Former US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the US withdrawal from Afghanistan last month was “developed by a child’s mind,” according to statements issued to the media via email.
Earlier in the day, two top military officials and the defense secretary confirmed that President Biden was advised to keep at least 2,500 troops in the country to prevent the Taliban from overrunning the Western-imposed government.
The president purportedly ignored the advice, given that he said he did not recall such warnings from his generals.
According to the former president, such a “botched and embarrassingly incompetent withdrawal from Afghanistan had nothing to do with past administrations or things that happened ‘from 20 years ago,’ (other than we should not have been in the Middle East in the first place!)”
“The horrible ‘withdrawal’ was caused, in particular, because the Military was taken out before American citizens and $85 Billion worth of the highest-grade Military equipment anywhere in the world. […] This withdrawal was developed by a child’s mind, and only the Biden Administration is responsible for it.”
In his Tuesday testimony, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin justified the pullout before the Senate Armed Services Committee, arguing that retaining forces in Afghanistan past the end of August “would have made it even more dangerous for our people, and would not have significantly changed the number of evacuees we could get out.”
Source: Agencies
