In its first hearing on the disastrous US withdrawal of military and civilian personnel from Afghanistan, the House Foreign Affairs Committee (HFAC) learned the murder of 13 US military service members by a terrorist suicide bomber might have been prevented. Consequently, the Committee is adamant about getting key documents on the US retreat from Kabul requested in a letter on March 3 to the US State Department. Congress and the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction have made numerous requests for information. Most went unanswered.
State Department Fails to Provide Afghanistan Withdrawal Information
The US State Department has not been forthcoming, and committee Chairman Michael T. McCaul (R-TX) is not amused. According to McCaul’s letter, instead of giving a specific date when the information would be provided, the Department of State’s (DOS) Special Counsel wrote back to the HFAC 11 days after the March 3, request, claiming:
“The State Department employs a rigorous process to review documents and ensure that documents containing sensitive information which could harm our national security, jeopardize our international relationships, or put our women and men working around the world in harm’s way, are adequately protected. For those reasons, unfortunately the process means few things are produced ‘with ease’ and instead takes a bit more time.”
Excuses explaining why the DOS can’t do its job complying with a congressional document request seem lame to the average American. The HFAC staff identified just three pieces of information the staff believed could be easily and quickly produced. Those were the Dissent Channel Cable, providing non-concurring points of view on plans and decisions by DOS officials and Foggy Bottom’s response to the dissenting views; the After-Action Report on the evacuation supposedly available June 15, 2022; and the two versions of the US Embassy Kabul’s Emergency Action Plan: the January 1, 2021, iteration and the final version used during the Embassy’s closure. These are documents already in final form and could have been reviewed and produced for the Committee with appropriate caveats, if necessary.
Response to Afghanistan Information Request Disingenuous
Antony Blinken (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
The DOS Special Counsel’s comment about “national security, jeopardize our international relationships or put our women and men working around the world in harm’s way,” is, at best, disingenuous. For 13 brave young men and women, that train left the station on August 26, 2021, amid a horrific blast of debris and shrapnel. It’s time to stop hiding behind bureaucratic obfuscation and claptrap. McCaul’s letter reminds the DOS that letters requesting pertinent information began with an “August 20, 2021, letter from the then-minority. These August 2021 requests, as well as others, went unsatisfied and were then renewed in an October 14, 2022, letter, which additionally requested the preservation of documents.” It’s not surprising the HFAC chairman “stresses that failure to produce these documents ahead of Secretary Blinken’s March 23rd testimony will result in the committee issuing a subpoena,” according to an HFAC press release.
If Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his staff believe they can stonewall the HFAC under new management, they could be wrong. The American people deserve to know how the Afghanistan withdrawal became such a disaster. Who made the fateful decision to evacuate the military before the non-combatant evacuation (NEO) operation began so there wouldn’t be sufficient American combat soldiers to protect the movement of people? Who decided to close Bagram Air Base before starting the NEO, thereby foreclosing the option of two evacuation sites? And to the point made in Chairman McCaul’s letter to the DOS, what were the dissenting views, and why were they not heeded? Americans have the right to know the answers to these questions, and not one person has been held accountable.
The views expressed are those of the author and not of any other affiliation.
