INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Former US Vice President Mike Pence said Sunday he believes former President Donald Trump would have kept a &couple thousand American
forces& in Afghanistan despite striking a deal with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA).The US State Department released a report
Friday faulting both the presidential administrations of Donald Trump and Joe Biden for the botched withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan
in August 2021. The department&s &After Action Review& report stated the Trump administration had an &insufficient senior level
consideration of worst-case scenarios,& listed Trump&s desire to end a military presence and alleged there was &no plan or effort to help at
risk Afghans& nor a plan on &how to keep diplomats in Kabul after withdrawal.&Pence said in an interview with CBS he does not believe the
Trump administration bears any responsibility for the debacle.&It was made very clear, I was in the room when President Trump told the
leader of the Taliban (IEA)— he said, ‘Look, you&re gonna have to cooperate with the Afghan government
You don&t harbor terrorists and you don&t harm any American soldiers.& We went 18 months without a single American casualty until the day at
that Kabul airport, we lost thirteen brave American service members.&&The blame for what happened here falls squarely on the current
And under our administration, I promise you, that while it was the intention of the former president to pull all troops out, when the
Taliban (IEA) broke the deal and moved into Mazar-e-Sharif and Joe Biden did nothing, that set in motion the catastrophe that became
Afghanistan and the heartbreaking end to 20 years of conflict,& the former vice president said. Pence was asked if the Trump
administration would have kept the troops on the ground despite striking the deal.&Well, look, candidly it was all my belief that it would
be prudent to keep a couple thousand of American forces there to support our efforts against terrorists both in Afghanistan and in the
region and I think we ultimately would&ve done that, just as the president announced we were— the former president announced we were out
of Syria,& he answered.The State Department report also found the Biden administration did not know who was in charge of coordinating the
department&s role in the Afghanistan withdrawal.The post Mike Pence says Trump would not have withdrawn troops from Afghanistan first
