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US soldier at a military base of the Afghan army (archive picture): "Many errors can be traced back to the willful disregard of information"
Photo: Omar Sobhani / REUTERS
According to a report, the US government had little knowledge of the country during its deployment in Afghanistan and as a result made numerous wrong decisions. "The ignorance of the prevailing social, cultural and political realities in Afghanistan has contributed significantly to the mistakes at the strategic, operational and tactical level," said a report by the US Inspector General for Reconstruction in Afghanistan (Sigar).
For example, the US government wrongly assumed that the governance challenges in Iraq and Afghanistan were similar. "In fact, they weren't," the report says. The authors also cite an example of failed planning: the construction of some US-funded schools provided a crane for the installation of the roof. "But cranes could not be used in the mountainous terrain that is characteristic of many parts of the country," they say.
The US government's misjudgment of the social and political environment in Afghanistan had resulted in initiatives to stabilize and rebuild the country being inadequately adapted to the local context. "Many mistakes are the result of willful neglect of information that may have been there." According to the report, billions of dollars have been wasted because funded projects have failed.
The demand for rapid progress would have led to projects being implemented at short notice that did not meet the capabilities of Afghanistan or the Afghan government. In addition, widespread corruption has led to the waste and misuse of US funds. 20 years later, a lot has improved in Afghanistan - but a lot has not. "If the goal was to rebuild and leave behind a country that can sustain itself and hardly threaten US national security interests, then the overall picture is grim."
US President Joe Biden's National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, has defended both the work and the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. The US had given its blood, sweat, and tears for the country for 20 years and trained and equipped Afghans to be able to fight for themselves, Sullivan said. "At some point it was time for the United States to say that the Afghan people must stand up for themselves." The US government was aware that the withdrawal could possibly result in the Taliban coming back to power . But the pace of their advance was not foreseen.
Sullivan argued that a significant increase in US troops would have been necessary to halt the Taliban's advance.
More American soldiers should have given their lives.
The US president was not ready for this.
ime / dpa