Gen. Wesley Clark to Newsmax: Afghanistan War a 'Tragedy'

The war in Afghanistan was a failure, retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark told Newsmax Thursday.

"It was poorly planned at the outset," Clark told "National Report" three years after the withdrawal from the country. "It was never properly resourced.

"It was passed down from administration to administration. Everybody made their share of mistakes, oversight, neglect."

Clark said that despite the heroism of the troops who served, it just wasn't a war that was winnable.

"The decision was made in the Trump administration: just get out, get out 100%, get out completely. The Trump administration negotiated the agreement," Clark said.

"And President Biden made the decision we're not going to fight the Taliban anymore: It's over, just get out. And that's what the military did."

In the 20 years America was in Afghanistan, each administration made its mistakes, Clark said.

"It's not very productive to go back and point political fingers, because there's plenty of fault on on every administration and on some of the military leaders themselves," Clark said.

"We went into Afghanistan to get Osama bin Laden under the Bush administration. We didn't have a plan to get Osama bin laden. We just started bombing."

The U.S. was never able to isolate the Taliban's theater of operations and prevent Pakistan from supporting them, Clark said.

Afghanistan was a "mission that was really, it was really misstated," Clark said.

"It was under-resourced, and it was it was just a bad mission, and every administration carried it forward. And finally, the Biden administration was left holding the ball."

"There's no politics here. This is just a tragedy," he added.

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