RPT: REVIEW - Biden Admits Defeat In Afghanistan, Orders Troop Exit Amid Dire Warnings

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 15th April, 2021) President Joe Biden ordered troops to leave Afghanistan by September 11, sounding alarms among members of the CIA and Congress, although others are skeptical the United States will ever fully withdraw from the war-torn South Asian country.

On Wednesday, Biden in a speech formally announced that the US intends to complete a troop withdrawal from Afghanistan by September 11. NATO also agreed with the US plan, which calls for beginning the troop extraction process on May 1.

"US troops, as well as forces deployed by our NATO Allies and operational partners, will be out of Afghanistan before we mark the 20th anniversary of that heinous attack on September 11th," Biden said during the address. "Bin Laden is dead, and al-Qaeda [terrorist group banned in Russia] is degraded in Iraq, in Afghanistan... it's time to end the forever war."

The Taliban have slammed the United State for violating the terms of the Doha agreement reached last February requiring all foreign forces to leave Afghan soil by May 1. A Taliban spokesman earlier this week said the insurgent movement would not engage in the peace process until all foreign troops are gone.

The Trump administration not only adhered to the Doha agreement but was ahead of schedule in terms of withdrawing American troops from Afghanistan. However, after taking over in January the Biden administration put a freeze on former President Donald Trump's plan with 2,500 Americans still on the ground among nearly 10,000 NATO troops.

The Biden administration originally accused the Taliban of violating the Doha pact by failing to split with al-Qaeda, and expressed concerns about escalating violence and lack of progress on intra-Afghan talks. Some advising the White House even wanted the US to stay in Afghanistan until the country was stable, sovereign, independent and democratic.

Biden admitted during his speech that the United States should have left after the US took out Osama Bin Laden.

"We delivered justice to bin Laden a decade ago, and we've stayed in Afghanistan for a decade since," Biden said during Wednesday's speech. "Since then, our reasons for remaining in Afghanistan are becoming increasingly unclear, even as the terrorist threat that we went to fight evolved."

The US president also anticipated likely resistance from many in Washington.

"I know there are many who will loudly insist that diplomacy cannot succeed without a robust US military presence to stand as leverage. We gave that argument a decade. It's never proved effective - not when we had 98,000 troops in Afghanistan, and not when we were down to a few thousand," Biden said.

Biden also argued that the threat of terrorism has become more "dispersed" around the world since the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001.

"With the terror threat now in many places, keeping thousands of troops grounded and concentrated in just one country at a cost of billions each year makes little sense to me," he said.

Biden said the US would not take its eye off the terrorist threat. He vowed to reorganize capabilities and assets in the region to prevent the reemergence of terrorists.

Former EU consultant and Global Policy Institute President, Paolo von Schirach, said the United States must now rethink its flawed anti-terrorism strategies after 20 years of costly engagement, and almost nothing to show for it.

Moreover, he added, there are plenty failed or semi-failed states that can offer similar sanctuary opportunities.

"Suppose we succeeded. Then Afghanistan today would be a democracy. So what? Terrorist groups can easily move and relocate elsewhere," Schirach told Sputnik.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani after a call with Biden earlier in the day, signaled that his country would be prepared after the US exit.

"Afghanistan's proud security and defense forces are fully capable of defending its people and country, which they have been doing all along, and for which the Afghan nation will forever remain grateful," Ghani said in a statement.

Schirach, however, despite US-NATO efforts to prop up Afghan forces, predicted a Taliban takeover.

"Notwithstanding rivers of US money poured into the effort of arming and training the Afghan regular forces and police, they have proven unable to contain, let alone defeat, the Taliban," he said.

The Taliban just weeks ago warned the United States that the insurgents would shoot any Americans remaining on the ground after May 1. Biden on Wednesday, however, said the US will not conduct "a hasty rush to the exit," and gave the Taliban his own admonition.

"The Taliban should know that if they attack us [US troops] as we draw down, we will defend ourselves and our partners with all the tools at our disposal," Biden said.

Later, the chiefs of the Pentagon and NATO both threatened to forcefully respond to the Taliban if they targeted Western forces exiting Afghanistan.

Former Canadian diplomat Patrick Armstrong believes the US will pay a price for not adhering to the Doha pact that was reached under Trump and delaying the exit by over four months. Contrary to Biden, Armstrong said the insurgents could pressure the US and NATO to accelerate their withdrawal.

"I would expect the Taliban to hasten their departure; as we see in Iraq," Armstrong, former charge d'affaires at the Canadian Embassy in Moscow, told Sputnik. "US-NATO forces have supply lines that can easily be attacked."

Some within the US intelligence community and Congress do not seem as confident as the White House in containing a post-withdrawal terror threat.

CIA Director William Burns in congressional testimony on Wednesday warned the US ability to collect information and act on threats "will diminish," after losing the military presence in Afghanistan.

The top Republican on the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, Michael McCaul, said Biden's pullout plan will endanger the security of the United States by ensuring a Taliban takeover.

Schirach said the US will likely retain intelligence assets in Afghanistan even after all the remaining troops and military advisers are gone.

California State University Emeritus Professor of politics Beau Grosscup told Sputnik withdrawing the remaining 2,500 US troops from Afghanistan would do nothing to undermine US counter-terrorism efforts. However, he also said that would largely be the responsibility of US Special Forces, "and if need be long-range bombing and drone attacks."

University of Pittsburgh Professor of International Affairs Michael Brenner suggested shadowy elements from the US could keep a foothold in Afghanistan.

"Will we try to leave behind the CIA operatives - 6,000 - 10,000 - who have been fighting their own autonomous counterinsurgency?" Brenner told Sputnik. "The CIA and Pentagon will move heaven and earth to keep a large fraction of them. That is unacceptable to the Taliban."