Republican Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Mike McCaul has released an investigative report examining the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, holding President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris accountable for the botched pullout.
"The Biden-Harris administration prioritized the optics of the withdrawal over the security of US personnel on the ground," the more than 350-page document points out.
According to the report:
Biden’s calls to withdraw the US from the Vietnam War as a senator in the 1970s, along with the Afghanistan pullout, shows a "pattern of callous foreign policy positions and readiness to abandon strategic partners."
The State Department received numerous warning signs about the inevitable collapse of the Afghan government but failed to hammer out an escape plan to "safely evacuate US personnel, American citizens, green card holders, and our [Washington’s] brave Afghan allies."
The Biden administration’s mismanagement resulted in "exposing US Defense Department and State Department personnel to lethal threats and emotional harm."
Former US envoy to Afghanistan, Ross Wilson, who reportedly had COVID-19 at the time, fled the US embassy ahead of his entire staff. Wilson got a foreign service officer to take his test for him so that he could quickly flee Afghanistan.
NATO allies were vehemently opposed to Washington’s decision on US troop withdrawal, with the UK Chief of Defense warning at the time that the pullout under these circumstances "would be perceived as a strategic victory for the Taliban*."
Biden and Harris were advised by top leaders that Taliban militants were already in violation of the conditions of the Doha Accord, also known as the Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan, which is why the US was not obligated to leave.
The White House "misled and, in some instances, directly lied to the American people at every stage of the withdrawal, from before the go-to-zero order until today."
The United States hastily withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021 after a rapid takeover of the country by the Taliban*. The US military oversaw the frantic evacuation of thousands of individuals at Kabul's Abbey Gate airport, where a terrorist attack killed 13 US troops and 180 Afghans.
Republicans in Congress accused the Biden administration of fleeing Afghanistan, as well as abandoning thousands of Afghans who had been collaborating with the US military against the Taliban for 20 years.
*Under UN sanctions for terrorist activities