BY JAMIE MCINTYRE

‘IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A DEBACLE’: Fearing he’d be forced from office and that incoming President Joe Biden would not follow through on his plans to leave Afghanistan, President Donald Trump signed a hastily drafted order to withdraw all U.S. troops before Biden was inaugurated.

The order, signed Nov. 11, 2020, required the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Somalia and Afghanistan and was offered by the Jan. 6 committee as evidence that Trump knew he lost the election, but it also showed that Trump was ready to rush a withdrawal with no plans to rescue Afghan partners or to hold on to the Bagram Air Base, as he later claimed he would have done.

“He disregarded concerns about the consequences for fragile governments on the front lines of the fight against ISIS and al Qaeda terrorists,” said Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), one of the two Republicans on the committee. “These are the highly consequential actions of a president who knows his term will shortly end.”

Ultimately, the withdrawal order was not carried out because it was logistically impossible — and politically suicidal.

“An immediate departure that that memo said would have been catastrophic. It's the same thing President Biden went through. It would have been a debacle,” said retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, national security adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence, in recorded testimony played at what’s expected to be the Jan. 6 committee’s final public hearing.

Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the order odd, nonstandard, and potentially dangerous. “I personally thought it was militarily not feasible nor wise,” he told the committee earlier this year.

FRANTIC MOVES AFTER ESPER FIRED: The evidence presented at yesterday’s hearing confirmed an account in the book Peril, by journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, which described how after he fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Trump installed a more compliant team at the Pentagon.

Esper had advised against further reductions in U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan, especially after Trump tweeted just before the election that he planned to have “all the troops home by Christmas.”

In his book, A Sacred Oath, Esper wrote that the “best military advice” of top U.S commanders “was that we pause at 4,500 [troops] and that we make no further reductions until the Taliban start living up to their end of the peace deal.”

“It was logistically impossible for us to withdraw all our forces and their equipment by December 25; it was also operationally dangerous, and strategically mistaken too,” Esper wrote. “Doing so meant getting out not only 4,500 U.S. troops but other U.S. government personnel as well as American contractors that numbered in the thousands.”

For his opposition to Trump’s withdrawal plans, and to many of Trump’s other impulsive decisions, Esper was fired the day after the election.

‘WE COULD HAVE GOTTEN OUT WITH HONOR’: The evidence presented at yesterday’s hearing undercut Trump’s post-defeat narrative that had he remained president, Biden’s haphazard and chaotic end of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan would have been avoided.

“We could have gotten out with honor, and we should have gotten out with honor. And instead, we got out with the exact opposite of honor,” Trump said at a rally in Cullman, Alabama last year after the fall of Kabul. “[Biden] surrendered our air base. He surrendered our weapons. He surrendered our embassy. They spent a billion dollars building this ridiculous embassy. And he abandoned our great American citizens.”

After the hearing, Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump administration Pentagon and White House spokeswoman, tweeted: “As someone who remains highly critical of Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal, I’d be curious to hear defense’s on the Right of Trump’s order for an even hastier withdrawal.”

SIX TAKEAWAYS FROM LAST JAN. 6 HEARING BEFORE MIDTERM ELECTIONS

Good Friday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, written and compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre) and edited by Stacey Dec. Email here with tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. Sign up or read current and back issues at DailyonDefense.com. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email and we’ll add you to our list. And be sure to follow us on Twitter: @dailyondefense.

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BIDEN TO SAUDI ARABIA: ‘WE’RE ABOUT TO TALK TO YOU’: President Joe Biden is weighing his options after Saudi Arabia sided with Russia over a plan by OPEC+ to cut oil production by 2 million barrels a day, a move to raise oil prices that will directly benefit Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The White House revealed yesterday that it had appealed to Saudi Arabia to delay any production cuts until the next meeting of the group, which includes the 13-nation OPEC cartel, plus 10 partner countries, a request the Saudi government denied.

“The outcomes of the OPEC+ meetings are adopted through consensus among member states, and that they are not based on the unilateral decision by a single country,” said the Saudis in a press release. “These outcomes are based purely on economic considerations that take into account maintaining balance of supply and demand in the oil markets, as well as aim to limit volatility.”

“We presented Saudi Arabia with analysis to show there was no market basis to cut production targets, and that they could easily wait for the next OPEC meeting to see how things developed,” said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby in a statement.

Asked what his message to Saudi Arabia is, Biden, in a brief exchange with reporters, said, “We’re about to talk to you.”

“What are you going to say to them?” a reporter asked. “Stay tuned,” Biden replied.

‘ARMS SALES … ABSOLUTELY GOING TO BE ON THE TABLE’: In a briefing at the White House, Kirby made clear that Biden feels betrayed by the Saudi decision and said the president wants to recalibrate the relationship with the kingdom.

“Bottom line is we don't want to see any nation helping Russia prosecute this war, whether that's moral support, military support, or economic support,” Kirby said. “And the decision that OPEC+ came out with this week was certainly economic support, and I would argue it also fell under the category of moral and military support because it allows him to continue to fund his war-making machine, and it certainly gave him, Mr. Putin, a sense of comfort here.”

Later in an interview on Fox News, Kirby said proposals from Democrats in Congress to freeze arms sales to Saudi Arabia are “absolutely going to be on the table.”

“We haven't made any decisions, so I don't want to get ahead of where we are. But arms sales will certainly be one of the options that we will take a look at to see whether that needs to be recalibrated.”

‘HUMONGOUS BLUNDER BY THE SAUDIS’: Democrats, furious about the prospect of another spike in gas prices just before the midterm elections, are pushing for punitive measures and a reassessment of the level of military support for Saudi Arabia.

In an interview on CNN, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) called the production cut a “humongous blunder by the Saudis that is against their own self-interest, as well as the threat to the global economy.”

“It ought to be a catalyst for our rethinking this whole relationship with Saudi Arabia,” Blumenthal said. “We have transferred technology to the Saudis in massive amounts, highly sensitive arms that we would never want to fall into the hands of the Russians, who now apparently are good friends with the Saudis, if not allies.”

DUELING NUCLEAR DRILLS: Both NATO and Russia are proceeding with long-scheduled military exercises that are designed to prepare for nuclear conflict despite the tension over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s not-so-veiled threats to use a tactical nuclear weapon to turn the tide of battle in Ukraine.

The NATO exercise is dubbed “Steadfast Noon,” and this week, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg stressed it was planned well before the Russian invasion and is not a response to Putin’s threats. “This is routine training, which happens every year to keep our deterrent safe, secure, and effective.”

The exercise will involve NATO fighter jets and U.S. B-52 bombers but no live munitions,” said John Kirby at the White House. “So some 14 NATO nations are going to be involved in this exercise. And it'll be held well away from Russia … more than 600 miles away.”

The Russian exercise is called “Grom,” which translates as “Thunder,” and is also an annual strategic nuclear exercise that typically involves “live missile launches and a deployment of strategic assets.”

“Russia probably believes this exercise will help it project power, particularly in light of recent events,” said Kirby. “Obviously, we're going to continue to monitor that accordingly.”

“While Russia probably believes this exercise will help it project power, particularly in light of recent events. We know that Russian nuclear units train extensively at this time of year. Again, routine.”

NORTH KOREA PREPS FOR NUCLEAR WAR

RUSSIA STILL STRUGGLING ON THE BATTLEFIELD: While the British Defense Ministry said pro-Russian forces, including mercenaries from the Wagner Group, have made small tactical advances toward the town of Bakhmut in Donetsk province, overall its offensive in the Donbas is making very slow progress and remains hampered by “severe shortages of munitions and manpower.”

The latest update from the Institute for the Study of War has an even more harsh assessment, citing “increasingly degraded morale, discipline, and combat capabilities among Russian troops,” which it said “may be leading to temporary suspensions in offensive operations in limited areas.”

“Certain Russian units are receiving orders from commanders to temporarily halt offensive operations due to extremely low morale, psychological conditions, high rates of desertion, and non-execution of combat orders,” said the ISW, quoting the Ukrainian General Staff.

“Russian detachments are becoming increasingly degraded as they impale themselves on relatively small and insignificant settlements throughout Donetsk Oblast,” the assessment said, noting that Donetsk “is nearly the only area in Ukraine where Russian troops are engaged in offensive operations.”

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Calendar

FRIDAY | OCTOBER 14

10 a.m. — Middle East Institute online event: “The Future of the U.S.-Saudi Relationship,” with Bruce Riedel, senior fellow and director of the Brookings Institution Intelligence Project; Joanne Held Cummings, senior fellow on national security at MEI; Kevin Donegan, senior fellow on national security at MEI; and Bilal Saab, senior fellow and director of the MEI Defense and Security Program https://www.mei.edu/events/future-us-saudi-relationship

12:30 p.m. — Center for Strategic and International Studies virtual discussion: “Posturing U.S. Space Operations for a Warfighting Advantage," with Lt. Gen. Stephen Whiting, commander of the Space Operations Command https://www.csis.org/events/lt-gen-stephen-n-whiting

1 p.m. — Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft virtual discussion: “Will Biden Finally Get Tough With Saudi Arabia?” with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA); Bruce Riedel, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution; Annelle Sheline, research fellow at the Quincy Institute's Middle East Program; and Trita Parsi, Quincy Institute executive vice president and former president of the National Iranian American Council https://quincyinst.org/event/will-biden-finally-get-tough-with-saudi-arabia/

2 p.m. — Center for Security and International Studies International Security Program and the U.S. Naval Institute Maritime Security Dialogue: “Seventh Fleet update,” with Vice Adm. Karl Thomas; retired Vice Adm. Peter Daly, CEO and publisher, U.S. Naval Institute; and Seth Jones, director, CSIS International Security Program https://www.csis.org/events/maritime-security-dialogue

2 p.m. 2301 Constitution Ave. N.W. — United States Institute of Peace film screening and discussion: "My Childhood, My Country: 20 Years in Afghanistan," with co-writer and co-director Phil Grabsky; and Belquis Ahmadi, USIP senior program officer https://www.usip.org/events/screening-bafta-winner-my-childhood-my-country

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