US review on chaotic military withdrawal from Afghanistan largely blames Trump administration

'Like heaven:' refugee describes life one year after Taliban takeover, U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan | LiveNOW from FOX

August marks the one-year anniversary of American withdrawal from Afghanistan, and since then, the country has spiraled, as many feared, and it is now in a deep humanitarian crisis. As a result of the turmoil, thousands of Afghans have fled from the country, and many of them re-settled in Arizona. One of the refugees who re-settled in Arizona is Fahima Sultani. "I thought the whole world collapsed on my head, when I got to know that the Taliban took control in Afghanistan," said Sultani, who is now a student at Arizona State University. Sultani was born in 2001. Growing up in Afghanistan, she never lived under the Taliban regime, but always feared the stories her parents told her. Those fears turned to reality as the Taliban took control, and word spread that American and NATO troops were leaving the country. Sultani said she knew she had to get out, and fast. "I was thinking if they kill me, let them do this because if I stay in Afghanistan, I will be kind of a dead body because I cannot speak," said Sultani. "Millions of girls right now, they don’t have the right to speak. They don’t have the right to live freely, to make decisions for themselves. So I thought that I will make it, or otherwise if they kill me, let them do this." Sultani left her family behind to start the dangerous journey to America. Like hundreds of others, she spent days trying to get into Kabul's airport. "The third day that we were trying to get into the airport, an explosion happened," Sultani recounted. "A lot of fighting’s happened. Gunfighting and gunshots happened, and a lot of people got killed from our group. We were seven buses, and several girls just gave up. They were so frightened and afraid." Eventually, Sultani made it onto a plane to Washington D.C.. From there, she went on to a military base in Wisconsin, where she stayed for three months. That was when ASU found her. They welcomed Sultani, along with 63 other students from Afghanistan. "It's like heaven for me," said Sultani. "I have a lot of opportunities as a student, as a girl, as a human. I have a lot of opportunities. I can be myself, I can dress the way I want to, I can go wherever I want, anytime, without a man or a male surrounding me." Now, Sultani is studying business administration and entrepreneurship. She also helps international students on campus, but her biggest dream is to create her own non-profit, helping women and children back in Afghanistan. "I can work, I can do my studies, I can even dream bigger than before," said Sultani. "I can work on my potential to be stronger than ever."

WASHINGTON (AP) - A U.S. review led by the National Security Council of the chaotic 2021 withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan largely lays the blame on former President Donald Trump, saying President Joe Biden was "severely constrained" by the decisions of his predecessor.

The White House on Thursday publicly released a 12-page summary of the results of the so-called " hotwash " of U.S. policies around the ending of the nation's longest war, taking little responsibility for its own actions during some of the darkest moments of Biden's presidency.

The administration said most of the after-action reviews, which were transmitted privately to Congress on Thursday, were highly classified and would not be released publicly.

"President Biden’s choices for how to execute a withdrawal from Afghanistan were severely constrained by conditions created by his predecessor," the White House summary states, noting that when Biden entered office, "the Taliban were in the strongest military position that they had been in since 2001, controlling or contesting nearly half of the country."

The report does fault overly optimistic intelligence community assessments about the Afghan army's willingness to fight, and says Biden followed military commanders' recommendations for the pacing of the drawdown of U.S. forces.

The White House asserts the mistakes of Afghanistan informed its handling of Ukraine, where the Biden administration has been credited for supporting Kyiv’s defense against Russia’s invasion. The White House says it simulated worst-case scenarios prior to the February 2022 invasion and moved to release intelligence about Moscow’s intentions months beforehand.

"We now prioritize earlier evacuations when faced with a degrading security situation," the White House said.

In an apparent attempt to defend its national security decision-making, the Biden administration also notes that it released pre-war warnings over "strong objections from senior officials in the Ukrainian government."

Republicans in Congress have sharply criticized the Afghanistan withdrawal, focusing on the deaths of 13 service members in a suicide bombing at Kabul’s airport.

Former Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, who was badly wounded in the explosion, told a congressional hearing last month that the withdrawal "was a catastrophe" and "there was an inexcusable lack of accountability."

Pentagon officials testify before House committee regarding deadly Afghanistan withdrawal

Senior Pentagon officials testified Wednesday that the collapse of the Afghan government and its security forces in last month can be attributed to a 2020 agreement with the Taliban that promised a complete U.S. troop withdrawal.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby credited U.S. forces for their actions in running the largest airborne evacuation of noncombatants in history during the chaos of Kabul's fall.

"They ended our nation’s longest war," he told reporters. "That was never going to be an easy thing to do. And as the president himself has said, it was never going to be low grade or low risk or low cost."

Since the U.S. withdrawal, Biden has blamed the February 2020 agreement Trump reached with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, saying it boxed the U.S. into leaving the country. The agreement gave the Taliban significant legitimacy and has been blamed by analysts for undercutting the U.S.-backed government, which would collapse so quickly a year later.

But the agreement also gave the U.S. the right to withdraw from the accord if Afghan peace talks failed — which they did.

The agreement required the U.S. to remove all forces by May 1, 2021. Biden pushed a full withdrawal to September but declined to delay further, saying it would prolong a war that had long needed to end.