The botched Afghanistan withdrawal continues to haunt President Joe Biden, with his administration’s review of the situation coming under fire from Republicans.
The report repeatedly blamed former President Donald Trump and downplayed the risk of terrorism in the region, leading critics like Sen. Lindsey Graham to accuse the Biden administration of a “political whitewash.”
Graham warned that the administration’s claim that there are no terrorists in Afghanistan is a lie and pointed to the rise of ISIS-K and al-Qaeda in the region as evidence.
He also warned of a “lethal cocktail” of danger forming in the region, combined with the dangers of open-border policies domestically that could lead to another 9/11.
The document particularly shifted blame to Trump for providing no plans on how to conduct a withdrawal from the region despite plans to complete the withdrawal shortly after Biden took office in January 2021.
However, critics like Graham believe that the Biden administration is using Trump as a scapegoat for their own failures in the withdrawal, which left several U.S. citizens and Afghan allies behind in the wake of the Taliban’s return to power.