The retreat itself was a massive failure, and that's to (at least partially) blame on the current leadership.
Yes, that's the problem.
> The retreat itself was a massive failure
The retreat was a massive failure as a direct consequence of the occupation being so massive of a failure that the previous administration freed a Taliban leader for the express purpose of signing a surrender to the Taliban, and that the Afghan government and Army, unlike their South Vietnamese equivalents that stood and fought for years after the general US withdrawal and even as the PAVN fought into Saigon, collapsed swiftly, with the President fleeing the country and the army offering no resistance to the Taliban.
The idea that you can separate them is nonsense propagated by people still in denial about the totality of the failure of the occupation.
The Military wanted us to believe that "just a few more years" would prop up the regime, so they cannot come clean saying we cannot pull out without a proper evacuation because that would undermine the "just a few more years" argument.