The House Foreign Affairs Committee released a 300-page report on Monday into the Biden-Harris administration's failure to withdraw troops from Afghanistan.
The report is particularly unsparing in its criticism of the decisions that led to the deaths of 13 U.S. soldiers in a suicide bomb attack at Kabul airport on August 26, 2021.
of ReportQualified Willful blindness: Assessing the Biden-Harris administration's Afghanistan withdrawal and its aftermath, Construction has been ongoing for nearly two years.
The committee's chairman, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), sought to portray the investigation as honest and detail-focused, rather than partisan attacks. Releasing the findings two days before the only debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump likely wouldn't have made it more likely Democrats would accept it as a bipartisan investigation, but McCaul and his party have stuffed the report with evidence for every contentious point it makes.
“This was one of the deadliest days in Afghanistan. This could have been prevented if the State Department had done its job according to the law and followed the evacuation plan. They left 13 service members behind…It's fair to say it's a moral failure on the part of the administration that this happened,” McCaul said. said CBS News on Sunday mentioned the Abbey Gate bombing in Kabul.
The report's authors vehemently rejected Biden and Harris' assertion that they were simply implementing the withdrawal deal Trump struck with the Taliban before leaving office. The report noted that Biden and Harris not only violated many provisions of that deal, known as the Doha agreement, but also ignored input from NATO allies and the soon-to-be-ousted Afghan government.
The authors argue that many of the mistakes were made because the Biden-Harris administration “prioritized the appearance of a withdrawal over the safety of U.S. military personnel on the ground. This obsession with appearances and political manipulation led the administration to actively mislead the American public about the withdrawal.”
“The cover-up involved mid-level government officials all the way up to the Oval Office, and, as our investigation shows, the National Security Council and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan were the source of much of the misinformation campaign,” the authors wrote.
The report described the withdrawal as a “slow-moving train wreck,” a phrase coined by National Security Council Vice President Russ Travers. The Biden-Harris approach combines all of the worst characteristics of rash, thoughtless action and boundless indecision.
Besides its obsession with appearances, the administration's fundamental error was that it apparently believed it could withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan quickly while leaving the diplomatic mission intact or even expanding it.
The report identifies Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Afghan Ambassador Ross Wilson as the main villains. Blinken was delusional enough to allow the U.S. Embassy to continue operating while brutal Taliban militants invaded Kabul. Wilson actually resisted orders to leave the country by “arguing with staff and forcing embassy personnel to return home after their leave.”
Biden and Harris made some decisions that House investigators and interviewees still struggle to understand three years later, including the infamous decision to abandon key U.S. military bases like Bagram before the withdrawal was complete, and simply ignoring Pentagon warnings that would effectively neutralize Afghan forces the White House expected to maintain order until the withdrawal was complete.
Rarely have the Biden-Harris administration looked more like a deer in oncoming headlights with shock and incomprehension than when they witnessed the rapid collapse of the Afghan military and the huge crowds of terrified people who flocked to Kabul airport to flee the oncoming oppression of extremists. There is mounting evidence that the administration was not prepared for the horror it unleashed. The Biden team did not even provide adequate food and water for US government personnel stranded in Kabul.
According to a House of Representatives report, the series of flawed decisions that led to the Abbey Gate bombing were driven in part by the administration's panicked reaction to poor television coverage of the Afghanistan withdrawal. Threat warnings of an imminent ISIS attack were ignored because the administration wanted to clear the mob of terrified civilians blocking the airport as quickly as possible.
With U.S. forces at the airport reduced, the impression of attempting a preemptive strike against Islamic State terrorists would have been compromised, especially if such an attack had failed and resulted in casualties among U.S. troops and Afghan civilians. When Marines at the airport spotted a possible suicide bomber, they alerted their superiors in the chain of command, but no word was heard from them afterward.
Even after years of investigating the Abbey Gate bombing, investigators from the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee found it extremely difficult to determine exactly what happened that day, who began firing after the suicide bombing, and at whom they fired.
The report called the Pentagon's destruction of relevant records “inexcusable” and also criticized the administration for obstructing congressional and Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) oversight.
Willful blindness It details the aftermath of the Afghanistan withdrawal, beginning with the “disregard and disrespect” shown by President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to the Gold Star families of 13 U.S. soldiers killed in the Kabul bombing.
Other consequences of this debacle include reduced troop recruitment and retention, the Taliban's horrific repression of the Afghan people, and a loss of American credibility in the eyes of malign powers such as Russia, China, and Iran. The report notes concerns that current and potential American allies now view Russia and China as more reliable great power allies.
“What happened after Afghanistan had an impact on the world. Why? Because two months after Afghanistan fell, Putin responded by invading Ukraine. [and] “Putin has made unholy alliances in Beijing and now threatens the Pacific, and the Ayatollahs have reared their ugly heads in the Middle East,” McCaul says. said CBS News on Sunday.
McCaul noted that at least eight terrorists released from Bagram prison during the chaotic withdrawal were caught trying to cross the southern border, which Biden and Harris refuse to secure. The disaster in Afghanistan will haunt Americans in many ways for years to come.
