Afghan Pullout Was ‘Developed by Child’s Mind’, Trump Says After Senate Hearing With Military Chiefs

A cease-fire deal signed by the Trump administration in February 2020, according to Biden, tied his hands. Trump and several members of his administration, notably former VP Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, have contended that the cease-fire maintained a stalemate in Afghanistan and kept the Taliban* confined to its areas.

Former US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the US withdrawal from Afghanistan last month was "developed by a child’s mind," according to statements issued to the media via email.

Earlier in the day, two top military officials and the defense secretary confirmed that President Biden was advised to keep at least 2,500 troops in the country to prevent the Taliban from overrunning the Western-imposed government. The president purportedly ignored the advice, given that he said he did not recall such warnings from his generals.

According to the former president, such a "botched and embarrassingly incompetent withdrawal from Afghanistan had nothing to do with past administrations or things that happened ‘from 20 years ago,’ (other than we should not have been in the Middle East in the first place!)"

"The horrible ‘withdrawal’ was caused, in particular, because the Military was taken out before American citizens and $85 Billion worth of the highest-grade Military equipment anywhere in the world. [...] This withdrawal was developed by a child’s mind, and only the Biden Administration is responsible for it."

Donald Trump

Former US President

In his Tuesday testimony, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin justified the pullout before the Senate Armed Services Committee, arguing that retaining forces in Afghanistan past the end of August "would have made it even more dangerous for our people, and would not have significantly changed the number of evacuees we could get out."

Trump claimed that the Taliban was "held at bay" at the time he stepped out of the White House in January.

“... we had as long as we wanted, there was no reason to rush, no soldiers were killed or even shot at for over 18 months, and if they didn’t meet certain conditions, we would have hit them very hard,” he insisted. “But then Biden and [General Mark] Milley removed the Military in one of the dumbest Military moves in history, and it all began. So sad for our Nation!”

In another statement, according to The New York Post, Trump directed his vengeance at Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, especially in light of the general confessing to being interviewed for three books detailing the final weeks of the Trump administration.

Milley, for instance, spoke to The Washington Post's Bob Woodward for the book "Peril," which details the call to Milley's Chinese counterpart with assurances that a nuclear strike against China would not be conducted.

“No wonder the Afghanistan withdrawal was such a disaster,” Trump noted. "‘General’ Milley spent all of his time talking to these Fake Book writers. That’s not a Soldier or General, that’s a Public Relations agent. America will continue losing with Milley and woke television Generals who are only looking to be stars!”

The former president also compared Tuesday's hearing with the continuing investigation by a House select panel of the events surrounding the mayhem that took place at the US Capitol on January 6.

"Rather than the political January 6th Unselect Committee of Radical Left Democrats and Democrat wannabes (Warmonger Liz Cheney and Cryin’ Adam Kinzinger), Congress should set up a ‘Commission On the Disastrous Withdrawal From Afghanistan,’ to figure out what went wrong, why so many of our Warriors were killed, and why so much money (85 BILLION DOLLARS), in the form of Weapons and Military equipment, was left behind for the Taliban to use—and to sell to other countries," Trump stated, according to the NY Post.

Taliban soldiers stand in front of a sign at the international airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, September 9, 2021

© REUTERS / West Asia News Agency

Trump, who concluded the peace deal with the Taliban in February 2020, has repeatedly slammed the rather hectic summer US troop withdrawal from the war-torn country.

"This is without question something that needs to be investigated further. Thirteen dead AMERICAN HEROES, billions of dollars of equipment, and hundreds of Americans still left behind in Afghanistan with the Taliban!” the ex-president added.

Trump has repeatedly slammed the early abandonment of the military airport in Bagram, the chaotic evacuation of American citizens and collaborators from the country through the Kabul airport, as well as the fact that most of the military forces left the country before civilians, explicitly saying that the government should have taken "the military out last, after all of the people are out."

*A terrorist organization banned in Russia