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This text is a part of a Fox Information Digital sequence analyzing the implications of the U.S. army withdrawal from Afghanistan one 12 months in the past this week.
A 12 months after a Taliban offensive via Afghanistan descended on Kabul and overthrew the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, questions stay concerning the actions of the failed republic’s final internationally-recognized president, Ashraf Ghani.
“No energy on the earth may persuade me to get on a aircraft and depart this nation. It’s a nation I like, and I’ll die defending,” Ghani infamously advised Germany’s Der Spiegel in Could 2021.
Nonetheless, Ghani broke that promise only a few months later, gathering his household and flying out of Afghanistan as Taliban forces overran Kabul. The previous president confronted speedy criticism for what some known as cowardly actions, whereas studies started to flow into that Ghani had fled with tens of millions of {dollars} from Afghanistan’s treasury.
Rumors unfold Within the days after Ghani fled his nation that he had landed in neighboring Tajikistan or Uzbekistan, but it surely was later revealed that he made his solution to the United Arab Emirates and stays there in a home at an undisclosed location.Â
FORMER AFGHAN PRESIDENT GIVES REASON FOR FLEEING, SAYS HE WANTS TO RETURN AND ‘HELP MY COUNTRY HEAL’
Former President of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani speaks to reporters on the U.S. Capitol on June 25, 2021.
(Anna Moneymaker/Getty Photos)
The UAE welcomed Afghanistan’s former president and his household on humanitarian grounds, the place Ghani rapidly got down to defend his actions.
“Pricey countrymen! Right this moment, I got here throughout a tough selection; I ought to stand to face the armed Taliban who needed to enter the palace or depart the pricey nation that I devoted my life to defending and defending the previous twenty years,” Ghani stated in a Fb submit hours after leaving the nation. “The Taliban have made it to take away me, they’re right here to assault all Kabul and the folks of Kabul. So as to keep away from the bleeding flood, I believed it was greatest to get out.”
Much less {that a} month later, the previous president once more defined that he left Afghanistan to keep away from heavy combating within the nation’s capital throughout an apology to the Afghan folks.
“Leaving Kabul was probably the most tough choice of my life, however I believed it was the one solution to hold the weapons silent and save Kabul and her 6 million residents,” he stated in an announcement that was posted to Twitter.Â
A U.S. report from the Particular Inspector Normal for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) would later discover that there was an absence of proof to help the declare that Ghani fled Afghanistan with tens of millions of {dollars}, however did say it was possible he had about $500,000 readily available.
“Though SIGAR discovered that some money was taken from the grounds of the palace and loaded onto these helicopters, proof signifies that this quantity didn’t exceed $1 million and should have been nearer in worth to $500,000,” Particular Inspector Normal John Sopko wrote in a letter to Home and Senate management. “Most of this cash was believed to have come from a number of Afghan authorities working budgets usually managed on the palace.”
Taliban fighters take management of Afghan presidential palace after the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the nation, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Aug. 15, 2021.
(AP Photograph/Zabi Karim)
Within the months after his exit from Afghanistan and his social media statements, Ghani principally stored a low profile. That modified earlier this month, with Ghani granting a uncommon interview to CNN wherein he once more defended his final days as president.
“I did get on a aircraft as a result of it grew to become not possible to defend it,” Ghani stated through the interview, noting that he was advised by his minister of protection that the nation may not be defended and that the ministry had already been evacuated.
WHITE HOUSE DRAFTS MEMO DEFENDING AFGHANISTAN WITHDRAWAL
“I used to be the final to depart, and the rationale I left was as a result of I didn’t wish to give the Taliban and their supporters the pleasure of but once more humiliating an Afghan president,” he stated.
Ghani used the interview to criticize the “extremely flawed” settlement with the Taliban negotiated below former President Trump and carried out by President Biden, however made clear that he doesn’t blame the U.S. for the collapse of the federal government he oversaw.
“We have to deal with what’s now in entrance of us,” Ghani stated. “Our nation is in dire situation. I would not have the posh to have interaction in blaming or [a] sense of betrayal.”
He additionally dismissed comparisons between himself and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, arguing that the state of affairs he confronted was a lot completely different from Ukraine’s chief, who opted to remain in his nation as Russian forces closed in on Kyiv.
Former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, left, shakes arms with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.
(AP)
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“President Zelenskyy was knowledgeable intimately by the CIA of the forthcoming Russian invasion,” Ghani argued. “We weren’t supplied a single piece of paper by our allies.”
Nonetheless, Ghani additionally expressed hope that he may someday return to Afghanistan, declaring that his household has been in the identical village for 500-600 years.
“I hope so. Very a lot. It’s my dwelling,” Ghani stated of a possible return to Afghanistan. “I need to have the ability to assist my county heal… and I hope to have the ability to do this from the place that each cell of my physique belongs and with out which I all the time really feel alien.”
The previous president didn’t waiver when confronted with criticism of his ultimate act as Afghanistan’s chief, stressing that he all the time did what he thought was in the perfect curiosity of his nation’s folks.
“I’ve lived an honorable life,” he stated.
