Combat veteran Sen. Joni Ernst blasted the White House for calling a Republican-led hearing on the Afghanistan withdrawal a “political show” while blaming President Joe Biden for mistakes that resulted in the deaths of 13 service members.
Now-retired military generals Mark Milley and Kenneth McKenzie delivered a scathing assessment of the deadly exit at a hearing on Tuesday, revealing that Biden ignored their advice and that his evacuation orders came “too late,” leaving allies stranded as the Taliban took over in 2021.
The White House tried to dismiss the seriousness of the hearing, saying it was “blatant for the Republican Party in the House of Representatives to use Afghanistan to play politics.”
White House spokesman Ian Sams posted on X that House Republicans on the Foreign Affairs Committee were merely trying to “distract from their own current failures” by holding the hearing.
Ernst, who served in the military for more than 23 years, told DailyMail.com it was “not a political show.” It’s something that should have happened a long time ago.’
Ernst said yesterday’s hearing demonstrated the “arbitrary attitude President Joe Biden displayed as he withdrew our troops from Afghanistan.”
A U.S. Marine grabbed a baby over a barbed wire fence during an evacuation at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport on August 19, 2021
Milley told lawmakers that the withdrawal is “personal to me” and offered his condolences to the Gold Star families who attended in person
McKenzie agreed, saying he too believes the events of August 2021 were the result of delayed decisions that were the responsibility of the State Department.
She said yesterday’s hearing demonstrated the “arbitrary attitude President Joe Biden displayed as he withdrew our troops from Afghanistan.”
“Not only did he endanger the lives of the Afghans we had been working with, our allies were completely caught off guard when we withdrew, as were our American forces,” she told DailyMail.com during an interview at the National Security Innovation Reagan Institute. Basic top.
She said there is an immediate need for accountability for the Gold Star families seeking peace.
One of the soldiers killed at Abbey Gate in August 2021 was from southwestern Iowa, the senator added, and she knew his mother “very well.”
“Unfortunately, we saw two decades of efforts to secure and stabilize that region thrown into disarray because President Joe Biden would not listen to his military advisers.”
Ernst also addressed the Reagan Institute, giving Congress an “F-” grade on their annual defense modernization report for “lack of action,” which ‘limiting the progress of major initiatives.’
In particular, the lack of a budget for the 2024 financial year resulted in ‘significant development delays for priority programmes’.
The Republican senator pushed back on the failing grade while admitting that Congress’do a poor job of appropriating the right projects at the right time.”
Ernst said much of the blame should be placed on the Biden administration for issuing budgets that “well underfund” the innovations needed in defense spending.
“The administration is focusing much more heavily, much more heavily on climate ideology and other types of domestic programs that don’t keep our nation safe.” she added.
Ernst told DailyMail.com that the US needs to invest “much more” in public and private innovation to “stay ahead of the power curve when it comes to emerging technologies.”
In his opening statement before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Milley told lawmakers that the withdrawal is “personal to me” and offered his condolences to the Gold Star families who attended in person.
Along with McKenzie, he placed the State Department at the center of the communications blackout that resulted in the tragic deaths of thirteen troops and the abandonment of hundreds of Americans and key Afghan partners as the Taliban took power.
“On August 14 (2021), the decision to evacuate noncombatants was made by the State Department and the U.S. military was alerted, mobilized, and rapidly deployed more quickly than any military in the world ever would,” Milley said.
“I believe that decision came too late.”
He added that his analysis was that an “accelerated withdrawal” would likely lead to the “general collapse of the Afghan security forces and the Afghan government” and a complete takeover by the Taliban.
However, when he said that to Biden, Milley said the president ignored his advice to keep a few hundred troops on the ground.
McKenzie agreed, saying he too believes the events of August 2021 were the result of delayed decisions that were the responsibility of the State Department.
“My view remains that if there is any culpability in this attack, it lies in policy decisions that created the environment.”
‘CThe responsibility and responsibility does not lie with the troops on the ground,” he added.
Afghan people sit in a US military plane to leave Afghanistan, at the military airport in Kabul on August 19, 2021 after the Taliban’s military takeover of Afghanistan
British nationals and dual nationals boarded a military plane at Kabul airport, Afghanistan
A suicide bombing during the withdrawal claimed the lives of 13 American soldiers
Talks between Biden administration officials and the generals about when and how to evacuate had been going on for months before the withdrawal in August.
Milley said that if he could make the decision again, he would have started the evacuation more than a month before the withdrawal was ordered.
“I would have called the embassy and the foreign ministry with the army in mid-July,” he said. “If anything else were to happen, that would be it.”