On a call Friday with Members of Congress, a military briefer also elaborated on the White House line that the Pentagon made Mr. Biden do it. The briefer said the President’s order was to leave the country, and the military had to secure the Embassy.

That mission of withdrawal was Mr. Biden’s bad call, and his generals sought to make it work. Gen. Milley told Congress in June: “Bagram is not necessary, tactically or operationally, for what we’re going to try to do here with Afghanistan—consolidate on Kabul in support of their government.” Obviously the Afghans didn’t get the support they needed.

The way U.S. forces quietly slipped out of Bagram was also demoralizing for the Afghan army and probably contributed to its collapse. The Associated Press spoke to soldiers wandering the base the next day. “They lost all the goodwill of 20 years,” one said, “by leaving the way they did, in the night, without telling the Afghan soldiers who were outside patrolling the area.” The word must have spread: If the U.S. is abandoning its prized air base, then it really was bugging out altogether.