Patraeus Trashes Biden Decision to Quit Afghanistan
Pulling out now is an “unforced error,” the former commander of U.S. troops in Afghanistan said. Other former war leaders say the threat can be managed
Kevin Baron | April 14, 2021
David Petraeus sharply criticized President Joe Biden’s decision to remove U.S. troops there, saying he worries that the “endless war” will only worsen.
“I'm really afraid that we're going to look back two years from now and regret the decision,” said Petraeus, former commanding general of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan and former CIA director.
He spoke on a conference video call originally intended to promote a new book from retired admiral William McRaven, who oversaw the 2011 mission to find Osama bin Laden.
Petraeus warned that the pullout would create potentially destabilizing refugee flows.
“We are going to see an exodus out of this country of anybody who has an option to leave,” he said. And of those who lack that option? “I would not, certainly, want to be part of the 50 percent of Afghans that are female.”
On the call, McRaven and other leaders of that mission, including then-CIA Director Leon Panetta, were split in their support for Biden’s decision to reposition U.S. troops to support counterterrorism missions from elsewhere in the region. But Petraeus delivered a sharper rebuke . . .
> McRaven said any decision incurs risks. He added that if the U.S. military is still tasked to respond to terrorism inside Afghanistan, he hopes the U.S. will retain the necessary capabilities in the country and the region.
“If you gave me the resources, I could figure out how to do this,” McRaven said, adding that he has spoken to key players close to the president about it.
“I will tell you from all my conversations with folks that are kind of in the inner circle, they have considered all of those problems,” he said. “All of the warts have been exposed to the president. He understands the risk that he’s taken.”
> Other Obama-era officials weighed in with support. James Clapper, former director of national intelligence, said, “I do have a lot of confidence in the growing capabilities that we have — that we didn’t have 10 or 20 years ago.”
> "We are at a different level of capability" with intelligence and have "a lot of over-the-horizon" capability now, said Tom Donilon, former national security advisor. . .And he noted that the White House is facing new global needs and changing priorities. . ."It's not just a phrase,” said Donilon. “Endless wars without specific goals in mind is not...healthy for the United States."
> "If we don’t get out now, we'll never get out,” said Jane Harman, president emerita of the Wilson Center and former ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee. She said the country hates “this endless war thing” and that Biden’s decision does play well, in part because Congress, which is supposed to speak for the people, has been absent from the conversation. “We are taking the high ground.”
> Said John Brennan, former CIA director: “I do think we are going to have some challenging times ahead…but I do think that Joe Biden, at the end of the day, felt that 20 years was enough.”
> In a separate event with CQ Roll Call on Wednesday, former Afghanistan War commander Stanley McChrystal said that he spent a decade in or around Afghanistan and while its security remains important to the United States, he sounded resigned to the end of the war era
> McChrystal, who was fired from his command by Obama in 2010, said he keeps mounted on wall an old British musket given to him in Afghanistan, leftover from "one of their failed efforts to control Afghanistan." He pointed it out because, he said, "it's possible for nations, to include our own, to have a certain amount of hubris on what we can and are willing to accomplish."
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