Michael McCaul, the Chairman of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, has criticized President Joe Biden’s handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal. He called the withdrawal a “mistake of epic proportions” and accused the Biden administration of failing to have a contingency plan in place.
During the House’s subcommittee on oversight and accountability hearing on Thursday, McCaul said that “This unconditional withdrawal, I call it the unconditional surrender to the Taliban, who have now taken over Afghanistan.”
McCaul pointed out that intelligence assessments had warned that the Taliban could take over Kabul by September 1 if all US troops were pulled out. However, “yet even with that warning, President Biden and Secretary Blinken failed to change course, to the very end.”
He further criticized the rushed withdrawal, which he believed prioritized an “artificial timeline” over US national security and the safety of Americans and Afghan partners. He questioned why the withdrawal was not planned to coincide with the time when the Taliban usually stopped fighting during winter.
“We made zero, seems to me very little attempts to get the men and women who fought alongside US servicemen out of that country to safety. And our partners, our interpreters are now left behind to be hunted down by the Taliban, with the very biometrics that we created. And now they can go door to door to get a fingerprint to confirm if they worked with the United States. And then they’re executed,” he added.
Michael McCaul asked, “Who does have the authority?” He pointed out that the suicide bomber went on to detonate his explosives and killed over 160 Afghanistan nationals along with 13 US service members. He said this happened because one US commander said he did not have permission to engage.
“There are many mistakes made in 20 years but the ultimate mistake ended 20 years of blood and treasure with now the Taliban in charge, raising their flag over our embassy, taking seven billion dollars of our weapons, leaving the women behind under Sharia law now where they can even go outside,” he said.
The Chairman of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee emphasized the importance of transparency and accountability and pledged to hold people accountable for the handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal.
Thursday’s hearing was the latest in the US House Foreign Affairs Committee’s ongoing investigation into the disastrous withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.
