WASHINGTON, Sept 8 (Askume) – U.S. House Republicans will release a long-awaited report on Monday.Criticism of failures by Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration in the chaotic and deadly withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in August 2021
The report said the administration made the decision to evacuate non-combatants too late, only formally ordering it on August 16, failed to communicate between departments in Washington and Afghan officials, and prevented them from leaving the country. There were irregularities in the documents.
It is the culmination of a three-year investigation led by Republican Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
“America’s credibility on the world stage was severely damaged when we abandoned our Afghan allies – the Afghan people we had promised to protect – in the face of Taliban retaliatory killings,” the report said. “Our lives remain a stain on this administration’s legacy.”
The withdrawal has become politicized ahead of the Nov. 5 U.S. presidential election. Last month, Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump filmed a campaign video at Arlington National Cemetery and attended a ceremony honoring troops killed in the evacuation.
Trump also attacked Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris over their efforts to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan during the campaign and blamed them personally for the deaths at the Monastery Gate of Kabul airport. On August 26, 2021, as the Islamist Taliban movement seized control of the country and US forces tried to help Americans and Afghans escape, 13 Americans were killed in a suicide attack at the Monastery Gate entrance to Kabul airport, further highlighting US failures after twenty years of war.
Harris is the Democratic presidential nominee.
Democrats insist that Trump, who signed the withdrawal deal with the Taliban in 2020, is also to blame for the chaotic end to the war less than seven months after Biden took office.
“When former President Trump took office, there were approximately 14,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan,” Representative Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a letter to the Democratic committees.
Republican committee aides dismissed the claim as partisan politics and said Biden could ignore Trump’s deal or implement it. They accused officials who served during Biden’s presidency of allowing the Taliban to ignore their promises.
On September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda in Afghanistan-based Al Qaeda launched the United States-led invasion of Afghanistan; since then, approximately 800,000 American troops have served in Afghanistan.
2,238 US troops were killed and nearly 21,000 wounded during the war. Independent estimates put the number of Afghan security forces and civilians killed at more than 100,000.
McCall, whoThe US has subpoenaed Secretary of State Antony Blinken three times over the Afghanistan investigation, most recently last week , saying it wants him to testify in person.
