Lt. Gen. Christopher Donahue – who was seen within the viral, night time imaginative and prescient photograph displaying the ultimate American soldier out of Kabul, Afghanistan – was quietly confirmed by the Senate on Monday to guide U.S. Military forces in Europe and Africa.
Donahue, who headed the 82nd Airborne Division through the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, was tapped by President Biden for the promotion to four-star basic, however the affirmation was not noted of a collection of 100 different army promotions green-lighted by the Senate earlier than Thanksgiving recess. The delay was brought on by one senator holding Donahue’s affirmation, in accordance with Politico.
A number of shops reported that Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., was chargeable for the procedural maintain.
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U.S. Military Main Basic Chris Donahue, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, steps on board a C-17 transport aircraft because the final U.S. service member to depart Hamid Karzai Worldwide Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan Aug. 30, 2021. (XVIII Airborne Corps/Handout by way of REUTERS)
Mullin has been a vocal critic of the Biden-Harris administration’s dealing with of the botched withdrawal mired by the killing of 13 U.S. service members and roughly 170 Afghan civilians throughout a suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai Worldwide Airport’s Abbey Gate. Donahue was chargeable for the 82nd Airborne because it was tasked with securing the airfield on the Kabul airport throughout evacuations earlier than the nation fell to the Taliban.
The senator referred to as out Donahue, in addition to different officers, in an Aug. 24, 2024, assertion on the three-year anniversary of the suicide bombing assault.
“Three years later, not one person has been held accountable for the disaster–not Gen. Milley, Gen. McKenzie, Gen. Donahue, U.S. Ambassador to Tajikistan John Pommersheim, or anyone at the State Department,” Mullin stated on the time. “To this day, no one has testified before Congress as to who gave this directive. No one has been held accountable for the 13 brave American heroes who died at Abbey Gate, or the countless Americans who lost their lives trying to escape Kabul.”
President-elect Trump’s former protection secretary turned Trump critic, Mark Esper, had defended Donahue’s nomination, and urged final month for the maintain to be lifted.
U.S. Military Gen. Christopher Donahue, commanding basic of the 82nd Airborn Division and Polish Basic Wojciech Marchwica communicate to journalists after a US Air Pressure transport aircraft transporting army gear and troops arrived on the Rzeszow-Jasionka airport in southeastern Poland, on Feb. 6, 2022. (JANEK SKARZYNSKI/AFP by way of Getty Photographs)
“Responsibility for the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 rests with the White House, not the Defense Dept, and certainly not with the uniformed leaders who faithfully executed Pres Biden’s misbegotten decisions,” Esper wrote on X.
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Trump had promised on the marketing campaign path to fireside senior officers concerned within the withdrawal, although not Donahue particularly.
One U.S. official informed NBC Information final month that the Trump transition workforce was compiling a listing of senior present and former U.S. army officers to be doubtlessly court-martialed over the pullout.
An indication displaying pictures and names of the 13 service members killed in a terrorist assault at Abbey Gate exterior Kabul’s Hamid Karzai Worldwide Airport is seen throughout a information convention on the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 9, 2024. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Photographs)
The Senate finally confirmed Donahue’s promotion to be the commander of US Military Europe-Africa by unanimous consent on Monday, because the maintain was dropped. Mullin had not publicly commented in regards to the maintain.
Donahue has headed the 18th Airborne Corps at Fort Liberty, North Carolina, since 2022.
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He has additionally been chief of the Particular Operations Joint Process Pressure Afghanistan and served because the Joint Chiefs of Workers’s deputy director for particular operations and counterterrorism.
