This week, we learned that American taxpayer dollars are likely funding the Taliban and that the current administration is attempting to stifle an inspector general investigation into President Joe Biden’s disastrous military withdrawal from the region. This news comes just two weeks after the Biden administration released its own review of the Afghanistan withdrawal. The document, and National Security Council spokesman John Kirby’s accompanying press conference, represented a blatant attempt to rewrite history and defer blame.

Desperate to find a scapegoat for its own failures, the White House is trying to shift the blame for the catastrophic events of 2021 to the previous administration and our Afghan allies. The White House’s review heavily focuses on a 2020 deal struck with the Taliban and its effects on the Afghan military’s willingness to fight. But it ignores the plain truth: Biden was commander in chief throughout the botched withdrawal, and under his administration, money is flowing to the Taliban.

The timeline of Biden’s decisions and the events during the summer of 2021 do not support the White House’s convoluted narrative. When President Donald Trump left office, 2,500 U.S. service members remained in Afghanistan, the recommended fighting force to continue the counterterrorism mission and keep the Taliban at bay. In reality, the Afghan military began to collapse only after Biden announced in May 2021 that U.S. forces would withdraw by Sept. 11.

From the day he took office, it was clear Biden was intent on pulling all U.S. forces out of Afghanistan to deliver on a campaign promise he perceived to be popular. It’s fair to say the White House was more interested in orchestrating a public relations exercise than planning a coherent military strategy. Biden’s officials routinely ignored the advice of the military advisers, and their lack of a coherent plan created an impossible situation for the troops there.

For example, in the years leading up to 2021, military leaders in Afghanistan and the Pentagon advised against withdrawing during the summer fighting season. If a full withdrawal was ordered, it was recommended to take place during the winter months when fighting is limited and the Afghan military had the best chances of holding terrain. It was for this reason, in part, that the Trump administration set May as its initial withdrawal date. Biden’s team, however, dismissed this advice, choosing instead a date — the 20th anniversary of the Sept.11, 2001, terrorist attacks — to maximize political optics.

As the summer of 2021 began, the Taliban began their assaults on outposts and outlying districts, but there was still a chance the Afghan military could hold on. Then, in July, the Biden administration ordered the closure of Bagram Air Base. The rapid collapse of provincial cities and capitals soon followed. The airport, which provided the majority of close air support to the Afghan military, was abandoned in the most embarrassing way conceivable. American forces left in the dead of night, without coordination with the Afghan military, on the eve of July 4.

Around the same time, the administration chose to pull back all contractors maintaining Afghan Air Force aircraft. From then on, it was clear that air cover, essential to keeping the Taliban in check, was no longer available.

Within a month of these decisions, the Taliban had the capital city surrounded.

Through mid-August, as the situation spun out of control, the White House attempted to portray competence and control the narrative. Biden vowed to the public that he had “planned for every contingency.” Administration officials assured Congress that the Afghan military could hold out for a year or two. And Biden promised on multiple occasions that the Taliban would not control large swaths of the country, and that under “no circumstance” would the world see helicopters evacuating people off the roof of the U.S. Embassy.

In reality, the White House National Security Council did not hold its first meeting on the disaster unfolding in Afghanistan until the day prior to the fall of Kabul.

The White House then attempted to change the narrative and focus on achieving the “largest airlift in history.” The decision to do so was yet again political, and it placed the U.S. military in an impossible position. Worse still, the scramble to get tens of thousands of Afghans on military aircraft at a commercial airport with minimal security directly led to the loss of 13 Americans at Abbey Gate.

Yet, in spite of the incoherent and incompetent political directives thrust upon them, the men and women of our Armed Forces performed masterfully, and Americans saw Biden’s failed leadership for what it was.

Now, the Biden administration is attempting to avoid accountability, deflecting blame for the debacle in Afghanistan. But, as the former commander of CENTCOM said that year, the responsibility resides with the president. The release of the White House’s review will not change that.

Fortunately, House Republicans have made it clear they will pursue full accountability, and the congressionally mandated Afghanistan War Commission is working to provide a fuller picture of the disastrous events to the American public. Kirby can claim he “ didn’t see ” any chaos at the airport in Kabul, but partisan talking points will not erase from the nation’s memory the chaos and catastrophe that unfolded in Afghanistan that August.

Garrett Exner is the executive director of the Public Interest Fellowship and is on the advisory council of Veterans On Duty. He previously served as a special operations officer in the Marine Corps with deployments to Iraq, North Africa, East Africa, and the South Pacific.