Sen. Lindsey Graham charged President Biden on Sunday with trying to rewrite the history of the administration’s bungled and chaotic 2021 exit from Afghanistan to end America’s longest war.
The South Carolina Republican and staunch ally of Donald Trump said that while the ex-president first entered into an agreement with the Taliban to withdraw from the country, an interagency review led by the White House National Security Council blaming Mr. Trump for having “severely constrained” Mr. Biden is akin to “political whitewash.”
“Some of the things President Trump did I disagreed with, but he did withdraw. And here’s the point: this report is a political whitewash by the administration to shift blame,” Mr. Graham said on “Fox News Sunday.” “He’s claiming we eradicated all terrorist threats in Afghanistan, that’s why we withdrew to end the longest war.”
The GOP senator went on to say that the administration is creating a “lethal cocktail” of domestic and foreign policies waiting to boil over and give way to the next 9/11 terrorist attack.
“When the Biden administration tells you there are no more terrorists in Afghanistan, they are lying. There is a lethal cocktail forming: rise of terrorism in Afghanistan, a broken border here in the United States,” Mr. Graham said. “My view of what happened in Afghanistan by Biden is he paved the way for another 9/11.”
The White House’s after-action review, of which only a 12-page summary was released publicly because of national security concerns, took little responsibility and blamed Mr. Trump’s administration for a botched exit that left 13 U.S. troops dead from an explosion.
“President Biden’s choices for how to execute a withdrawal from Afghanistan were severely constrained by conditions created by his predecessor,” the White House summary said. “The Taliban were in the strongest military position that they had been in since 2001, controlling or contesting nearly half of the country.”
• Ramsey Touchberry can be reached at rtouchberry@washingtontimes.com.
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