Trump hits Harris on US Afghan withdrawal ‘calamity’

Jeddah - Yasmine El Tohamy - WASHINGTON: Donald Trump on Monday tied Vice President Kamala Harris to the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan as he paid tribute to 13 troops killed in a suicide attack on the third anniversary of their deaths.

It was Trump who, as president in 2020, struck a deal with the Taliban for the United States to withdraw from the country.

But it was President Joe Biden who, after delaying it by a few months, finally implemented the retreat in 2021, one of the administration’s lowest points.

Trump regularly slams Biden over it, but has pivoted to blaming Harris for White House policy decisions since she replaced the 81-year-old Democrat as his rival for the White House.

In Detroit to address the National Guard Association of the United States, the Republican ex-president, 78, argued that the “humiliation” of the withdrawal destroyed US credibility and was “caused by Kamala Harris (and) Joe Biden.”

“Now, the voters are going to fire Kamala and Joe on November 5, we hope, and when I take office... I will get the resignations of every single senior official who touched the Afghanistan calamity to be on my desk at noon on inauguration day,” he said.

Taliban forces seized the Afghan capital Kabul on August 15, 2021, after the US-backed government collapsed days ahead of the planned withdrawal date and its leaders fled into exile.

A suicide bomb attack killed 13 US troops and 170 Afghans on August 26 at the crowded perimeter of Kabul’s international airport, where an unprecedented military airlift operation got more than 120,000 people out of the country in a matter of days.

Before US troops were able to secure the whole airport, the world witnessed tragic scenes of panicked Afghan civilians mobbing airliners and even falling to their deaths as they attempted to cling onto departing planes.

Ahead of Trump’s speech, his campaign pointed to previous Harris statements that she was the last person in the room before Biden made the call to withdraw from Afghanistan.

“By her own admission, Kamala Harris was a key player in the disastrous withdrawal,” it said in statement.

“She bragged about being the last person in the room for the fateful decision, was ‘front and center’ for the security briefings, and even laughed as a reporter asked her about the American citizens still trapped in Afghanistan.”

The White House released a classified review of the withdrawal in April last year, acknowledging intelligence failures but blaming Trump for creating the conditions leading to the rout.

In a declassified summary, the administration said the February 2020 deal between Trump and the Taliban had placed the incoming Biden government in an impossible position by agreeing a date for withdrawal, but providing no plan for executing it.

Harris released a statement offering prayers for “13 devoted patriots” and the loved ones they left behind. “My heart breaks for their pain and their loss,” she said.

Earlier Monday, Trump took part in a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia for the slain service members.

The former president has been hammered repeatedly over inflammatory public comments and alleged private remarks about veterans.

Earlier this month he said the country’s top civilian award was “much better” than the elite military honor, because the service members who receive their medal are “in very bad shape” or “dead.”