CNN:
The after-action review, led by an independent team that began its work last week, will look at much more than the US withdrawal from Afghanistan during the final weeks of August, the Pentagon said in a statement. It will begin with the signing of the Doha agreement between the Trump administration and the Taliban in February 2020 and go through the end of the evacuation.
That Doha agreement set the stage for the ensuing removal of US forces in Afghanistan, which began with a reduction in troop levels from 13,000 to 8,600 in June 2020. It called for the complete withdrawal of forces, diplomatic personnel, contractors and others by April 2021, a timeline the Biden administration extended until the end of summer.
Yes, President Biden deliberately botched the withdrawal deadline. We watched it come, we watched it go, and then we watched the Taliban launch their doomsday blitz that they had been planning for two decades.
But as the military began the final stages of the drawdown of US forces, the Taliban were sweeping across the country, taking over districts and provinces with a speed that stunned US officials and allies. The whole of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces — the cornerstone of the strategy to hold the Taliban at bay — collapsed in a matter of days, as senior Afghan officials, including President Ashraf Ghani, fled the country.
Turns out we should have just gotten out of there before the deadline, instead of deliberately botching the deadline for no sane reason whatsoever. There, investigation complete.