Former diplomat Khalilzad names US mistakes after 9/11 attacks
Former senior US official Zalmay Khalilzad said that Washington made mistakes in its policy toward Afghanistan and Iraq after the September 11, 2001 attacks. In an interview with Al Jazeera English, he linked a number of decisions to anger and fear in the United States following the attacks.
At the time of the attacks, Khalilzad was the senior director of the US National Security Council under President George W. Bush. He later served as US ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq and the United Nations.
Negotiations with the Taliban
According to Khalilzad, one mistake may have been the decision not to negotiate with the Taliban movement, which governed Afghanistan at the time of the US invasion. The United States launched its invasion of Afghanistan less than a month after the attacks, saying it intended to strike al-Qaeda, which it considered responsible for them.
The former diplomat noted that after September 11, US authorities feared further attacks and the existence of “sleeper cells,” and therefore sought to detain as many al-Qaeda members as possible. At the same time, he believes that including the Taliban in Afghanistan’s political process could have been beneficial. According to the outlet, it was reported that the Taliban had been ready to reach an agreement with the United States in the first months of the 2001 war, but Washington rejected that possibility.
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The Iraq War
Khalilzad also called problematic the circumstances, analysis and information on which the 2003 US invasion of Iraq was based. The Bush administration justified the operation with intelligence assessments that Iraq was close to acquiring weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear capabilities. Those assessments later proved to be false.
According to him, without the September 11 attacks, the United States would probably not have attacked Iraq. US authorities at the time did not believe that Iraq’s leader Saddam Hussein was truthfully reporting on the possession of such weapons and feared another surprise attack. The Iraq War lasted more than eight years and led to Hussein’s overthrow and execution.
Khalilzad supported the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, completed in 2021 under President Joe Biden. After US forces withdrew, the Afghan government they supported collapsed, and the Taliban again took control of the country.
