President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken scrapped the Trump’s administration’s Afghanistan crisis response bureau two months before the nation’s US-backed government collapsed, The National Pulse reported.
Deputy Secretary of State Brian P. McKeon approved a proposal on June 11 to “direct the discontinuation of the establishment, and termination of, the Contingency and Crisis Response Bureau (CCR), and direct a further review of certain associated Department requirements and capabilities.”
As early as February — when the United States had less three months to prepare to leave Afghanistan — Blinken had set in motion the plan to eliminate the Trump-era CCR.
Blinken’s State Department insists that the CCR had no worthwhile purpose.
A State Department official said “that not only would the proposed Contingency and Crisis Response Bureau not have introduced any new capabilities to the Department, it was never formally established,” Townhall reported.
The order that McKeon signed, however, calls for the CCR’s “termination,” which implies that the Trump administration had at least partly established the bureau.
Blinken himself praised the CCR’s predecessor agency, The Bureau of Medical Services’ Directorate of Operation or OpMed.
“Though perhaps lesser known outside of the Department, it’s vital to our operations,” Blinken said. “That’s because OpMed provides the platform and personnel to save American lives around the world, especially in times of crisis.”
Former President Donald Trump agreed to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan by May 1, but Biden first pushed the date back to August 31 and then to September 11, following the Afghan government’s collapse.
Trump ordered the State Department to create a “Contingency and Crisis Response Bureau” to handle diplomatic, logistical, and medical issues that may arise in America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Trump told The National Pulse that his administration’s withdrawal plan would not have resulted in chaos that has engulfed Afghanistan in the past weeks.
“Canceling this successful Trump Administration program before the withdrawal that would have helped tens of thousands Americans reach home is beyond disgraceful,” he said. “Our withdrawal was conditions-based and perfect, it would have been flawlessly executed and nobody would have even known we left.”
