US officials were inhibited during mass evacuations from Afghanistan in 2021 by a lack of clear decision-making, an absence of centralized crisis management and confusing public messaging, an internal report found.
Completed more than a year ago but released only Friday at the start of a holiday weekend, the State Department report called for reforms including appointing a single person in charge during future crises and insulating contingency planning from political considerations.
The so-called After Action Review was ordered by Secretary of State Antony Blinken after outrage over the chaotic scenes from Kabul in August 2021 as Taliban fighters quickly seized control following the end of the 20-year US military presence.
The report praised the end result of the evacuation -- the pullout of 125,000 people, including 6,000 private US citizens, who were rushed out by the US military after it took charge of the international airport.
But it said that the operation faced a "major challenge" as senior officials in President Joe Biden's administration "had not made clear decisions" ahead of time about which at-risk Afghans to assist.
"Constantly changing policy guidance and public messaging from Washington regarding which populations were eligible for relocation and how the embassy should manage outreach and flow added to the confusion and often failed to take into account key facts on the ground," it said.
In a memo to State Department employees to mark the report's release, Blinken credited the "extraordinary courage, ingenuity and dedication" of staff on Afghanistan and promised to follow up on recommendations for improvements.
"Indeed, the lessons learned have already helped guide our responses in Ukraine, Sudan, and other places," he said.
- Taken by surprise -
The report, based on more than 150 interviews with current and former officials, noted that Biden inherited a backlog of visa cases from his predecessor Donald Trump's administration, which both agreed with the Taliban movement on the US withdrawal and staunchly opposed non-European immigration.
The report pointed to a sharp contrast in styles between the administrations with a "relative lack" of planning among government agencies under Trump and then an "intense" process under Biden, who was nonetheless taken by surprise by the speed of events.
In line with a previous internal study, the report said that most US estimates predicted that the Western-backed Afghan government would persevere "for weeks if not months."
"Crisis preparation and planning were inhibited to a degree by concerns about the signals that might be sent, especially anything that might suggest the United States had lost confidence in the Afghan government and thus contribute to its collapse," it said.
Among recommendations, the report called for the State Department to "insulate contingency planning and emergency preparedness from political concerns."
It said that evacuation plans should be made routine, reducing the impact if news of such preparations were to leak out.
The United States recently was reported to be planning evacuation plans for a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, leading the White House quickly to make clear that the preparations did not indicate fear of imminent war.
A senior US official said that parts of the report remain classified, pointing to security concerns.
The official, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity, said that the State Department has already acted on recommendations including by identifying people who would respond to future crises.