(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 proved profitable for the Taliban, according to a report by the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
The Biden-Harris administration’s withdrawal left behind $7 billion in U.S. weapons and $57 million in currency, likely benefitting the Taliban’s dealings with other terrorist regimes, according to a 353-page report.
“The U.S. military airlifted thousands of pieces of equipment out of Bagram in the days and weeks prior to departure,” the report revealed. “Nevertheless, the Biden-Harris administration left behind $7.1 billion of transferred defense articles and equipment in Afghanistan.”
General Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, defended the decision, claiming the weapons were intended for the now-defunct Afghan government.
However, U.S. officials knew the Afghan government was likely to collapse once U.S. troops withdrew, raising questions about why such valuable assets were abandoned.
“When asked about this issue, General Milley similarly contended those weapons had not been the United States’ responsibility in the first place — representing they were part of the security assistance sold to Afghan forces over the course of two decades,” the report noted.
Beyond the billions in aid, over 1,000 Americans and tens of thousands of Afghan allies were stranded. The withdrawal also left 13 U.S. servicemen dead in an ISIS-K suicide bombing, despite Biden hailing the effort as an “extraordinary success.”
In response to the report, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told the New York Post there had been no “handover of US equipment to the Taliban.”
Kirby added, “That equipment had been provided to Afghan security forces appropriately and with congressional approval over the course of two decades of war. That equipment was left by those Afghan forces when they surrendered or stopped fighting.”
