Austin congressman leads GOP rebuke of Biden administration’s Afghanistan withdrawal

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U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, is leading congressional Republicans’ rebuke of President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, accusing the administration of recklessness in the lead up to the Taliban’s takeover and covering up its mistakes afterward.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee, which McCaul chairs, will release its full report on the Afghanistan withdrawal Monday, the culmination of three years of investigation by the committee’s Republicans. The report, which has been shared with some interested parties and which The Texas Tribune and other outlets obtained ahead of its release, accuses the Biden administration of ignoring warnings from its own staffers, intelligence and allies, leaving American interests vulnerable to the Taliban takeover.

“The evidence proves President Biden’s decision to withdraw all U.S. troops was not based on the security situation, the Doha Agreement, or the advice of his senior national security advisors or our allies,” the report says. “Rather, it was premised on his longstanding and unyielding opinion that the United States should no longer be in Afghanistan.”

The U.S. military pulled out of Afghanistan in August 2021 after 20 years in the country. The Afghan government collapsed shortly after, leading to a takeover by the Taliban, which rules the country to this day. The withdrawal has been criticized by members of both parties for its rapid deterioration, which left military and diplomatic personnel unprepared, and has emerged as one of the biggest stains on Biden’s foreign policy record.

The withdrawal from Afghanistan has been a priority for each president after George W. Bush, and negotiations with the Taliban began under former President Donald Trump administration. Biden named it as one of his top foreign policy priorities, despite the cost to Afghanistan, saying that there was no longer U.S. interest in the country.

“I was not going to extend this forever war, and I was not extending a forever exit,” Biden said in an address shortly after the withdrawal.

The State Department released its own review of the withdrawal in March 2022, which acknowledged the challenges of the withdrawal, though it said the department followed necessary procedures, evacuating 125,000 people from the country through unprecedented conditions. The department review also said that Taliban grew in strength during the Trump era and that diplomats in Afghanistan felt constrained by a Trump administration agreement with the Taliban that allowed for the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners and planned for a U.S. withdrawal after Taliban-Afghan peace talks, a defense the National Security Council under Biden also reiterated.

“President Biden’s choices for how to execute a withdrawal from Afghanistan were severely constrained by conditions created by his predecessor,” a White House summary of the NSC’s findings said at the time.

Democrats criticized McCaul's report as focusing too heavily on the Biden administration's role while ignoring the Trump administration.

"It is a politicized, cherry-picked report designed to do one thing, not shed light on a tragedy, which, by the way, I would support 100 percent," said U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, on CBS News' Face the Nation. "And, by the way, let’s also look at the 20 years and the four presidents that doubled down on Afghanistan policy. It is going to be a nakedly partisan campaign thing."

The White House said the report treaded known facts with a partisan slant and that pre-existing biases "have plagued this investigation from the start."

“Because of the bad deal former President Trump cut with the Taliban to get out of Afghanistan by May of 2021, President Biden inherited an untenable position. He could either ramp up the war against a Taliban that was at its strongest position in 20 years and put even more American troops at risk or finally end our longest war after two decades and $2 trillion spent," said Sharon Yang, White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations, in a statement. "The President refused to send another generation of Americans to fight a war that should have ended long ago."

The House Foreign Affairs Committee interviewed top administration officials, including the former chief of mission to the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan, Ross Wilson, and the chief U.S. negotiator with the Taliban, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. Committee staff also interviewed former State Department spokesperson Ned Price and former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, whom they said were complicit in misrepresenting the severity of the Afghanistan withdrawal.

McCaul led the committee’s investigation with the committee’s Republicans, but staffers from both parties were involved in the fact finding. In addition to interviews, the committee reviewed documents from the defense and state departments and held a series of public hearings in the months since the withdrawal.

McCaul has been the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee since 2019, but Republicans didn’t win the majority giving him the chairmanship until last year. He previously chaired the House Homeland Security Committee.

McCaul is a hawkish Republican who has been vocal in his criticism of the Biden administration’s foreign policy. He was an adviser to Trump’s 2016 campaign on foreign policy, though he has broken from the isolationist wing of his party by defending aid for Ukraine amid its war with Russia. McCaul often points to the Afghanistan withdrawal as a sign of weakness that emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine.

The report came out less than 60 days before the election and named Vice President Kamala Harris. McCaul has criticized Harris for supporting the president through the withdrawal, saying in the report that she was "entrenched" in the president's decision-making.

McCaul denied the report was politically timed with the election, saying on CBS News' Face the Nation that "it’s taken me two years to get to this point because of the obstruction."

The report accused the Biden administration of placing too much faith in the Taliban as legitimate partners while negotiating the terms of the U.S. withdrawal. When the Biden administration took over withdrawal negotiations from Trump, it did not prepare for the collapse of the country’s government that led to the chaotic evacuation of Americans and American allies in the country, the report said.

The report details multiple delays in key responses to the rapidly deteriorating situation, including the call for a noncombatant emergency evacuation, the downsizing of diplomatic staff in the country and the creation of evacuation paths such as foreign civilian flight authorization and stopover sites in other countries for evacuees. Troops and diplomatic staff were also confused on who would be eligible for evacuation.

The report also identified security failures that led to the bombing of the Abbey Gate outside of Kabul’s international airport. Reliance on the Taliban to man security to the gate and the decision not to attack the terrorist group ISIS-K inside of Afghanistan all led to the attack, according to the report. The bombing left 185 dead, including 13 U.S. troops, in the worst attack on the U.S. military since 2012.

The report also took stock of the aftermath of the withdrawal, including human rights abuses by the Taliban. Nearly $57 million in cash and $7 billion in weapons were left behind.

“When Kabul fell, many drew comparisons to Saigon as, once again, U.S. helicopters were ferrying Americans off a U.S. embassy, abandoning longtime allies,” the report said. “But this investigation reveals what happened in Afghanistan was far worse — with long-term consequences that are far more dangerous to U.S. national security.”

McCaul’s probes into the Biden administration will go beyond the report. He has requested interviews with National Security Advisory Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken for a date in September. McCaul said he would be willing to subpoena them to testify. Other administration officials have spoken voluntarily after pressure from the Republicans on the committee.

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