The House Foreign Affairs Committee has released its 300-page report detailing the disastrous Biden-Harris withdrawal from Afghanistan, criticizing the decisions that led to the deaths of 13 US service members in a suicide bombing attack on the Kabul airport on August 26, 2021. The report, entitled “Willful Blindness: An Assessment of the Biden-Harris Administration’s Withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Chaos that Followed,” has been under construction for almost two years.
Committee chairman Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) sought to portray the investigation as sincere and detail-oriented, rather than a partisan attack. Despite this, publishing the report two days before the only debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump may not increase the odds of Democrats accepting the work as nonpartisan. Nevertheless, McCaul and his caucus packed the report with evidence for every contentious point it makes.
McCaul told CBS News on Sunday that the Abbey Gate bombing in Kabul could have been prevented if the State Department had executed the evacuation plan by law. He referred to this as a result of the “moral negligence” of the administration allowing this to happen. The report’s authors debunked the Biden-Harris talking point that they were merely executing a withdrawal arranged by Trump with the Taliban before he left office. They noted that the Doha Agreement was violated numerous times, and input from NATO allies and the Afghan government was ignored.
The authors contended that many mistakes were made because the Biden-Harris administration “prioritized the optics of the withdrawal over the security of U.S. personnel on the ground.” This commitment to optics and political manipulation also led the administration to aggressively deceive the American people about the withdrawal.
The report described the withdrawal as a “slow-moving train wreck,” with the Biden-Harris approach combining all the worst features of rash, thoughtless action and endless dithering. Besides its obsession with optics, the administration’s foundational error was its apparent belief that American military forces could be swiftly pulled out of Afghanistan while the diplomatic mission was left in place or even expanded.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Afghanistan ambassador Ross Wilson emerged as major villains in the report, with Blinken appearing delusional about keeping the U.S. embassy open after the withdrawal. The “optics” of the diminished U.S. military force at the airport trying to conduct a preemptive attack on Islamic State terrorists would have been dicey, especially if such an attack went sideways and resulted in American military and/or Afghan civilian casualties.
The report condemned the Defense Department’s destruction of relevant records as “inexcusable” and also blasted the administration for stonewalling congressional oversight and the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR. The aftermath of the Afghanistan withdrawal is covered in depth, beginning with the “disregard and disrespect” President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have shown to the Gold Star families of the 13 United States service members killed in the Kabul bombing.
Other consequences of the debacle include reduced military recruitment and retention, the Taliban’s horrible oppression of the Afghan people, and the damage to American credibility in the eyes of malevolent powers like Russia, China, and Iran. The report cited concerns that current and potential U.S. allies are now looking at Russia and China as more reliable great-power allies.
McCaul pointed out that at least eight terrorists released from Bagram prison during the chaotic withdrawal have been caught trying to cross the southern border, which Biden and Harris refuse to secure. The Afghanistan disaster will likely haunt Americans in a variety of ways for years to come.