KABUL, AFGHANISTAN - AUGUST 10 : Displaced Afghans reach out for aid from a local Muslim organization at a makeshift IDP camp on August 10, 2021 in Kabul, Afghanistan. The Taliban has taken control of six provincial capitals, among other towns and trade routes, since the United States accelerated withdrawal of its forces this year. Afghan families from Kunduz, Takhar and Baghlan provinces have arrived in Kabul in greater numbers, fleeing the Taliban advance. (Photo by Paula Bronstein /Getty Images)
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois) is blaming both the Trump and Biden administrations’ policies for the crisis in Afghanistan. He pointedly criticized former President Donald Trump‘s deal with the Taliban in 2020.
Kinzinger, an Air Force veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, voiced these sentiments to CNN on Sunday. He repudiated the former president’s desire to take American troops out of Afghanistan “at all costs.” Kinzinger also slammed former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for meeting with the Taliban to negotiate the deal with them.
The peace deal that Trump signed in 2020 involved the U.S. promising to withdraw its troops and release 5,000 Taliban prisoners in exchange for the Taliban promising them to prevent any individual or group, including al-Qaeda, from using Afghanistan to threaten the U.S. and its allies.
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Other Republicans have criticized Biden for not leaving some American troops in Afghanistan to keep the peace. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming), Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Nebraska) have been among those who have also expressed their concern with the Biden administration’s actions in this crisis.
About 96,000 Afghans and diplomats have been evacuated from Afghanistan in U.S. and allied aircraft since the operation began.
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