Axios Report: White House preparing Capitol Hill memo detailing Afghanistan withdrawal

This weekend, Axios reported that the White House is in the process of preparing a memo that will circulate on Capitol Hill that details the controversial withdrawal of United States troops from Afghanistan last year.

The chaotic withdrawal of US and NATO forces from Afghanistan in August of last year has drawn sharp criticism of the Biden administration from Republican leaders as the midterms draw nearer. House Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee are preparing a blistering report a year after the withdrawal that, CNN reported this week, will “additional new details about the Biden administration’s failure to adequately plan for and execute the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.”

The GOP report continues, “The decision to withdraw U.S. military forces was made by President Biden, despite advice from his military commanders that such a move could lead to Taliban battlefield gains.” 

The White House’s memo, according to Axios, will set out to prove that the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan after a 20 year presence ultimately strengthened American national security by shifting military and intelligence resources away from the Afghanistan operation and onto other matters.

The memo will also refute many of the claims in the upcoming GOP House report, and point out the ways in which former president Donald Trump was responsible for the chaos of the withdrawal due to his signing of the Doha Agreement which promised a complete US withdrawal by May of 2021.

“[The GOP memo] advocates for endless war and for sending even more American troops to Afghanistan,” said Adrienne Watson, National Security Council spokeswoman in the White House memo. “And it ignores the impacts of the flawed deal that former President Trump struck with the Taliban.”