NEW YORK, April 7 (Xinhua) -- A government review of the calamitous American withdrawal from Afghanistan found that the United States should have started the evacuation earlier, the New York Times reported Thursday.
In this image provided by the U.S. Marines, U.S. Marines with Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force - Crisis Response - Central Command, provide assistance during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 20, 2021. (Photo: AP)
The National Security Council on Thursday released a 12-page summary of the government's findings about the withdrawal in August 2021, which swiftly turned violent.
Amid the U.S. rush to evacuate people from the international airport in Kabul, an Islamic State suicide bomber carried out an attack that killed 13 U.S. service members and as many as 170 civilians, the report said.
Within days of the U.S. withdrawal, the Afghan government collapsed.
"Clearly we didn't get things right here with Afghanistan with how fast the Taliban was moving across the country," said White House spokesman John Kirby.
Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Donald Trump's re-election campaign, said on Thursday that the Joe Biden administration was "trying to gaslight the American people for their disastrous withdrawal in Afghanistan that directly led to American deaths and emboldened the terrorists."
