OAN’s Brooke Mallory
11:27am – Wednesday, March 20, 2024
At a Congressional hearing Tuesday, the two senior generals overseeing the 2021 withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan blamed the State Department for delaying ordering “non-combatant evacuation operations” for the remaining U.S. military population in Afghanistan. I suffered a loss.
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“The fundamental mistake, the fundamental flaw was the timing of the State Department,” said retired Gen. Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “It was too little, too late.”
Milley, along with retired Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, who led U.S. Central Command, oversaw the final days of America’s 20-year presence in war-torn Afghanistan. At least 170 Afghan civilians and 13 U.S. military personnel were killed in the attack, which occurred during a mad dash to flee Afghanistan and Taliban terror overlords.
Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, argued that the backlash has damaged the credibility and standing of the United States.
“The damage will last for generations,” McCall said.
According to Milley’s testimony before the Senate in September 2021, Pentagon officials recommended keeping 2,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan and predicted that the Afghan government would collapse if U.S. troops left.
More than 120,000 Afghans were evacuated by air during the evacuation, which Milley called “a logistical success but a strategic failure.”
He stressed that the withdrawal was a strategic mistake and acknowledged that Tuesday’s hearing was attended by relatives of soldiers killed in Afghanistan. But he also praised the military’s efforts to evacuate Americans and Afghan civilians as well.
According to McKenzie, 13 service members died during the evacuation as a result of policy choices rather than the actions of soldiers on the ground.
Milley and McKenzie went on to say that much of the chaos in Kabul in August 2021 was caused by the State Department’s failure to prepare in advance and issue early evacuation orders.
Meanwhile, both the Biden and Trump administrations were criticized in a State Department report in July for not adequately planning for “worst-case scenarios” before withdrawing.
The State Department claims that its ability to provide assistance was hampered by a lack of clarity over who was in charge at the State Department. The Pentagon had also been planning an evacuation operation “for some time,” the report said.
Milley said the “straw that broke the camel’s back” occurred in mid-August 2021, when Afghan President Ashraf Ghani left the country as Taliban forces closed in on the capital. Mr. Milley said that after Mr. Ghani left, Afghan troops began taking off their uniforms.
After the withdrawal, President Joe Biden’s approval rating fell below 50%.
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