The House Foreign Affairs Committee will hold its first hearing Wednesday morning on what Republicans are calling the Biden administration’s “stunning failure” of leadership in the course of the military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The panel, led by Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), will concentrate on the commander-in-chief’s role within the chaotic days in August 2021 when the US military abruptly pulled out of Afghanistan, allowing the Taliban to quickly overtake the capital Kabul.
Within the aftermath, the administration conducted a haphazard evacuation effort to fly US residents and Afghans out of the war-torn country — resulting in a suicide bombing that killed 13 US service members and 170 civilians because the military scrambled to stay in charge of Hamid Karzai International Airport.
While about 85,000 Afghans were in a position to leave the country, 1000’s more — including US residents and Afghans who supported the US during its two-decade war there — were left behind.
Now under Taliban rule, Afghanistan has change into an economic disaster, with rampant food shortages, and the country has reverted to its previous oppressive treatment of ladies and girls.
McCaul said Wednesday’s hearing will zero in on the calamitous evacuation because the administration hurried to fulfill its August deadline to depart the country.
“What happened in Afghanistan was a systemic breakdown of the federal government at every level – and a surprising failure of leadership by the Biden administration. In consequence, the world watched heartbreaking scenes unfold in and across the Kabul airport,” McCaul said in a statement to The Hill.
“I would like every gold and blue star member of the family, and each veteran on the market who watch this hearing to know: I is not going to rest until we determine how this happened – and hold those accountable responsible,” he said.
An aide to the Republican-led committee told Fox News Digital that the hearing will act not only as a “scene setter” but in addition a reminder of why the investigation into the withdrawal is so critical and to permit veterans to explain their experiences on the bottom in the course of the evacuations.
There may be a sense that the federal government ”dismissed the trauma this caused,” the aide said, by sweeping the operation under the rug.
The witnesses will include: Former Army Specialist Aidan Gunderson, who was contained in the Kabul airport in the course of the evacuation; Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, a Marine seriously injured within the suicide bombing; Francis Q. Hoang, the manager chairman of Allied Airlift 21, which operates a registry for Afghans wanting to be evacuated; Peter Lucier, an official with Team America Relief; and retired Lt. Col. David Scott Mann, the founding father of Task Force Pineapple, a volunteer group working to evacuate US residents and Afghans.
