“The 20-year war in Afghanistan, for the results we have achieved, was not worth it,” Karl Eikenberry, commander in Afghanistan from 2005 to 2007 and ambassador to the country from 2009 to 2011, told CNN. Tapper in a two-hour documentary that airs Sunday.
In “America’s Longest War: What Went Wrong in Afghanistan,” Tapper conducts in-depth interviews with eight American commanders who led the war effort for two decades and four administrations and who speak candidly about the decisions made by the its commanders. none who believe it undermined the war effort and could have hindered its success.
In interviews with former military and other leaders, Tapper examines the mission and missteps, how political decisions harm the ability of service members to succeed, whether the Pentagon distorted the capabilities of the Afghan military to the public, and how then of 20 years of sacrifice, the US withdrawal led to the return to power of the Taliban in August.
After nearly two decades and more than two trillion dollars in U.S. taxpayer funds, after the deaths of more than 6,000 Americans and 100,000 Afghans, the bipartisan debacle of the war in Afghanistan has come to an end. the same way it started, leaving Americans, especially those directly involved in the conflict: struggling to understand how it all collapsed.
It’s not uniform anymore, Nothing. Stanley McChrystal, David Petraeus, Joseph Dunford, John Allen, David McKiernan, Dan McNeill and Lieutenant Nothing. Eikenberry and David Barno, speak frankly.
Resentment, frustration, grief
They describe their resentment at the way politicians reduced resources for Afghanistan to fuel the war in Iraq, their frustrations about wasted opportunities, and their regrets. They question long-held strategies and, in a preview of the painful national calculation on Afghanistan that is just beginning, consider whether the mission was worthwhile.
“My first impulse is to say yes, it was worth it, but I’m no longer sure of that,” said four-star General McNeill, who led coalition forces in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2003. and then U.S. troops from 2007 to 2008, he says. “Before I go to my grave, I hope to receive an answer to that question.”
Eikenberry notes, “There really wasn’t a clear political final state. That leads to deep questions. Was it worth it? What was it about?”
Dunford says he believes the United States has accomplished its mission to “prevent Al Qaeda from attacking the United States, prevent Afghanistan from becoming a sanctuary, and also mitigate the risk of mass migration.”
He adds, however, “we should not confuse the result with saying that we have done so with an adequate level of investment.” He would have liked to see “fewer young men and women who had lost their lives, families who suffered, victims, no doubt. But after all, I’m not willing to say it wasn’t worth it.”
The documentary also features war veterans – the small percentage of Americans who have taken the risks and sacrifices to carry out the mission in Afghanistan – who share their anger at being trained to fight, but then calling for it. build a nation, about disconnection. between the political messages outside of Washington and the realities on the ground, and the most outrageous, about the loss of so many comrades-in-arms, both on the battlefield and in suicide.
Diplomats and journalists who closely followed the fortunes of the war underline the rampant corruption in Afghanistan and the movements of the Trump administration that strengthened the Taliban. They also point out politicians who “just couldn’t get themselves to tell the truth” and give the American people a clear picture of what was really going on halfway around the world.
“We didn’t understand”
The mistakes began before the United States entered Afghanistan, commanders say.
“We didn’t understand the problem,” said McChrystal, who led international forces from 2009 to 2010. “The complexity of the environment, I think, was not appreciated. We bet on what we thought would work quickly on what it would probably have.” operated in the long term “.
McChrystal argues that, in retrospect, just after the September 11, 2001 attacks that triggered the invasion of Afghanistan, the United States should have maintained its fire, “without bombing, nor strikes,” although he acknowledges that it would have been almost impossible. Instead, he would have spent a year building a coalition to fight al-Qaeda and training Americans in Arabic, Pashto, Urdu and Dari “to prepare us to do something we knew would be very, very difficult.”
McChrystal points out that no one thought long-term. “I think we’ve never sat around a table and talked about where this will be in 20 years.”
This may be because very quickly, President George W. Bush and his administration shifted their focus to a new elective war in oil-rich Iraq, so intensely that in October 2002, Bush did not he only knew who his commander was in Afghanistan. .
Commanders suggest the move to Iraq redirected personnel and equipment to Afghanistan that could have saved lives and changed the outcome of the war.
“I personally resented the war in Iraq,” says Barno, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan for 19 months between 2003 and 2005.
“Much of our strategic focus and much of our strategic capability was diverted to Iraq, to the detriment of the war,” Allen says.
As many army helicopters were sent to the lines of the Iraqi front, advanced combat positions in eastern Afghanistan were placed at the bottom of the valleys to facilitate supply. This also left the troops vulnerable, surrounded by armed militants in the mountains above.
McNeill, the commander Bush did not know in 2002, remembers meeting with the president in the White House in 2007, during his second tour as commander in Afghanistan. “Tell me exactly what you need,” McNeill recalls when Bush said before adding a warning: “You won’t get it, because I have to take care of this Iraq issue.”
McKiernan recalls that in the summer of 2009, troops in Afghanistan faced a terrible problem with improvised explosive devices. They had three “route dispatch companies” to clean roads. Iraq, which at the time faced far fewer problems with FDI and mining, had about 90 route authorization companies. This did not change for eight years, until President Barack Obama ordered an increase in troops.
“What’s going on in those eight years?” McKiernan asks. “You have a Taliban, who generally have a safe haven in the border provinces and federally administered tribal areas in Pakistan. They are resurfacing. And eight years on, we are not growing well enough. [the] capabilities of the government in Afghanistan and the army. And here you are. ”
“We could not give life to that Afghan army”
The commanders agree on Iraq. There is less consensus in other areas, differences that point to the difficulties ahead in the national conversation about what went wrong.
Petraeus argues that the counterinsurgency (strategy on which he wrote a book) worked. “In fact, it worked during the period that we had the resources to do it,” he says. McKiernan disagrees. “I think in rural Afghanistan, which is most of Afghanistan, it hasn’t worked,” he says.
McChrystal suggested a massive increase in troops that Obama approved. Then-Vice President Joe Biden opposed the decision. Eikenberry also did so in private, concluding that it would not solve the problems in Afghanistan. He set out his thinking on a classified cable to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, beginning with her belief that President Hamid Karzai “was not an appropriate strategic partner.”
“We could provide advice,” Eikenberry says. “We could provide support for the formation. But we could not give life to that Afghan army. Only political leaders and the people of Afghanistan could do that. And that was a failure. The Afghan government remained extraordinarily corrupt.”
Former Afghanistan Ambassador to the US Roya Rahmani echoes allegations of political corruption and lack of military leadership. He also criticizes the Trump administration’s measures that strengthened the Taliban and raises the possibility of a secret deal between Trump and the militant group that could have accelerated the collapse of the Afghan army.
All former commanders review the mistakes they believe the United States made in Afghanistan. They all look back at the American blood toll and treasure.
McChrystal “saw good people with good intentions working hard, but I don’t think we did very well. We made a lot of mistakes that we made in previous efforts, like Vietnam and others. And I find it sad too. We could have done better.” .
McKiernan wonders out loud if there were better ways to retaliate on 9/11. He concludes that “there are probably a lot of things we could have done differently.”
“Search for souls”
McNeill is introspective. “I’m looking for souls to determine – is it fair to say I did my part of the job?” he asks. “Have I come short in any way? What is the duty of those who came home, not carrying the shields, but the shields?”
When asked what he would say to Gold Star families or veterans who wonder if the sacrifices in Afghanistan were worthwhile, McNeill speaks of his pride in all those who intervened to fight there or in Iraq before. to continue.
“I’d just say that for what I couldn’t do, I’m sorry,” McNeill says. “I did the best I could.”
Tapper asks why he blames himself.
“The commander is responsible for what makes or fails his unit,” McNeill responds. “If that’s a failure, I’ll be a part of it.”