�We defeated ourselves�: Trump�s national security adviser says Pompeo
signed �surrender agreement� with Taliban

Former Trump administration officials are seeking to distance themselves
from Taliban surrender

Wednesday 25 August 2021 08:36 BST

HR McMaster, one of Donald Trump�s former national security advisers, has
condemned the deal struck with the Taliban during the previous
administration as a �surrender agreement�.

�Our secretary of state [Mike Pompeo] signed a surrender agreement with
the Taliban,� Mr McMaster said on Bari Weiss� podcast Honestly.

�This collapse goes back to the capitulation agreement of 2020. The
Taliban didn�t defeat us. We defeated ourselves.�

Mr McMaster has hit out at both the Trump and Biden administrations for
their handling of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, but he has long
been critical of the agreement signed during his former boss�s term in
office.

The retired US Army lieutenant general is one of many former senior Trump
officials who have sought to distance themselves from the Taliban peace
deal that was signed in February 2020, as chaos gripped the capital Kabul
over the past week.

In light of the tumult on the ground in Afghanistan, new scrutiny is
being applied to the terms agreed to in the deal as it laid out the US
military withdrawal and the Taliban subsequently sweeping across the
country and taking Kabul.

Originally, the Trump administration agreed to withdraw from the country
by 1 May, if the Taliban negotiated a peace agreement with the Afghan
government and promised to prevent terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and the
Islamic State from using the country as a base.

When elected president, Joe Biden said he had to follow through with the
agreement or risk new conflicts with the Taliban, which might have
required an additional troop surge into Afghanistan.

However, by pushing back the withdrawal date to 31 August, the president
showed there was some room for manoeuvre under the terms of the
agreement.

Mr Biden blamed the Trump administration for the chaos that ensued this
week saying that his predecessor had emboldened the Taliban and left the
group �in the strongest position militarily since 2001�.

The president has said that he would ultimately have withdrawn all troops
from Afghanistan even if no deal had already been struck with the
Taliban. Mr Biden said that he saw no way to complete a withdrawal
�without chaos ensuing�.

John Bolton, another of Mr Trump�s former National Security Advisers,
told CNN: �Had Trump been re-elected, he�d be doing the same thing. On
this question of withdrawal from Afghanistan, Trump and Biden are like
Tweedledee and Tweedledum.�

Mr Pompeo, who met with Taliban officials in person at the signing
ceremony of the agreement in Doha in September 2020 while secretary of
state, told Fox News the administration never trusted the group and does
not believe the negotiations legitimised them.

He insists that the agreement was conditions-based and that the US would
have retaliated against the militant group if it did not follow through
with its guarantees.