10 minutes.
That’s how long White House correspondents had to review the 12-page after-action review of the disastrous 2021 US withdrawal from Afghanistan. This is during the high holidays, mind you —a fact that wasn’t lost on CBS correspondent Ed O’Keefe who blasted National Security Council spokesman John Kirby for the blatant “news dump.”
“I think I speak on behalf of my colleagues in this room when we want the record to reflect,” O’Keefe said. “This was sent to us about 10 minutes before the briefing began, with little notice, and it’s the very definition of a modern major holiday news dump. You’re releasing this at the beginning of the high holidays, and after months of requests from Republicans and the broader public. So, why today, and is this all we get? Is this a response to the studies that were done by the agencies, or is this considered a summary of it?”
And, of course, O’Keefe is correct. The White House tried to bury this report, hoping people would be too busy coloring eggs for Easter and preparing for Passover Seders.
Kirby, of course, defended and denied the allegations up and down —he even went as far as to say it was the responsible thing to do.
“No effort here to try to obfuscate or try to bury something,” Kirby continued. “It’s an effort to try to be as open, as transparent as we can.”
Here’s what they were “transparent” about: it was Trump’s fault.
According to The New York Post, “The review blames former President Donald Trump’s administration for pledging to the Taliban that the US would leave Afghanistan by May 2021 as part of the Doha agreement — a move that supposedly left his successor no option but to pull American forces out. In fact, the deal also gave the US the right to withdraw from the accord if Afghan peace talks failed — which they did.”
“During the transition from the Trump Administration to the Biden Administration, the outgoing administration provided no plans for how to conduct the final withdrawal or to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies,” the document states. “There were no such plans in place when President Biden came into office, even with the agreed-upon full withdrawal just over three months away.”
“Trump” is mentioned 14 times in the report while “accountable” appears just once.
And if you’re wondering what Mr. Biden thinks, you’ll have to track him down at Camp David —he made his escape as soon as the report dropped.
Like a true leader does.
