While it is easy to be distracted by things like the Democrat’s reckless tax and spend packages, we cannot forget the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. It has not gotten better, nor gone away. This decision — the rushed withdrawal that has left the Taliban stronger than it was on 9/11 was President Biden’s alone. He is responsible for the chaos that followed. He must be held accountable, as should everyone who advised him to make such a horrible decision.
Our service members represent the very best of us. Over the past 20 years, they did everything they could in Afghanistan to root out al Qaeda and win the war. I couldn’t be more grateful or have more respect for them. I say this not only because we should say it more often, but because it’s important to remember that what we saw in Afghanistan over the past few months — that’s not a failure of our military. No one can look at the withdrawal in Afghanistan and claim that it was a “success,” like President Biden did. It was a disaster. Leaving Americans behind is a disaster.
It’s a failure of our commander in chief and the people who advised him on his policy in Afghanistan. The administration keeps saying, “We didn’t inherit a plan.” That’s false: they inherited a conditions-based agreement and made their own bad policy decisions. According to that conditions-based approach, President Trump agreed to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan if — and only if — the Taliban acted against al-Qaeda. That didn’t happen. President Biden knows it, and Secretary Blinken admitted it. When President Biden announced his decision to withdraw, back in April, a senior administration official told the Washington Post: “The president has judged that a conditions-based approach ... is a recipe for staying in Afghanistan forever.”
In front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, when asked if the Taliban had severed its relationship with al Qaeda, Secretary Blinken said: “The relationship has not been severed.” Now, President Biden says he will hold the Taliban accountable. But he didn’t hold the Taliban accountable while our troops were still in Afghanistan, and he has presented no plan for holding the terrorists accountable now.
What’s most outrageous to me is that President Biden left Americans behind. That’s not something we do. He said we were going to get everyone out — and that didn’t happen. When historians look back on this administration years, decades, and centuries from now, this is what they’ll remember: The Biden administration knowingly left Americans behind. The administration has tried to downplay this. Early in the evacuation, Secretary of State Blinken said that there were perhaps 10,000-15,000 American citizens in Afghanistan.
Our men and women in uniform, working tirelessly and effectively with our diplomats under incredibly difficult circumstances, managed to evacuate about 6,000 of our citizens. According to my math, that means that between 4,000-9,000 Americans were left behind. But Secretary Blinken says that there are only 100, and that the rest prefer to stay in Afghanistan. That is more than bad math. It’s not true.
We know — and every congressional office who tried to get people out of Afghanistan knows — that there are many U.S. citizens who wanted to leave Afghanistan, but couldn’t leave because the Taliban would not let their families go with them. Secretary Blinken wants you to think that these people made a choice. He wants to hide the fact that the administration in which he serves created its own hostage crisis, and gave the Taliban the upper hand.
As a result of the President’s decision, Afghan women and children have been thrown back to the Stone Age. Our allies and partners around the world are questioning our credibility, our leadership, and our commitment. Our enemies are bolstered by President Biden’s policy, which put Taliban terrorists in charge of Afghanistan — a policy that spread the perception that we not only abandon our allies and partners, but also our own citizens. Seeing all of these failures, Americans are demanding accountability. And they deserve it.
But let’s make this crystal clear: None of this is the fault of our military. Our military leaders — the ones with real experience on the ground — advised the same thing I did: leave a small force in Afghanistan. This would have supported the Afghan military, prevented the Taliban’s takeover, kept the pressure on the terrorists, reassured our regional partners, and kept our homeland safe.
As the Senate Armed Services Committee continues its own review of what happened in Afghanistan, many questions remain unanswered. If we want to avoid repeating mistakes ofthe past, it’s important we understand what went wrong, and if we want to prevent terrorist attacks from happening in the future, Congress must have insight on our counterterrorism efforts in Afghanistan to ensure proper oversight. That’s why I’ve followed up with Secretary Austin on these basic, but critical questions — because we haven’t received all the answers we need. Our troops and the American people deserve this.