The Home Democrats on the Overseas Affairs Committee launched their very own memo on President Biden’s chaotic 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan after committee Republicans launched a report criticizing the president for what went down on the time.
Texas Rep. Mike McCaul, the Republican chair of the committee, launched a GOP-led report disputing Biden’s claims that his fingers have been tied to the settlement former President Trump had made with the Taliban establishing a deadline for U.S. withdrawal for the summer season of 2021. It additionally mentioned State Division officers had no plan for serving to People and allies out whereas there have been nonetheless troops within the area to guard them.
McCaul’s report additionally famous the failure to adequately reply to terror threats forward of the ISIS-Okay bombing at Abbey Gate on the Kabul airport that killed 13 U.S. service members and greater than 150 Afghan civilians, and that the Taliban probably had entry after the withdrawal to $7 billion in deserted U.S. weapons and as much as $57 million in U.S. funds that have been initially given to the Afghan authorities.
However New York Rep. Gregory Meeks, the Democrat rating member of the committee, launched a dueling report in response to the GOP-led report, accusing Republicans of criticizing the Biden administration for the withdrawal for political functions and failing to supply possible options.
HOUSE GOP RELEASES SCATHING REPORT ON BIDEN’S WITHDRAWAL FROM AFGHANISTAN
A U.S. Marine grabs an toddler over a fence of barbed wire throughout an evacuation at then-Hamid Karzai Worldwide Airport in Kabul on Aug. 19, 2021. (Courtesy of Omar Haidiri/AFP through Getty Photographs)
Meeks additionally mentioned Republicans didn’t contain Democrat members of their report and pressured that plans for withdrawing from Afghanistan started below the Trump administration.
He mentioned within the memo’s abstract that Republicans sought to keep away from info involving Trump, together with “his committing the United States to a full, date-specific withdrawal in a deal he negotiated with the Taliban that excluded the Afghan government or any reference to the rights of Afghan women and girls.”
The rating member additionally knocked Trump’s “unilateral announcements to withdraw troops, often a surprise to many of his own senior officials, which undercut U.S. leverage because those announcements were divorced from Taliban compliance with the deal; and his forcing the Afghan government to release 5,000 Taliban fighters back to the battlefield before a final Taliban offensive ultimately took Kabul.”
“When former President Trump took office, there were approximately 14,000 American troops in Afghanistan,” Meeks wrote. “Days before leaving office, the former President ordered a further reduction to 2,500. President Trump initiated a withdrawal that was irreversible without sending significantly more American troops to Afghanistan to face renewed combat with the Taliban.”
Taliban fighters have a good time the third anniversary of the withdrawal of US-led troops from Afghanistan, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2024. (AP Picture/Siddiqullah Alizai)
“All witnesses who testified on this issue agreed that the United States would have faced renewed combat with the Taliban had we not continued the withdrawal,” he added. “Rather than send more Americans to fight a war in Afghanistan, President Biden decided to end it.”
Addressing the Abbey Gate bombing. Meeks mentioned Republicans “knew for months that the attack was not preventable and that, even though a witness told our Committee he thought he had the ISIS-K bomber in his sights, he did not.”
Republicans, Meeks mentioned, made partisan makes an attempt to garner headlines quite than acknowledge the total info and substance of their investigation in the course of the top of the election cycle. He additionally mentioned Republicans tried to tie Vice President Kamala Harris, now the Democrats’ presidential nominee, to the withdrawal although she is referenced solely 3 times in 3,288 pages of the committee’s interview transcripts.
HOUSE COMMITTEE SUBPOENAS BLINKEN OVER AFGHANISTAN WITHDRAWAL
U.S. Marines with Particular Goal Marine Air-Floor Job Power – Disaster Response – Central Command, help with safety at an Evacuation Management Checkpoint (ECC) throughout an evacuation at Hamid Karzai Worldwide Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 26. ((U.S. Marine Corps photograph by Employees Sgt. Victor Mancilla) )
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“American taxpayers have funded this Committee’s oversight, and the American people deserve the truth,” Meeks mentioned. “We owe it to them to highlight the facts elicited in this investigation without undue spin and with respect for the seriousness of the subject and the witnesses who have voluntarily testified to us about it.”
“It strikes me now as it did during that hearing that many of those critical of the withdrawal effort simply have a fundamental objection to President Biden fulfilling his pledge to be the last Commander-in-Chief to preside over the war in Afghanistan,” he added. “They are masking their displeasure with criticisms but have failed to offer feasible alternatives. We must continue to wrestle with these matters not to rewrite the past or assign partisan blame, but to identify lessons that can help us better fight and end wars in the future.”
