Rep. Mike McCaul, the senior Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, chastised the White House and State Department for the haphazard departure of US forces from Afghanistan a year ago, claiming that “there was no strategy” to leave the nation.
“There are numerous sins, if you will,” McCaul said on “Face the Nation.” “There was a total absence of planning. There was no plan, and no plan was carried out. And, to your point, I believe the State Department lacked the resources necessary to carry out an evacuation of this magnitude and magnitude.”
The Republican members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee will issue a report on Monday, according to the Texas congressman. McCaul called it a “pretty impartial study on the missteps that were made” by the Biden administration leading up to the departure.
Rep. Mike McCaul on “Face the Nation” Transcript
The publication of the study coincided with the one-year anniversary of the Taliban’s rapid capture of Kabul and the flight from the nation of then-Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. The inability of the Biden administration to predict the Taliban’s quick growth spurred criticism of President Biden, who consistently maintained his plan for removing US soldiers from Afghanistan by Aug. 31, 2021, earlier than the original Sept. 11 target.
The fall of Kabul also triggered a chaotic stampede of Afghans seeking to exit the nation under Taliban administration. With the US military in charge of the capital’s major airport for evacuations, thousands of Afghans flocked to the gates around it, seeking to board military flights transporting people out of the country.
More than 122,000 individuals had been evacuated from Afghanistan since the end of July 2021, including 5,400 American citizens, by the time the withdrawal was completed on August 30, 2021, marking the formal conclusion of America’s longest conflict. At the time, Secretary of State Antony Blinken believed that less than 200 Americans remained in the nation.
According to the State Department, 74,000 vulnerable Afghans have filed for special immigrant visas and are waiting to leave the country.
McCaul said that the scale of the evacuation “overwhelmed” the State Department. But, he argued, the largest problem was the “rosy image” provided by the White House and State Department, despite warnings from the Pentagon and intelligence community that the Afghan government may fall sooner than anticipated.
He said, “There is a gap between, you know, information on the ground and the White House’s actions.” “This report tells it all, for example, “We will not evacuate embassy employees using helicopters like we did in Vietnam.” Of course, we are aware that this occurred.”
McCaul also referenced the decision to reject the Taliban’s invitation for the U.S. troops to assume responsibility for defending Kabul.
“Consider how that would have altered the situation,” he continued. “We depended on the Taliban to protect the airport’s perimeter. This caused the pandemonium. It also led to a suicide bomber who murdered thirteen men and women serving in the military and wounded hundreds of others. And that was all avoidable.”
The Republican from Texas praised the intelligence community and the Pentagon for accurately predicting the collapse of the Afghan force and the Taliban’s takeover.
“The issue was that the White House and State Department buried their heads in the sand, refused to trust what they were saying, and thus failed to prepare appropriately,” he said.
McCaul said that the United States betrayed its pledge to the thousands of Afghans who supported American forces throughout the war.
“The ladies left behind are the worst aspect of this tale. I got four busloads of music school ladies out, but according to Schindler’s List, if you’re not on the list, you’re probably going to die “he stated. “One hundred thousand Afghan allies were abandoned – remember what we said, we would defend you. No one left behind was our pledge to them, yet we abandoned them to the Taliban, and they are currently being tortured and executed.”
The Biden administration is preparing to release its own assessment on the pullout and has delivered more than 150 briefings on Afghanistan to legislators and personnel. Blinken has also testified twice in Afghanistan-specific hearings, while top State Department officials have briefed the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the matter and answered questions from Democratic and Republican committee members.