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The House Democrats on the Foreign 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 time of 2021. It additionally stated State Department officers had no plan for serving to Americans 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.
But 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 alternate 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 International Airport in Kabul on Aug. 19, 2021. (Courtesy of Omar Haidiri/AFP through Getty Images)
Meeks additionally stated Republicans didn’t contain Democrat members of their report and careworn that plans for withdrawing from Afghanistan started underneath the Trump administration.
He stated 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 authorities or any reference to the rights of Afghan girls and ladies.”
The rating member additionally knocked Trump’s “unilateral bulletins to withdraw troops, usually a shock to a lot of his personal senior officers, which undercut U.S. leverage as a result of these bulletins have been divorced from Taliban compliance with the deal; and his forcing the Afghan authorities to launch 5,000 Taliban fighters again to the battlefield earlier than a ultimate Taliban offensive in the end took Kabul.”
“When former President Trump took workplace, there have been roughly 14,000 American troops in Afghanistan,” Meeks wrote. “Days earlier than leaving workplace, the previous President ordered an extra discount to 2,500. President Trump initiated a withdrawal that was irreversible with out sending considerably extra American troops to Afghanistan to face renewed fight 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 Photo/Siddiqullah Alizai)
“All witnesses who testified on this challenge agreed that the United States would have confronted renewed fight with the Taliban had we not continued the withdrawal,” he added. “Rather than ship extra Americans to battle a warfare in Afghanistan, President Biden determined to finish it.”
Addressing the Abbey Gate bombing. Meeks stated Republicans “knew for months that the assault was not preventable and that, regardless that a witness advised our Committee he thought he had the ISIS-Okay bomber in his sights, he didn’t.”
Republicans, Meeks stated, made partisan makes an attempt to garner headlines moderately than acknowledge the total info and substance of their investigation throughout the peak of the election cycle. He additionally stated Republicans tried to tie Vice President Kamala Harris, now the Democrats’ presidential nominee, to the withdrawal regardless that 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 Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force – Crisis Response – Central Command, help with safety at an Evacuation Control Checkpoint (ECC) throughout an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 26. ((U.S. Marine Corps photograph by Staff Sgt. Victor Mancilla) )
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“American taxpayers have funded this Committee’s oversight, and the American folks deserve the reality,” Meeks stated. “We owe it to them to spotlight the info elicited on this investigation with out undue spin and with respect for the seriousness of the topic and the witnesses who’ve voluntarily testified to us about it.”
“It strikes me now because it did throughout that listening to that a lot of these crucial of the withdrawal effort merely have a basic objection to President Biden fulfilling his pledge to be the final Commander-in-Chief to preside over the warfare in Afghanistan,” he added. “They are masking their displeasure with criticisms however have failed to supply possible alternate options. We should proceed to wrestle with these issues to not rewrite the previous or assign partisan blame, however to determine classes that may assist us higher battle and finish wars sooner or later.”
