Former National Security Council official condemns Afghanistan withdrawal as a 'Trump-style process'

Helicopter.
(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

As the United States' chaotic and tragic Afghanistan withdrawal continues, Brett Bruen, a former U.S. diplomat and ex-director for global engagement at the National Security Council, called out the haphazard exit operation as one harkening back to the previous administration.

America's withdrawal has been a "Trump-style process which we expected [the NSC] to avoid," Bruen told The Independent. He attributed the fallout to a "dearth of institutional expertise" at the NSC, which he said is what happens when "you put a bunch of political appointees into positions where you ought to have those with recent relevant experience advising the president." "They're not in the room," he claimed. "They're not being heard."

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Brigid Kennedy

Brigid Kennedy worked at The Week from 2021 to 2023 as a staff writer, junior editor and then story editor, with an interest in U.S. politics, the economy and the music industry.