AF4. Remarks by President Biden on Afghanistan, The White House, August 16, 2021, East Room, 4:02 P.M. EDT. URL in OUTCOME_SOURCES.csv. Faithful selected transcript excerpts.

My national security team and I have been closely monitoring the situation on the ground in Afghanistan and moving quickly to execute the plans we had put in place to respond to every constituency, including — and contingency — including the rapid collapse we’re seeing now.

The truth is: This did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated.

So what’s happened? Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country. The Afghan military collapsed, sometimes without trying to fight.

We spent over a trillion dollars. We trained and equipped an Afghan military force of some 300,000 strong — incredibly well equipped — a force larger in size than the militaries of many of our NATO allies.

We gave them every tool they could need. We paid their salaries, provided for the maintenance of their air force — something the Taliban doesn’t have. Taliban does not have an air force. We provided close air support.

What we could not provide them was the will to fight for that future.

I will not shrink from my share of responsibility for where we are today and how we must move forward from here. I am President of the United States of America, and the buck stops with me.

SIGAR-23-16-IP. Why the Afghan Security Forces Collapsed, February 28, 2023. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. Report pages 1-5, 8-12, 78-79. URL in OUTCOME_SOURCES.csv. Faithful selected excerpts.

In August 2021, the ANDSF collapsed, paving the way for the Taliban to reestablish control of Afghanistan.

The decision by two U.S. presidents to withdraw U.S. military forces from Afghanistan fundamentally altered every subsequent decision by U.S. government agencies, the Ghani administration, and the Taliban. Actions taken by each ultimately accelerated the collapse of the ANDSF in August 2021. But the stage had been set for that collapse long before — by the failure of the U.S. and Afghan governments to create an independent and self-sustainable ANDSF, despite 20 years and $90 billion of international support.

The Afghan Air Force (AAF) was the greatest advantage the force had over the Taliban. However, the AAF was not projected to be self-sufficient until at least 2030. The U.S. decision to withdraw on-site contract maintenance from Afghanistan in May 2021 reduced the availability of operational aircraft and removed maintenance instruction at key regional airfields.

Because the ANDSF did not have the logistical capability of moving stockpiles of U.S.-provided weapons and supplies by ground quickly enough to meet operational demands, it had to rely on a thinly stretched AAF to do so. As a result, ANDSF units complained that they lacked enough ammunition, food, water, and other military equipment to sustain military engagements against the Taliban.

The Taliban’s timetable was shorter: In only 30 days, it captured all 34 provinces in Afghanistan — 33 of the 34 within a 10-day period starting on August 6. On August 15, 2021, the Taliban arrived at the gates of Kabul, compelling President Ghani to flee to Uzbekistan and precipitating the collapse of the Afghan government. By then, six of the seven ANA Corps had surrendered or dissolved.

SIGAR found six short-term factors that accelerated the ANDSF’s collapse in August 2021: the decision to withdraw all U.S. military forces; the change in the U.S. military’s level of support; the ANDSF’s failure to become self-sustaining; President Ashraf Ghani’s frequent changes of ANDSF leaders and appointment of loyalists; the Afghan government’s failure to take responsibility for Afghan security through a national security strategy; and the Taliban’s exploitation of ANDSF weaknesses.

SIGAR also identified eight systemic factors, including the lack of a realistic time horizon for building a self-sustaining security sector; no single owner for development; advisor turnover; weak oversight and assessment; corruption; U.S. training, logistics, and weapons procurement policies that undermined self-sustainment; ethnic and regional tensions; and failure to develop an effective police force.

The report states that there are no recommendations in the report, and that the Department of Defense disputed certain conclusions while noting the report had “important insights.”