White House told to hand over failed Afghanistan withdrawal files

Republicans on the Oversight Committee are sending letters to senior officials throughout the Biden administration requesting documents related to the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Letters were sent to the Sec. of Defense on Thursday. Lloyd Austin, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley requesting all records and communications from the day Biden took office to the present regarding contingency and planning for the evacuation of Afghanistan.

“You were at the center of the withdrawal and evacuation planning and advised President Biden on decisions that amounted to tactical and strategic failures. The committee,’ wrote the oversight chair, Rep. James Comer, Kentucky.

Comer also requested records of communications with NATO alliances about the withdrawal and records related to al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups in Afghanistan.

To the Department of National Security. Mayorkas, Comer wrote a letter requesting communications related to the former Afghan government urging the US not to withdraw and documents related to vetting refugees.

Requests for records were also sent to the heads of the State Department, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the National Security Council.

“You crafted a narrative of success and order as the Taliban retook Afghanistan, as Afghans clung on and fell from planes leaving Hamid Karzai International Airport, and a suicide bomber killed 13 US service members and hundreds of innocent Afghans,” a letter to national security. read adviser Jake Sullivan.

The letter said the committee was taking oversight of the evacuation into its own hands after accusing the Biden administration of trying to “delay long overdue transparency.”

The committee noted that the Afghan War Commission, established by Congress under the FY 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, does not have to submit a report until three years after its first meeting, which has not yet been held. .

“The Biden administration was tragically unprepared for withdrawal from Afghanistan and its decisions in the region directly resulted in a national security and humanitarian catastrophe,” Comer said in a statement. “American servicemen and women lost their lives, Americans were abandoned, taxpayer dollars go unaccounted for, the Taliban gained access to military equipment, Afghan women’s progress was derailed, and the entire area is now under their control.” hostile to the Taliban”.

The Biden administration complied with a Trump administration peace deal with the Taliban that said US troops would be withdrawn from the nation entirely.

However, the agreement said that the US could go back on its promise to leave if peace talks between the former Afghan government and the Taliban failed, which they did.

Biden drew bipartisan criticism for the chaotic operation, which was rocked when an ISIS-K suicide bomber detonated outside Hamid Karzai International Airport, killing nearly 200 Afghans and 13 US service members.

The Taliban takeover, much faster than officials in either administration had anticipated, led to the implementation of Sharia law, which meant that women for the most part were stripped of the ability to go to school or work and other human rights deteriorated.