US should have pushed ex-Afghan president Ghani harder: Khalilzad

Zalmay Khalilzad, seen in Doha on August 10, 2021, has blamed former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani for not agreeing to share power with the Taliban 

KARIM JAAFAR AFP/File

Issued on: 24/10/2021

Washington (AFP)

The Afghan-born Khalilzad, speaking for the first time since his resignation was announced on October 18, also expressed reservations about the decision by the Biden administration to lift conditions on the withdrawal deal he had negotiated with the Islamist insurgents during the administration of President Donald Trump.

The agreement signed on February 29, 2020 between Washington and the Taliban -- which excluded Ghani's government in Kabul -- paved the way for the US to end its longest war.

But it was "a conditions-based package" that included negotiations between the insurgents and Kabul, as well as a permanent, comprehensive cease-fire, Khalilzad said.

Once in the White House, however, President Joe Biden decided "to do a calendar-based withdrawal," without regard to those conditions, he said.

"That was a decision made way above my pay grade," he added.

Talks between the insurgents and Kabul had begun but were dragging, and Washington feared the Taliban would resume attacks on US forces if they stayed in the country much longer -- a situation Khalilzad acknowledged as he admitted things did not work out the way he had wanted.

He placed most of the blame on Ghani, who Khalilzad said never agreed to share power with the Taliban.

"They preferred the status quo to a political settlement," he said of the Kabul government.

"And then when it became clear that the US was leaving, then they -- they miscalculated the effects of the continuing war. They were not serious about the political settlement.

"It's my judgment that we didn't press him hard enough. We were gentle with President Ghani. We used diplomacy. We encouraged him."

He said that under the original conditional withdrawal agreement, the Taliban would have eventually agreed to power-sharing, though his evidence for that was unclear.

Biden had set a departure date of August 31 for the final withdrawal.

But in the months and weeks leading up to that date the Taliban offensive surged. On August 15 Ghani fled Kabul as government authority crumbled and the Taliban marched into the capital city.

Khalilzad -- derided in Afghanistan for, among other things, cutting Kabul out of the US-Taliban deal, and who has also been much criticized in Washington since the takeover -- has blamed Ghani before.

He told the Financial Times in September that Ghani's abrupt exit scuttled a deal in which the Taliban would hold off entering Kabul and negotiate a political transition.

Ghani, who sought safety in the United Arab Emirates, has apologized for how his government ended but said he left on the advice of palace security to avoid bloody street fighting.

The Taliban had been demanding the resignation of Ghani as part of any transitional government.

Ultimately, the Islamists named a caretaker government that has no non-Taliban nor women and that includes US-designated terrorists.

© 2021 AFP

EXCERPT

Transcript: Zalmay Khalilzad on "Face the Nation"

The following is a transcript of an interview with Zalmay Khalilzad, Former U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation that aired Sunday, October 24,2021, on "Face the Nation."

MARGARET BRENNNAN: The chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Taliban's victory there has left many questions about whether Americans are actually safer now. Until a few days ago, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad was the Biden administration's top envoy, negotiating directly with the Taliban. He brokered the Trump era deal with the Taliban, in which the US promised to withdraw all U.S. forces, and he joins us now for his first television interview. Welcome to the program.

FMR. US ENVOY FOR AFGHANISTAN ZAL KHALILZAD: It's great to be with you, MARGARET.

MARGARET BRRENNAN: The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, said this was a strategic failure, the end of America's longest war. He said, "The enemy is now in charge in Kabul." Do you share that view?

KHALILZAD: Well, I think there is a lot of anger and a lot of resentment about what has happened there. I think with regard to terrorism, we largely have achieved that objective. On the issue of building a democratic Afghanistan - I think that- that did not succeed. The struggle goes on. The Talibs are a reality of Afghanistan. We did not defeat them. In fact, they were making progress on the battlefield even as we were negotiating with them. And the reason we negotiated with them was because militarily things were not going as well as we would have liked. We were losing ground each year.

MARGARET BRENNAN: They were winning the war.

KHALILZAD: Slowly but making progress. And for us to reverse the progress that they were making was going to require a lot more effort.

MARGARET BRENNAN: How many Americans remain in Afghanistan today?

KHALILZAD: We aren't sure, the frank answer is, because not every American-- some of them are Afghan Americans who have families there, who live there and that--

MARGARET BRENNAN: It's hundreds, isn't it?

KHALILZAD: I think it's very likely that it'll be in hundreds, but we don't know. The truth of the matter is, we don't know.

MARGARET BRENNAN: The UN has given some pretty dire projections of what's happening inside Afghanistan right now. More than a million children could die of malnutrition in the next year. The Taliban has still not allowed girls aged 12 and older to return to school. They may say something, but they're not doing it. There are videos of women being beaten in the streets, just demonstrating for their rights. I mean, isn't this proof that the Taliban has no intention of becoming a democratic government or any kind of government that protects human rights?

KHALILZAD: Well, there's no question that the Taliban have a different vision for Afghanistan. It's their vision of a more Islamic government than existed before. And there is obviously disputes about the interpretation of Islam.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Little girls going to school?

KHALILZAD: Well, I think there is a disagreement inside the Taliban. That's why I think that we can't say all Taliban behave in the same way. There are factions inside it. Right now, for example, in at least three or four provinces, high schools for girls have been opened. And they say the same will happen as far as the rest of the country is concerned. And we should hold them to that, keep pressure on them. If they don't-- Taliban don't move toward more inclusiveness, respecting the rights of the Afghan people, and then honoring their commitment to us on terrorism; there will be no move towards normalcy and there shouldn't be. There should be no release of funds. So their economy could collapse and in that collapse a new civil war could start.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Do they know where the leader of Al-Qaeda is? The UN says he's living in Afghanistan.

KHALILZAD: Well, the report that I have seen indicates he could be in Afghanistan or adjacent territories.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Ayman al-Zawahiri.--

KHALILZAD: --al-Zawahiri. I don't know whether the Taliban know it. The Taliban that I dealt with, they told me they did not know where he was.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You did not include the Afghan government in the deal between the U.S. and Taliban. That was a later step that you promised to to include them, but for the deal you brokered...

KHALILZAD: Right.

MARGARET BRENNAN: H.R. McMaster, retired general, former national security adviser to President Trump, said you- you brokered a surrender deal. How do you respond to that?

KHALILZAD: The reason for the deal, to my friend General McMaster and others, is because we weren't winning the war. How long does General McMaster think we should continue while losing ground each year? Why- why- why was that the case after 20 years? That with so much investment, so much loss of life that we were losing ground to the Talibs, and the alternative was either a negotiated settlement or more of the same. And people way above my pay grade decided more of the same is not acceptable anymore.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Because the American public had lost the will to fight.

KHALILZAD: And- and the fight wasn't going right. The fight was not going right after 20 years.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But on the specific point of one of the things in the deal. Why did the Trump administration agree to the Taliban's demand that 5000 prisoners be released? 5000 prisoners who could very easily end up right on that battlefield?

KHALILZAD: Right?

MARGARET BRENNAN: Why did you do that before peace talks?

KHALILZAD: Well, that- the Taliban, in order to sit with the government, to negotiate, wanted some confidence-building measures from both sides. Their demand was all prisoners be released by both sides as a goodwill gesture as they were going to sit together at the table to negotiate peace.

MARGARET BRENNAN: What do they need potential fighters for if they're negotiating peace?

KHALILZAD: Well, but they were giving up fighters also, because there was an exchange of prisoners, not a release, one sided release.

MARGARET BRENNAN: The Ghani government was not supportive of your work.

KHALILZAD: I was representing the United States to carry out the president's direction. But I believe the biggest difficulty was that President Ghani and a few other Afghan leaders did not believe that we were serious about withdrawal for a long time, and they like the status quo compared to a political settlement in which they might not have the jobs that they had and- and the resources that the US was providing would not be there. They preferred the status quo to a political settlement.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But if the United States is promising essentially to deliver the Afghan government and to make this deal happen, wasn't it diplomatic malpractice--

KHALILZAD: No.

MARGARET BRENNAN --for the secretary of state not to be holding Ghani's hand walking him through this? Shouldn't Mike Pompeo have been doing that? Shouldn't Tony Blinken have been doing that?

KHALILZAD: Both of them spent a lot of time with uh-- President Ghani to take the negotiation seriously to believe that we were--

MARGARET BRENNAN: How was more arm twisting not happening then, if all the blame is to go on the Ghani government--

KHALILZAD: I believe myself, now that you've asked, that rather than that, we pressed Ghani too much, it's my judgment that we didn't press him hard enough. That we--

MARGARET BRENNAN: So the Trump administration could have pushed harder.

KHALILZAD: We could have pushed harder. I believe in retrospect, my judgment is that we could have pressed President Ghani harder.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Secretary Blinken has said he inherited the- President Biden inherited this deal and not a plan to execute it?

KHALILZAD: Right.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Whose job was that?

KHALILZAD: Well, I think that they did inherit a-a-a the agreement. No doubt they had that opportunity to take a look at it. And they did. They could have made a variety of decisions with regard to that agreement. They decided to stick with the withdrawal provisions.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Why wasn't there a better plan in place from the Trump administration or crafted by the Biden administration to execute what you put on paper?

KHALILZAD: Well, this execution of the last phase was not a military withdrawal that went awry. It was the response of the Afghan people to- what was happening that created the scenes at the airport. It was a combination of fear and opportunity. Fear, because for a long time, everybody was saying, including some officials, that when the Talibs come into Kabul, there would be a terrible war. Street to street fighting, destruction of the city. So people were afraid, that was one. Two, the impression was created that anyone who can make it to the airport, whether you have documents or not, you would be evacuated to the United States and to-to Europe. That combination led to this flood of people to come to the airport and cause the- the- the terrible scenes.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Is there blame to be borne by President Biden and his diplomats who you were working with?

KHALILZAD: Well, I believe that- that the diplomats worked very hard. The president made the decision that he did not to pursue a condition-based approach, but just the calendar-based approach, because of a belief that if you pursue a condition based approach - that the Afghan must negotiate and come to an agreement first - that we will be stuck there for a long time.

MARGARET BRENNAN: In your resignation letter, you said, "This did not turn out as you envisaged."

KHALILZAD: Right. I would have wished- I would have liked to see a negotiated settlement.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Why wasn't there a plan in place, at least on the counterterrorism front, to deal with the Taliban, to talk to the Taliban?

KHALILZAD: Well we did talk to the Taliban. We have a set of agreements with them, some of which have not been released yet, on what they will do on the terrorism front. We hold them accountable to those agreements. And--

MARGARET BRENNAN: So - I'm sorry - because the administration says that those agreements are not in place, which is why they're trying to build those relationships now with the Taliban--

KHALILZAD: No no, there is an agreement in place. There is agreement in place with the Taliban on terrorism and counterterrorism. But--

MARGARET: To do what?

KHALILZAD: Well, that they will not host. They will not allow fundraising. They will not allow training. They will not allow recruitment of- by individuals or groups that will threaten the security of the United States and our allies, including Al Qaeda. But since we don't trust them, and since we decided to leave, we're going to do that from beyond Afghanistan. And that's what remains a critical mission.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you think Americans are safer now?

KHALILZAD: The terrorist threat from Afghanistan is not what it used to be. The American people should be pleased -- not with the way the final phase happened, we all are unhappy with that -- but that the Afghan war is over for the United States. The burden has been reduced, that we achieved the goal of the devastating Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

MARGARET BRENNAN: The CIA says al Qaeda could reconstitute in as little as a year within Afghanistan.

KHALILZAD: Well, our record of predicting things, unfortunately, we need to be a little humble in this regard, but--

MARGARET BRENNAN: So we're not safer? You're hoping we are.

KHALILZAD: We are much safer than we were before we went to Afghanistan, when al Qaeda was running camps--

MARGARET BRENNAN: You're talking about 2001.

KHALILZAD: --and thousands of people were being trained, al Qaida, the sponsor of Afghanistan. That is gone.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But from August of this year on.

KHALILZAD: Well we need to keep an eye on the situation. Not- not to do the same thing we did prior to 9/11, as we were seeing Al Qaeda was developing, training, organizing. And we didn't have a serious strategy in response to it until after 9/11. We shouldn't repeat that mistake again.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you feel you were misled by the Taliban?

KHALILZAD: Well, I don't allow people to mislead me. I do my homework. A whole of government. This was not Zal Khalilzad alone doing this. I had the military, the intelligence, everyone with me.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You're the only one out here defending it though.

KHALILZAD: Yeah, but-- that's one reason why I left.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I give you credit for coming and talking about it.

KHALILZAD: I'm- I- One reason I left the government, as I wrote in my letter, is that- that the debate wasn't really, as it should be, based on realities and facts of what happened, what was going on and what our alternatives were. The decision ultimately was made to put conditions-based aside and- and follow a calendar basis.

MARGARET BRENNAN: President Biden could have asked to keep troops longer, is what you're saying?

KHALILZAD: He could have, then there would have been consequences for it, which is that the Talibs might not have accepted that and therefore they- no attack on U.S. forces that was in place for so many months.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Thirteen American service people died though.

KHALILZAD: As a result of a terrorist attack at the airport by DAESH, which the Talibs are enemy of--

MARGARET BRENNAN: Carried out by ISIS is who you're talking about.

KHALILZAD: By ISIS, and they are at war with each other.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But that bomber was released from prison by the Taliban.

KHALILZAD: Well, not with the intention--

MARGARET BRENNAN: Not with the intention. But that was what happened. So this wasn't an orderly withdrawal. Thirteen Americans died.

KHALILZAD: Nobody- nobody, I would- I'm not saying it was an orderly withdrawal. This was an ugly final phase. No doubt about it. Could have been a lot worse. It could be a lot-- The Talibs did help with the withdrawal. General McKenzie would tell you they did everything we asked them to do during that final phase. I was on the phone with them constantly, "Push this, close this road, allow these buses." It could have been a lot worse. Kabul could have been destroyed, street to street fighting could have occurred. I went to Afghanistan after 30-plus years after the Soviet withdrawal and what happened? Everywhere you looked, it was destruction like some German city after World War Two. This could have been a lot worse. It could have been a lot worse. It can still be a lot worse, or it can get better. But the choice is now mostly theirs, Afghans. Rumi, the great Afghan born in Balkh, said, "You can walk with people, You can not walk for them."

MARGARET BRENNAN: Ambassador, thank you for your time.

KHALILZAD: Thank you.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Thank you for taking questions.

KHALILZAD: Thank you very much. Good to see you.

LONG READ

The following is an unabridged transcript of Margaret Brennan's interview with Zalmay Khalilzad, Former U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation that aired Sunday, October 24,2021, on "Face the Nation."

READ THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE

Transcript: Zalmay Khalilzad on "Face the Nation" (msn.com)