The 2020 Afghanistan War: After-Action Report to the State Department and Pentagon, and the U.S. Department of Defense, the Secretary of State and the Joint Security Council

The report cites the agreement Trump reached with the Taliban in 2020, arguing it limited Biden’s options for withdrawing American troops. Kirby also said the Trump administration provided little information or intelligence to the incoming Biden team about the Afghanistan situation.

The summary document doesn’t admit any mistakes. Still, it acknowledges certain lessons that have been applied since, including on the speed of evacuating citizens and allies. And it cites intelligence that provided overly rosy projections of the security situation and notes Biden followed recommendations from his military commanders in executing the withdrawal.

The summary ardently defends Biden’s decision to order a complete withdrawal, which he has justified as necessary to end the 20-year conflict in Afghanistan.

Classified findings from the long-awaited reviews by the State Department and Pentagon were also transmitted to Congress on Thursday, fulfilling a White House pledge to provide the information following the bloody and chaotic withdrawal, which included a deadly bombing at Kabul International Airport that killed 13 US troops.

In remarks describing the summary of the report, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby defended Biden’s decision to withdraw and stressed the work the administration did once they took office.

President Biden led a deliberate, rigorous and inclusive decision-making process that was responsive to facts on the ground despite having his options limited. Kirby said that he focused on the need for proper planning.

More time, money or Americans at risk in Afghanistan would not have yielded a fundamentally different trajectory according to the summary.

Americans and Afghans who aided the war effort were the subject of a large amount of chaos surrounding the withdrawal. One of the most searing images from the time was of desperate Afghans clinging to an American plane as it took off, later falling to their deaths.

After the chaotic attempts to evacuate US citizens and those who assisted the American war effort, the administration said it now works to facilitate departures earlier in other situations.

“We now prioritize earlier evacuations when faced with a degrading security situation,” the summary states, using the war in Ukraine as an example of earlier evacuations.

Federal agencies conducted reviews after the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. Their release was initially targeted to the one-year anniversary of the pullout, but were delayed as the agencies completed their work.

The after-action report was commissioned through the National Defense University, a defense official told CNN. The Defense Department funding of the NDU does not mean the review it carried out is independent.

The State Department After-action Report on the Kabul Airport Evacuation: An Employee’s View of the Report and Implications for Security Operations

A bombing outside the Kabul International Airport’s Abbey Gate also killed 13 US service members – 11 Marines, 1 soldier and 1 sailor – along with approximately 170 Afghans.

After taking control of the US House of Representatives, Republicans have also begun looking into the Afghanistan withdrawal, requesting documents and communications are part of their probe.

While the White House’s document focused on President Joe Biden having been “severely constrained” by the conditions created by former President Donald Trump, the State Department report has more than two dozen recommendations – some specifically related to how the department could have better prepared, including during the Biden administration, the source said.

The White House document says that there is now an aggressiveness in communication between the US government and the security community.

The more detailed after-action report was sent to Capitol Hill on Thursday but the department has not made any public disclosures of the findings more than a year after the report was completed. The report itself was launched by Secretary of State Antony Blinken in December 2021. Employees who worked on the chaotic evacuation have clamored for details as to what the department learned from the after-action report.

Three employees who attended a town hall on Thursday said the department put together the event to discuss the report with top brass, including Under Secretary for Management John Bass, who was a key official in the Afghanistan withdrawal.

The report was described to employees by Blinken. The processes, systems and mindsets that could be improved were detailed in the report, employees said.

The employees told CNN that there are concerns that contingency preparations will be too visible and that they would prompt concerns from Afghan officials. The top US diplomat also pointed to competing and conflicting views in Washington about how to prioritize categories of evacuees, and he acknowledged that the department’s database technology and communications infrastructure were inadequate.

The employees said that, according to Blinken, the report makes 34 recommendations. A single senior official for future complex crises, enhancing crisis communications such as call centers, and running more tabletop exercises are included in the list, according to employees.

Many employees were frustrated about the lack of transparency in the town hall. The source familiar with the full report explained that the findings were purposefully not classified so they could be widely shared if the department chose to do so, but so far that has not happened.

The employee was upset with the way the town hall was arranged and the fact that the full report wasn’t shared. Employees said that Blinken had concerns about looking backward instead of forwards.

The State Department did not respond to a request for comment regarding the town hall or any plans to share parts of the department’s report more widely.