In a new statement, the State Department backed a hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 after Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee released a scathing 350-page report detailing dysfunction and lack of planning leading up to the withdrawal.
A statement from a State Department spokesman said Republicans have “issued partisan statements, cherry-picked facts, suppressed testimony from the American people, and obfuscated the truth behind their speculation.”
The report, led by Foreign Affairs Chairman Mike McCaul (R-Texas), Biden's He argued that the country was bound by the Doha agreement former President Donald Trump struck with the Taliban, which gave U.S. troops a deadline of summer 2021 to withdraw, and criticized the State Department for having no plan to withdraw troops while they were still there to protect Americans and allies.
“There are valid and important criticisms of the 20-year Afghanistan war and its end, which is why the State Department has been focused on continuing to evolve and grow from this moment onwards, learning important lessons and making sustainable changes to our crisis response,” the State Department statement said.
“The Department is prepared to work with lawmakers who express a serious interest in finding legislative and administrative solutions. But we will not stand by silently as long as the Department and its staff remain accustomed to pushing a partisan agenda.”
Taliban fighters celebrate the third anniversary of the U.S.-led withdrawal of Afghan troops, in the Afghan capital, Kabul, Wednesday, August 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Sidiqullah Alizai)
US failure to gather intelligence on the Taliban opens Afghanistan to China and Russia
The defence ministry said the lack of a Non-Combatant Evacuation Operations (NEO) plan to end operations in Afghanistan was “one of the most persistent misconceptions”.
The State Department did not issue emergency operations orders to begin the withdrawal of Americans and allies until August 14, the day before the Taliban advanced on Kabul and President Ashraf Ghani fled the country in a helicopter loaded with cash.
It wasn't until August 19th that there were enough troops to start NEO.
The report criticizes former Afghanistan ambassador Ross Wilson for expanding the embassy rather than shrinking it as the security situation worsened, despite warnings from military authorities.
The statement noted that the United States intended to keep its embassy in Kabul open after the withdrawal, and said “Congress broadly supported that decision.”
“While U.S. forces will cease combat operations, Department of Defense personnel will continue to operate out of the Kabul embassy, supporting Americans and our Afghan allies, coordinating diplomatic and development activities and investments, and helping to protect and advance U.S. national security interests beyond August 2021.”
The U.S. Embassy in Kabul was officially closed on August 31, 2021, and has not reopened since.
The State Department argued that no one expected the Taliban to take power so quickly. (AP Photo/Sidiqullah Alizai)
The statement said, “NEO [August 15] It would have sent a signal to the Afghan people that the United States had completely lost confidence in the Afghan government at the time, leading to the very collapse we were trying to avoid.”
Still, the Pentagon acknowledged that it did not expect Afghanistan to fall to the Taliban so quickly: “Even in the most pessimistic assessment, we did not anticipate the collapse of government forces in Kabul while U.S. troops remained.”
McCaul's investigation found that the State Department had refused to reduce its presence in the region despite repeated warnings about Taliban control.
The Defense Department said it had been urging Americans in Afghanistan to leave since March of that year.
A new Republican report slammed the State Department for failing to plan for withdrawing troops, even though they are still there to protect Americans and our allies. (Ministry of Defence Crown Copyright via Getty Images)
Afghan general says country has again become 'crucible of terror'
“Between March and August, the Defense Department sent a total of 19 messages to Americans in Afghanistan warning them to leave and offering assistance, including assistance with airfare.”
Despite these efforts, nearly 6,000 Americans remained when Kabul fell, most of them dual nationals, leading to an evacuation effort “unprecedented in scope and scale.”
McCaul claims the State Department left about 1,000 Americans in Afghanistan, but the department says it had evacuated “nearly all” Americans by August 31.
The Defense Department said it helped evacuate an additional 500 U.S. citizens between Aug. 31 and the end of the year, noting that it helped about 120,000 Americans, Afghans and third-country nationals leave the country in the last two weeks of August 2021.
Click here to get the FOX News app
The report also noted that when President Biden took office in January 2021, there were 14,000 outstanding applications for the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program, which issues visas to foreigners supporting U.S. missions overseas, and that “not a single interview for an SIV applicant had been conducted in Kabul in the nine months since March 2020.”
