Miscue After Miscue, U.S. Exit Plan Unravels
The New York Times
President Biden promised an orderly withdrawal. That pledge, compounded by missed signals and miscalculations, proved impossible.
WASHINGTON — The nation’s top national security officials assembled at the Pentagon early on April 24 for a secret meeting to plan the final withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. It was two weeks after President Biden had announced the exit over the objection of his generals, but now they were carrying out his orders. In a secure room in the building’s “extreme basement,” two floors below ground level, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, met with top White House and intelligence officials. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken joined by video conference. After four hours, two things were clear. First, Pentagon officials said they could pull out the remaining 3,500 American troops, almost all deployed at Bagram Air Base, by July 4 — two months earlier than the Sept. 11 deadline Mr. Biden had set. The plan would mean closing the airfield that was the American military hub in Afghanistan, but Defense Department officials did not want a dwindling, vulnerable force and the risks of service members dying in a war declared lost.
An increasingly influential group of conservative scholars has some drastic ideas about the president’s power.
In the New Jersey parking lot where high school students invented Ultimate Frisbee nearly 60 years ago, some of the original players are still throwing the disc every week.
As Democrats ponder how best to position themselves for a looming spending confrontation, they are finding novel ways to put Republicans on the spot.
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Andrew D. Lester, a Kansas City resident in his 80s, was charged with felonies in the shooting of Ralph Yarl, a teen who went to the wrong address.
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Before Senator Thom Tillis voted to confirm Pete Hegseth as defense secretary, he worked with accusers to make the case against him in a bid to get G.O.P. leaders to scrap the vote altogether.
An intense storm caused flooding and forced evacuations in areas burned by wildfires.
Bored troops are standing watch, shelters have emptied from McAllen, Texas, to Tucson, Ariz., and border patrols speed through miles of frontier, finding no one in sight.
Spending that the White House does not like is being labeled fraudulent. At the same time, President Trump is rolling back anticorruption efforts and ethical standards for himself and allies like Elon Musk.
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