghanistan that ended with a chaotic withdrawal in late August were the result of 20 years of mismanagement by presidential administrations of both parties.
“This was a 20-year war and it wasn’t lost in the last 20 days or even 20 months, for that matter,” Milley said. “There’s a cumulative effect to a series of strategic decisions that go way back.”
Milley cited the failure to capture or kill al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora in the early months of the war, when U.S. troops were “one thousand meters” away from him; the decision by the Bush administration to divert attention and resources to Iraq from Afghanistan in 2003; the failure to deal with Pakistan as a sanctuary for Taliban fighters; and the removal of U.S. advisers from Afghan military units three years ago as contributing factors.