Biden left Taliban $7B in weapons, fingerprint scanners used to hunt US allies: damning report
Category: News & Politics
Via: texan1211 • one week ago • 12 commentsBy: Caitlin Doornbos Published (New York Post)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
By Caitlin DoornbosPublished Sep. 9, 2024, 4:15 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON - Much of the $7.1 billion in military equipment and technology President Biden left behind in Afghanistan after his botched withdrawal was still operable despite Pentagon claims to the contrary - including fingerprint devices the Taliban later used to track down down American's abandoned Afghan allies, according to a comprehensive report by the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the fiasco.
Throughout the August 2021 withdrawal and its aftermath, both the Defense Department and the Harris-Biden administration repeatedly asserted that "nearly all equipment used by US military forces in Afghanistan was either retrograded or destroyed prior to our withdrawal."
However, the report, released Sunday following a nearly two-year investigation, indicated that the administration's denials were largely semantics.
While the US military destroyed or moved most of its own equipment, they left intact billions in weapons and materiel transferred to the Afghan military, which collapsed along with the Western-backed Kabul government before the last American troops left the central Asian nation on Aug. 30, 2021.
"When questioned about the weapons left behind, [US Forces Afghanistan commander Gen. Austin Scott] Miller informed the committee those were the property of the Afghan government and had been provided pursuant to US security assistance to the Afghan forces," the report said. "The idea was that those weapons were 'going to be used, not abandoned.'"
5Taliban fighters armed with American weapons and equipment patrol and secure the outer perimeter, alongside the American controlled side of of the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan on Aug. 29, 2021. Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Responding to the report on Monday, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby insisted that "there was no handover of US equipment to the Taliban."
"That equipment had been provided to Afghan security forces appropriately and with congressional approval over the course of two decades of war," he said. "That equipment was left by those Afghan forces when they surrendered or stopped fighting."
Still, officials told the committee that there were obvious signs that Kabul would fall to the Taliban as the US withdrew - meaning the Harris-Biden administration should have predicted that the terrorist group would ultimately own any equipment left behind.
"It was clear to the administration at that point in time, that it was not a matter of if Afghanistan would fall to the Taliban, but a matter of when," the report said.
"Greg Sherman, the deputy assistant secretary of state and assistant director of High Threat Programs Directorate — the security and law enforcement arm of State Department — stated, 'it did not take a crystal ball,' even in May of 2021, to see 'the Afghan Government would fall apart.'"
5Taliban fighters pose for a photograph in Kabul, Afghanistan on Aug. 19, 2021. Rahmat Gul/AP
Kirby claimed Monday "there was no fine-tuned assessment of how fast things would unfold in August of 2021," and added that the collapse "moved a lot faster than anyone anticipated."
"As the Taliban moved in, Afghan forces stopped fighting and the Ghani government fled," he said. "As then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley said, 'Nothing that I saw indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days.'"
The equipment was left behind even though the military spent four months tearing down and shipping home thousands of pieces of other military hardware from US sites in Afghanistan after Biden announced his decision to end the 20-year war in April 2021.
"The Taliban claim to have recovered 40 operational aircraft from the former Afghan government, including two Mi-17 helicopters, two UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, two MD-530 light helicopters, two Mi-24 helicopter gunships, and one fixed-wing transport aircraft — all of which have since been observed flying according to the UN Sanctions Monitoring," the report said.
5Taliban fighters seize control and secure the Hamid Karzai International Airport, along with all the equipment and weapons left behind after the full US military withdrawal from the country. MARCUS YAM/LOS ANGELES TIMES/Shu
Some of that equipment was seen in as recently as last month, when Taliban fighters hosted a military parade to celebrate the three-year anniversary of recapturing Kabul.
"During the parade, the Taliban showcased their ability to operate tanks, helicopters, and Humvees left behind by US and coalition forces," the report said.
The equipment captured by the Islamic fundamentalists did not just include military weaponry, but also key technological tools and sensitive databases that put Afghans who had helped the US at great risk.
"American technology has empowered the Taliban to systematically target Afghan allies," the committee said. "A 2022 report by the Defence Education Enhancement Programme (DEEP) of NATO discovered the Taliban gained access to US military-maintained biometric devices and databases after the withdrawal."
"The biometric devices in question are enabled to recognize fingerprint, eye scan, and facial information, and the DEEP report warned that the Taliban had access to biometric data allowing them to identify civilians that worked with the United States or NATO."
5US Marines provide assistance during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport on Aug. 20, 2021 in Kabul, Afghanistan. AP
On Monday, committee chairman Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) told MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports" that the Taliban "goes door to door [and] checks fingerprints" of residents before torturing and killing those found to have assisted the US and NATO.
Other military goods were siphoned off even before the Afghanistan collapse thanks to negligence on the part of the military, the report charged.
When the US handed the sprawling Bagram Air Base over to Afghan forces in July 2021, the Harris-Biden administration failed to properly communicate its plans. Instead, the military cut off the installation's water and left in the middle of the night, keeping the base's new Afghan commander literally in the dark about their departure.
"Afghan General Mir Asadullah Kohistani — who took over command of Bagram for the Afghan military — asserted he heard a 'rumor that the Americans had left Bagram … and finally by seven o'clock in the morning, we understood that it was confirmed that they had already left Bagram,'" the report said.
"Darwaish Raufi — Afghanistan's district administrator for Bagram — confirmed General Kohistani's account, stating the U.S. departure from Bagram had occurred without proper coordination with local Afghan officials."
5AP
This meant the base - home to three large hangars, a control tower and two runways, one of which cost $96 million to build - was left unsecured enough that "looters made their way to Bagram before the Afghan military became aware of the American departure."
However, Gen. Frank McKenzie, the then-head of US Central Command, denied the allegation when asked by the committee.
"We did this in close coordination with our allies and partners," he told the committee. "Every departure of every element was carefully synchronized across the coalition and with our Afghan partners. On no occasion were they caught unaware by our movements."
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Time to cue up the old reliable:
It was really Trump's fault that Biden botched things up.
early all equipment used by US military forces in Afghanistan was either retrograded or destroyed prior to our withdrawal
and they lied...
Of course they lied.
The Administration already had looked bad with the botched withdrawal they tried to blame on Trump. Dang sure wouldn't be admitting to any of THIS!
One the Biden Admin's biggest mistakes was not staging out of Bagram instead of Hamid Karzai. Bagram was a military airfield that was better situated and would have been easier to defend. Staging out of Karzai was more of a political decision rather than a military one.
And yet they came to the opposite conclusion because the refugees would have to transit 40 miles of flat open defenseless terrain. US leaders likened it to the Highway of Death when the Iraqis were forced from Kuwait.
We were down to 2500 troops with no way to shield that road from anything the Taliban or former Afghani Army could constitute for offensive purposes.
Why Bagram wouldn’t have made a difference, and more about the Afghanistan exit plan (militarytimes.com)
Rather than traversing the entire country held by the Taliban to get to Kabul- which was a complete shit show at the time. Just to hope they could then make it to the airport- past the Taliban, terrorists, and hordes of unvetted Afghans that were descending on it trying to leave.
Why the hell didn't Biden send US forces out to rescue US nationals like the French and British did? Please don't try to claim that US forces aren't trained as well; don't have the equipment to carry out that type of operation; and don't have the technical expertise.
In fact US troops would have had an easier time holding Bagram and sending out rescue missions from there.
No amount of spin can change the fact that the Biden administration fucked up the withdrawal on a massive level.
I don't believe that will keep people from trying to salvage something good out of it for Biden.
Eventually most of them attempt to blame Trump.
DOHA was signed on 02/29/20. That gave anyone with an inclination to leave a full 14 months to leave before 05/01/2021. Surely after the shit show surrounding the release of over 5,400 Taliban prisoners in exchange for 1,000 Afghani Army prisoners people had to know the end was coming. The laughable part of the agreement is that Trump excluded the Afganistain government because their 2020 election was being disputed.
Trump left 2,500 troops in country to essentially ship home anything salvageable.
By May we were clearly not ready to pull out and Biden extended the operations to leave.
In the end these "people we left behind" had squandered 19 months during which they could have walked to any other country in the region.
Biden infused 4,000 troops in August to specifically evacuate the Embassy and any remaining ANs who needed a ride.
Why would I?
In fact if you have never been there, your opinion means nothing compared to the brass charged with the actual evacuations.
Bagram was turned over to the Afghans on July06. In order to defend itself and the area it needed a minimum of 8,000 troops ( it could accommodate 10,000) so no it was not a tenable last bastion. Kabul on the other hand was operated by civilians who would be staying behind. Get it yet?
No amount of common sense can assuage partisan hatred apparently. The US military accomplished the largest air lift of military equipment, uniformed personnel, embassy employees and civilians and refugees in history. It was marred by a single suicide bomber who killed at least 283 and maimed hundreds more and a drone strike on apparent friendly civilians.
Such is war.
I don't believe that partisan hatred will keep blinding people from trying to salvage something good out of it for the US Military and the often impossible assignments they are tasked with and the "never correct" sometimes impossible decisions that have to be made day to day.
If Trump deserves part of the blame, so be it. He started the ball rolling in 2020, in 2021 he was only pretending to be POTUS in exile.
People are free to blame Trump.
But it would mean more if they were legitimate complaints and detailed exactly how Trump planned the withdrawal on Biden's watch, what he screwed up in the planning of the logistics of it.
Otherwise it just looks like folks trying to blame him for Biden's mistakes.
Biden didn't wear a suicide vest and evade Afghan police, Taliban fighters and US soldiers.
ISIS-K did.
It was a tragedy in a country used to daily tragedies.
The airlift brought out all Americans who reported, billions in military equipment
231,000 Afghan civilians and over 5,000 US military.
The only person to blame for that day was Jesus Christ who called them to his Kingdom
using ISIS-K as the devil.
There is not one thing in that post that rebuts anything on mine.
If only that were the truth.
Sadly, it is not.