The governments in Washington, D.C., and Kabul made major blunders in Afghanistan over many years, leading to the latter's collapse in August 2021 ahead of the U.S. military's withdrawal, according to a new report.

One factor setting the stage for the Afghan regime's collapse was the U.S.- Taliban agreement from 2020, in which the Trump administration agreed to a negotiated withdrawal. Another was President Ashraf Ghani 's actions regarding the leadership of the country's Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF), according to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction's (SIGAR) report, which was published on Monday.

Investigators found six short-term factors that sped up the ANDSF’s collapse: the plan to withdraw U.S. troops, the lessening of support for Afghanistan’s military, the Afghan military's failure to become self-sustaining, Ghani’s frequent changes of ANDSF leaders and preference for appointing loyalists. Many Afghans thought the withdrawal agreement with the Taliban “was an act of bad faith and a signal that the United States was handing over Afghanistan to the enemy.”

The deal the Trump administration agreed to with the Taliban was a major catalyst in the Afghan military's ultimate collapse, per the report.

“It changed the dynamic in a single night. It changed dramatically on the morning of the 29th of February. There had been support on missions, then there was none,” Gen. Hibatullah Alizai, former Afghan Army general, said, according to the report. Gen. Sami Sadat, a former Afghan Army Corps commander, said, “The Doha agreement’s psychological implication was so great that the average Afghan soldier felt this idea of abandonment. This meant their mind was now in survival mode and [susceptible] to accepting other offers and deals.”

Weeks after the Taliban overthrew the Ghani government in August 2021, Congress directed the inspector general to find the causes of the quick collapse of the Afghan Armed Forces. SIGAR, in this report, accused U.S. agencies of being unresponsive to their requests for information, specifically the Department of Defense, whom the investigators claim responded to comments long after given deadlines and oftentimes were not helpful.

Rebecca Zimmerman, deputy assistant secretary of defense, took some exceptions with characterizations made within the report, according to a letter she wrote in response to the department that was included as an appendix. Despite her pushback, SIGAR ultimately noted that DOD had “a history of extensive delays, missed deadlines, and incomplete answers to questions.”

Last May, SIGAR issued an interim version of this report, and the watchdog agency said the Pentagon and U.S. State Department declined to review it. They reiterated that offer this December to comment on the final report. The State Department ultimately deferred to DOD for a response, while the agency and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have questioned SIGAR’s statutory jurisdiction in their explanation for not fulfilling their requests at the time.

“The Department of Defense is well aware of SIGAR’s recent report seeking to determine the factors that led to the collapse of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF)," Army Lt. Col. Rob Lodewick, the Pentagon's Afghanistan spokesman, told the Washington Examiner. "Since SIGAR’s inception, DoD has contributed to and facilitated their work- a fact the report echoes in its opening pages. DoD again contributed to this report and provided responses to SIGAR’s requests for information. While we take exception to SIGAR’s assertions of non-cooperation, and address them accordingly in our official response in Appendix II, the Department will continue to facilitate SIGAR’s work moving forward for security and defense related matters concerning Afghanistan.”

SIGAR has conducted oversight of the now-defunct U.S. mission in Afghanistan since 2008, and its executive, John Sopko, has been in place for more than ten years. Since ending the war, some lawmakers have requested SIGAR look into specific aspects of the withdrawal, including government collapse and U.S. military equipment falling into enemy hands.