House Report Exposes Failures in Afghan Withdrawal

The House Foreign Affairs Committee released a 354-page report Sunday evening detailing administrative failures that led to the chaotic withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan in mid-August 2021.

Willful blindness: The report, titled “Willful Blindness: An Assessment of the Biden-Harris Administration’s Withdrawal From Afghanistan and the Chaos That Followed,” is the result of a nearly two-year investigation led by House Republicans. It exposes numerous flaws in the pull-out:

• There was no operational plan for the withdrawal.
• The administration decided to evacuate noncombatants too late.
• There were communication failures between the United States and officials in Afghanistan.
• Issues with paperwork did not allow civilians to leave the country.
• The lack of evacuation management, including lack of evacuation planes and no guidelines for who was eligible for evacuation, resulted in thousands of undocumented evacuations being processed. One State Department employee told the committee that the government had “no idea if people being evacuated were threats.”
• The State Department dismissed warnings, including one about the suicide bombing at Abbey Gate that resulted in the death of 13 U.S. soldiers and more than 150 Afghans. Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Brian McKeon told military officials in Afghanistan at the time, “We at the State Department have a much higher risk tolerance than you guys.”
• Afghanistan Ambassador Ross Wilson took a two-week vacation before the withdrawal, then fled the Embassy ahead of his entire staff, claiming he had covid-19.
• The Biden-Harris administration ignored recommendations to maintain a small military presence in the country.
• The U.S. abandoned roughly $7 billion worth of military equipment.

Our investigation reveals the Biden-Harris administration had the information and opportunity to take necessary steps to plan for the inevitable collapse of the Afghan government, so we could safely evacuate U.S. personnel, American citizens, green card holders and our brave Afghan allies. At each step of the way, however, the administration picked optics over security.
—Michael McCaul, Foreign Affairs chair

Counter memo: On Monday, Democratic House Foreign Affairs Committee member Gregory Meeks released his own memo criticizing the report and blaming the chaotic withdrawal on President Donald Trump.

According to Meeks, President Trump should be blamed for signing the Doha Agreement with the Taliban in February 2020, which established a deadline for the U.S. to pull out its military personnel.

The White House and many leftist media outlets argue that Biden and Harris were forced into the messy withdrawal.

Because of the bad deal former President Trump cut with the Taliban to get out of Afghanistan by May of 2021, President Biden inherited an untenable position.
—Sharon Yang, White House spokesperson

The House Foreign Affairs report explains, however, that Biden was advised by top officials not to leave Afghanistan because the Taliban had violated the conditions of the Doha Agreement, so it was no longer binding. Nevertheless, Biden forced the military to retreat.

America’s credibility on the world stage was severely damaged after we abandoned Afghan allies to Taliban reprisal killings—the people of Afghanistan we had promised to protect. And the moral injury to America’s veterans and those still serving remains a stain on this administration’s legacy.
—House Foreign Affairs report

Why Afghanistan? The withdrawal ended a nearly 20-year military operation by America that was sparked by the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001.

In the lead-up to the withdrawal, the Taliban overthrew the Afghan government and military that America had spent trillions of dollars on and sent military personnel to establish. Before the U.S. had even pulled out, the Taliban had taken over.

America’s withdrawal was not merely ill planned, it was a shameful operation aimed at disgracing the nation.

Learn more: Read “Afghanistan: Chaos by Design.”