Leaders raise concerns about withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 2021
Washington, D.C. (April 15, 2021) — In immediate response to news that President Joseph Biden would withdraw all remaining United States’ troops from Afghanistan by September 11, 2021, ASAP leadership said it will “foreshadow a tragic loss for Afghans and for the U.S.” They also stressed that, with a specific deadline for withdrawal, “the Taliban have no incentive to negotiate with the Afghan government or to reel in the violence it continues to perpetrate against the people of Afghanistan.” There is a real likelihood that, after the U.S. leaves, Afghanistan will plunge into a major civil war and humanitarian crisis.
News of the announcement also drew strong expressions of concern from a range of leading U.S. policy makers and media outlets. The consensus among these voices is that this is not the time for withdrawal from Afghanistan. Those voices include:
Sen. Jack Reed (R.I.-Dem), Chair, Senate Armed Services Committee, April 14: declined to say whether or not he supported the President’s decision, adding , “We also have to maintain a presence for regional stability. We have two nuclear-armed powers in the region, particularly with respect to Pakistan. And so we’ll [have] active diplomacy as well as active counterterrorism continuing.”
Recently Confirmed Director of the CIA Bill Burns, April 14: “There is a significant risk once the U.S. military and the coalition militaries withdraw. The U.S. government’s ability to collect and act on threats will diminish. That’s simply a fact,” he said, cautioning that al-Qaida and IS in Afghanistan “remain intent on recovering the ability to attack U.S. targets, whether it’s in the region, in the West or ultimately in the homeland.”
Former CIA Officer Marc Polymeropoulos, who spent much of his career working on counterterrorism operations, April 14: “Ungoverned spaces, let alone a known terrorist organization like the Taliban dominating a nation, is altogether an ideal breeding ground for disparate terrorist groups that threaten the United States to find save haven and shelter,” “While it is understandable to want all our forces to come home, it should not be at the expense of losing what we have gained to do so,” he said. “Repositioning our counterterrorism capabilities outside of the country will significantly reduce our intelligence collection operations and our ability to conduct unilateral operations against direct threats to the homeland.”
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.-Dem), April 14: “I’m very disappointed in the president’s decision to set a September deadline to walk away from Afghanistan. Although this decision was made in coordination with our allies, the U.S. has sacrificed too much to bring stability to Afghanistan to leave without verifiable assurances of a secure future. It undermines our commitment to the Afghan people, particularly Afghan women,” she continued. “I urge the Biden administration to make every effort between now and September to safeguard the progress made and support our partners in the formation of an inclusive, transitional government.”
Gen. David Patreaus (ret.), former Commander of the International Security Assistance Force, April 14: said the Taliban have shown no desire to participate in intra-Afghan peace talks, and after the U.S. withdrawal will likely overrun the country and allow terrorist groups such as al Qaeda and the Islamic State to reconstitute. “I’m really afraid that we’re going to look back two years ago and regret the decision.”
Sen. Maggie Hassan (N.H.-Dem), April 14: “Withdrawal of U.S. troops must be based on the facts on the ground, not arbitrary deadlines. After all that our service members have sacrificed, we must ensure that Afghanistan does not once again become a safe haven for terrorists who seek to harm America.”
Rep. Seth Moulton (M.A.-Dem), April 14: “Almost 20 years on, it is clear we won’t win the war in Afghanistan, but there are still devastating ways we could lose. If we have learned anything in the last 20 years it is that there is nothing worse for America’s service members than leaving positions and returning the next year with more troops to fight and die for the same goals we failed to achieve the last time we were there. I want to bring home our troops, but we must bring them home for good.”
Sen. Bob Menendez (N.J.-Dem.), Chairman of Senate Foreign Relations Committee, April 14: “I just am concerned that after so much blood and national treasure that we don’t lose what we were seeking to achieve.” He has also been quoted saying, “I certainly will not be supportive of any assistance to Afghanistan if there is backsliding on civil society, the rights that women have been able to achieve. And if the Taliban ultimately doesn’t keep its obligations, then there will be consequences and one of them will be that there will be no money flowing. So I don’t know how they will rebuild the country.”
Mitch McConnell (K.Y.-Rep), Senate Minority Leader, April 14: “Precipitously withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan is a grave mistake. It is retreat in the face of an enemy that has not yet been vanquished and abdication of American leadership.” He added “a reckless pullback like this” leaves the region vulnerable in the “fight against terrorists that we have not yet won. It will also specifically abandon the women of Afghanistan, whose individual freedoms and human rights will be imperiled. Foreign terrorists will not leave the United States alone simply because our politicians have grown tired of taking the fight to them.”
Lisa Curtis, Headed Afghanistan policy at the National Security Council under Donald Trump, April 14: “Once we leave, the pressure that we’ve been keeping on these elements goes away and it creates a vacuum. The Afghan government becomes vulnerable, the women who we had worked so hard to protect and empower become vulnerable and the entire country will be threatened once again by terrorist elements.”
Rep. Liz Cheney (W.Y.-Rep), April 14: called the move “fundamentally dangerous.” She said, “any withdrawal of forces that is not based on conditions on the ground puts American security at risk. He’s further, apparently, going to announce that the date for the withdrawal will be Sept. 11. Now I’m not sure why the White House has selected that date, but I can tell you that that is a huge victory, huge propaganda victory, for the Taliban, for al-Qaida.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C. — Rep), April 13: “President Biden will have, in essence, cancelled an insurance policy against another 9/11. A residual counterterrorism force would be an insurance policy against the rise of radical Islam in Afghanistan that could pave the way for another attack against our homeland or our allies.”
Washington Post Editorial Board, April 13: “Mr. Biden has decided on unconditional withdrawal, a step that may spare the United States further costs and lives but will almost certainly be a disaster for the country’s 39 million people — and, in particular, its women. It could lead to the reversal of the political, economic and social progress for which the United States fought for two decades, at a cost of more than 2,000 American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. And, according to the U.S. intelligence community and a study commissioned by Congress, it could allow al-Qaeda to restore its base in Afghanistan, from which it launched the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The bargain struck by the Trump administration with the Taliban required it to break all ties with al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. According to U.N. and U.S. military officials, it has not done so. Nor has it been willing to negotiate seriously with the Afghan government about a peaceful settlement. It rejected a Biden administration proposal for a conference in Turkey to jump-start those talks, and it ridiculed U.S. proposals for a power-sharing arrangement with the government, as well as for new elections. The group’s leaders project the conviction that they will easily rout the government militarily once the United States leaves, and restore a harsh “Islamic emirate” such as the one they fashioned in the 1990s.”
David Ignatius, Washington Post, April 13: “Military advisers, now as a decade ago, have been warning Biden of the dangers. Intelligence analysts predict that civil war may quickly erupt, and the Kabul government may collapse. They predict that al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups could reestablish havens within two years. They fear that Islamist militants around the world, who have been on the defensive since the defeat of the Islamic State, will be emboldened by what the Taliban will claim as a victory… The only thing that’s worse than remaining in what seems an unwinnable stalemate is pulling out troops — and then having to go back in.”
Madiha Afzal, Fellow with the Brookings Institute, April 14: “Anything that we achieved, frustrating as it has been over the last 20 years, is threatened by a precipitous withdrawal,” said Mr. Afzal. Mr Afzal, whose family is originally from Pakistan, fears the country might see another huge influx of refugees as it did in 1989 after the Soviet withdrawal from the region.
