NEW DELHI: US President Joe Biden's administration has defended its decision to pull American troops out of Afghanistan and blamed former US President Donald Trump for creating conditions that severely constrained his successor and led to the chaotic withdrawal from the war-torn country in 2021; The Telegraph reported.

A document released by the White House on Thursday, it outlined the key decisions and challenges surrounding the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.  

The report blames previous Trump administration, saying President Biden was severely constrained by former president Trump’s decisions. "President Biden's choices for how to execute a withdrawal from Afghanistan were severely constrained by conditions created by his predecessor,” the report said.

The Trump administration had negotiated a withdrawal agreement with the Taliban that Biden pledged to honour. But the report criticised the former Republican president for a lack of planning to carry out the deal.

According to the report, when Biden took office on January 20, 2021, “the Taliban were in the strongest military position that they had been in since 2001, controlling or contesting nearly half of the country.” At the same time, the US had only 2,500 troops on the ground, the lowest since 2001, and President Biden was facing Trump’s near-term deadline to withdraw all US forces from Afghanistan by May 2021, or the Taliban would resume its attacks on US and allied troops, it said.

It said Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin testified on September 28, 2021, “The intelligence was clear that if we did not leave in accordance with that agreement, the Taliban would recommence attacks on our forces." John Kirby, White House National Security Coordinator for Strategic Communications, told reporters that the Biden administration was “proud” of its withdrawal from Afghanistan.