Why experts say the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan didn't have to lead to chaos

The chaos that ensued following the hasty withdrawal ofU.S. forces from Afghanistan mayhave been prevented had U.S. President Joe Biden executed a more gradual and protracted pullout, militaryexperts say.

"So much of this is about a dialogue and about communicating a message to the Afghans and to the world that you are transitioning in an orderly fashion," said retired major-generalDavid Fraser, whocommanded more than 2,000 NATO coalition troops duringOperation Medusa in theAfghan province of Kandahar in 2006.

"Wars today are not won in a battle. They are bloody, ugly, complicated, messy things that kind of whimper away. They don't end with a switch," he said."It's a dimmer switchyou have to turn it down slowly."

Biden announced in April that he would be withdrawing theremaining 2,500 U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the end of the monthas part ofa 2020 dealmade with the Talibanunder formerpresident Donald Trump. But in a matter of days,the Taliban was able toseizenearly all of Afghanistan, as thecountry's Western-trained security forces collapsed or fled in the face of an insurgent offensive.

It leftthousands Afghans and foreigners alike scrambling to flee the country.

Biden defends decision

Earlier this weekin a televised speech at the White House, Biden said he stood squarely behind his decision, and that after 20 years, he had "learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces."

He has faced criticism, however, from both Republicans and Democrats, who accuse the president of lacking an evacuation plan for Americans and their Afghan allies.

Massachusetts DemocraticRep. Seth Moulton,a former captain in the Marine Corps, told the New York Times that for months, he had been asking the administration to provide a refugee plan.

Meanwhile, Rhode Island DemocraticRep. Jim Langevin, a member of theHouse armed services committee, wrote in Foreign Policy that "thisnegligence was par for the course for the last U.S. administration. I am disappointed to see it now."

"Had they remained longer, they also would have ensured a safe exit for interpreters, journalistsand activists, many of whom may never get out," he wrote.

Fraser said inBosnia, for example, it took years to dwindle down military operations

The remaining U.S. troops in Afghanistan had not been conducting major combat operations, he said, but insteadacted as a "show of force on the ground."

"And if I look at this whole plan, I would have said 'What do you take out and what do you replace, back then, to keep the hope and opportunity for the Afghans that they will continue to work," Fraser said.

"I think the short answer is there was a better plan than what we are experiencing now."

'Gradual and protracted basis'

Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institute whospecializes in U.S. defence strategy andthe use of military force, agrees there's ahigh likelihood that events in Afghanistancould have played out very differently hadthe pullout been effected "on a more gradual and protracted basis."

WATCH | Chaos unfolds as thousands crowd Kabul airport:

Afghans chase U.S. air force plane in desperate attempt to escape country

3 years ago

Duration 0:38

Thousands of people are trying to flee Afghanistan as the Taliban strengthens its grip on the country. Some people chased a U.S. air force plane down the tarmac, while others tried to force their way onto planes at the Kabul airport.

That would have given the Afghan government and military more time to essentially triage, he said, and develop a plan to hold onto some parts of the country.

"You could have potentially given the Afghan army a sense that it was only going to be asked to go into battle whereit had a good chance to win, and also where it had air power to back up that," he said.

Paul Miller, who wasdirector for Afghanistan and Pakistan on the National Security Council staff for former U.S.presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, also pointed a finger at Biden for pulling air supportand "the sequence" in which the withdrawal occurred.

'Start negotiations from scratch'

"I can envision a withdrawal thatmaybe took placea year, five years from now, with a different negotiated settlement and with a different continuing commitment to the Afghan military that didn't result in this catastrophe," said Miller.

"Completely start negotiations from scratch, keep the training up for another couple of years, then there might have been a more gradual and stable withdrawal," he said.[

"Itcould have gone otherwise if we had mustered a shred of political will, competence and resources;we could have done differently."

It's also clear that the Biden administration had no concrete plan to get people out of Afghanistan, said Mark Jacobson, a formerdeputy NATO senior civilian representative in Afghanistan.

"We should have been planning for lists of names who needed to be brought outespecially the Afghans," he said. "They also clearly didn't think that there might be 100,000 people that needed to get out."

Jacobson said it was also clear the U.S.didn't do any planning exercises to see where problem areas might be.

"Wewant to fly out 7,000 to 9,000 people each day. Then we need to have a plan to get 7,000 to 9,000 people by Taliban checkpoints and into gates that are large enough to handle that many people each day," he said.

PHOTOS | The chaotic scene at Kabul's airport:

However, Stephen Biddle,a professor of international and public affairsat Columbia University who served on Gen. Stanley McChrystal's initial strategic assessment team in Kabul in 2009, said that some sort of chaos was inevitable.

"Anyindication that the United States was evacuating the embassy or evacuating Afghans who had worked with uswas going to be read as a signal that the jig is up, the end is near," he said. "Andthat creates a huge incentive for everybody in Afghanistan to move fast, so as not to get caught when the Taliban roll in."

There was another solution, Biddle said, to avoid the chaos: Don't withdraw.

"If the administration said they were serious about negotiation, continue the negotiations. Make a withdrawal contingent on a settlement of the war. That would have been my preference.And if they've done that, then we wouldn't be looking at any of this chaos at the airport or any of the rest."