The top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee — which plans to release a report this week on the military withdrawal from Afghanistan — knocked the Biden administration for its “complete lack and failure to plan” the exit.
Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, the ranking Republican on the panel, said there were “many sins” committed during the botched pullout that resulted in the deaths of 13 US service members and the abandonment of thousands of Afghans who assisted the US in its 20-year war.
“There was a complete lack and failure to plan. There was no plan and there was no plan executed,” McCaul said in an interview Sunday on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”
“I think the State Department probably didn’t have the resources it needed to carry out an evacuation of this size and enormity,” he continued.
“They had 36 consular officers at HKIA trying to process hundreds of thousands of people,” he lawmaker said, referring to the chaotic scenes surrounding Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul last year.
“They were overwhelmed, but there were so many mistakes.”
McCaul and other Republicans on the committee said their interim report on the Afghanistan exit will be released this week, and they promised an intensive examination of the withdrawal — that includes issuing subpoenas to administration officials — if the GOP regains control of Congress in November’s midterm elections.
The 118-page report, “A Strategic Failure: Assessing the Administration’s Afghanistan Withdrawal,” names 34 current and former officials the Republicans say the State Department has blocked from testifying, The Hill reported on Sunday.
The GOP lawmakers say they will also seek material the State Department has yet to provide the panel, including “documents, messages, reports, legal opinions, meeting readouts, and other materials related to the withdrawal from Afghanistan.”
“The Biden administration’s, and specifically the State Department’s, refusal to provide Congress with the necessary information regarding America’s unconditional withdrawal from Afghanistan has hampered the Minority Committee’s ability to complete a thorough investigation,” the report, obtained by The Hill, says.
By Mark Moore
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