Republicans slam Biden rejection of service members’ accounts of Afghan withdrawal

Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee slammed President Biden on Friday for recently rejecting accounts that service members gave of the United States’ chaotic evacuation from Afghanistan.

In a letter to Biden, committee ranking member Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) and 18 of his colleagues called it “appalling” that Biden and White House press secretary Jen Psaki would dismiss the accounts, that were detailed in an Army investigation of an ISIS bombing outside of Abbey Gate at Kabul’s international airport that killed 13 U.S. service members.

Last week, when asked by NBC’s Lester Holt asked about the report, Biden said the report didn’t match his impression of the withdrawal. Asked if he was rejecting the accounts or conclusions of the report, Biden said, “Yes, I am.”

“These interviews make it abundantly clear that, despite your attempts to deny it, your administration failed to take the necessary steps to effectively prepare for the withdrawal or to realistically respond to the Taliban’s lightning-fast advance across Afghanistan,” reads the letter.

“As such, the American people deserve to know why your White House has rejected these firsthand accounts and asserted that no official After-Action Report on the withdrawal exists, as Mrs. Psaki reiterated on February 11th,” it continued. 

The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.

The U.S. officially withdrew from Afghanistan on Aug. 31 and managed to evacuate more than 124,000 people. But the process was largely seen as a low point for the Biden administration as the Taliban rapidly took over Afghanistan in the ensuing chaos.

The 2,000-page report, which was publicly released after a Freedom of Information Act request from The Washington Post, included commanders on the ground suggesting that the administration hadn’t been fully aware of the threat on the ground. 

The review also detailed confusion regarding the State Department’s priorities for who to evacuate from Afghanistan, as well as constantly changing messaging on who could leave.

An after-action review of the withdrawal tucked into the Abbey Gate report identified, among other things, issues of delaying in withdrawing staff from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and a lack of consensus of what would trigger such an evacuation. 

“These soldiers, sailors, and Marines did everything humanly possible to carry out their mission despite the impossible situation your administration’s miscalculations and strategic blunders placed them in,” the letter continued.

“We therefore find your efforts to denigrate and downplay their sworn statements regarding the lack of urgency and adequate planning they witnessed firsthand particularly shameful.”