Joint chief chairman calls Afghan war a strategic failure

On Sep 29, 2021

The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley said on Tuesday during a Senate hearing that it is a strategic failure with the Taliban back in power and U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Gen. Mark Milley alongside Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and U.S. Central Command head Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, testified for the first time before Congress since the United States ended its longest war in Afghanistan.

“It is obvious, the war in Afghanistan did not end on the terms we wanted, with the Taliban now in power in Kabul.

“Strategically, the war is lost, the enemy is in Kabul. So you have a strategic failure while you simultaneously have an operational and tactical success,” he added.

Milley and McKenzie said they believed the United States should maintain 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, and a quick drawdown from the country could lead to a collapse of the Afghan government and military.

Pentagon chief Austin stressed that the sudden collapse of the Afghan military was beyond their expectation.

“The fact that the Afghan army we and our partners trained simply melted away, in many cases without firing a shot, took us all by surprise,” said Austin.

Top military commanders pointed to the agreement reached between the United States and Taliban in February 2020, which called for a full withdrawal of the U.S. troops from Afghanistan by May 2021 if the Taliban meets the conditions, had a demoralizing impact on the Afghan military.

Milley admitted in the hearing that the withdrawal damaged U.S. credibility. “Damage is one word that could be used.”

He also raised terrorism threats that could potentially emerge from Afghanistan in the near future.

Kamila/Xinhua