The House Oversight Committee will hold a second hearing on the chaotic withdrawal of United States troops from Afghanistan amid pushback from congressional Republicans on the White House’s release of a report largely blaming the Trump administration for its shortcomings.
Chairman James Comer (R-KY) announced the hearing on Thursday, which will feature testimony from officials at the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, as well as the inspectors general for the Defense Department, State Department, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. The meeting will be held on April 19.
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“The American people are owed answers about the Biden administration’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, but all they are getting are excuses from this Administration,” Comer said in a statement. “President Biden and his administration made several blunders during the withdrawal that led to the deaths of 13 servicemembers, left Americans stranded, and allowed U.S. military equipment to fall into the hands of the Taliban.”
The White House released its findings in a 12-page report on Thursday, detailing the Biden administration’s decision-making behind the chaotic withdrawal that saw more than 12,000 people airlifted out of the country as the Taliban quickly seized control of the government. The report blamed the Trump administration, arguing that the former president had severely limited Biden’s options.
Former President Donald Trump denounced those findings, accusing President Joe Biden of attempting to “gaslight the American people.”
“Biden and his administration are trying to gaslight the American people for their disastrous withdrawal in Afghanistan that directly led to American deaths and emboldened the terrorists,” Trump spokesman Steven Cheung told the Daily Caller. “Biden’s complete erosion of American deterrence can be [blamed] for Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine, Kim’s decision to restart missile launches, and Xi’s pending decision to invade Taiwan and Chinese spy balloons surveilling America. And those are only the nation-state threats we’re aware of. The world has become a more dangerous place under Joe Biden.”
The highly anticipated report outlined the Biden administration’s timeline on the Afghanistan withdrawal, laying out the argument on how a series of decisions by Trump had complicated his efforts to end the decadeslong war. The findings have prompted an outcry from several Republicans, who demanded the Biden administration be held accountable.
“Lives were lost & American citizens & U.S. military equipment were left behind, & the only semblance of accountability is buried in a report released over a year later?!” said Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) in a tweet. “It's absurd & why I'm fighting for a Joint Select Committee to investigate.”
Scott introduced a bill earlier this year seeking to establish a joint select committee tasked with conducting a full investigation into the Afghanistan withdrawal. That bill has yet to make it to the floor in the Democratic-led Senate.
It’s unclear what sort of action will be taken in response to the latest report, as military leaders have largely denied that the withdrawal was frenetic in nature. White House national security spokesman John Kirby maintained that stance during a press conference on Thursday, arguing he “didn’t see” any chaos in Kabul during the evacuations.
Additionally, no officials are expected to be reprimanded or fired as a result of the report.
“The purpose of [the report] is not accountability,” Kirby said. “The purpose of it is to study lessons learned.”
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The report was released more than a year after the United States completed a full withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan in September 2021. The operation has been heavily scrutinized, particularly after a suicide attack outside the Hamid airport left 13 Americans and roughly 200 Afghans dead.
House Republicans have long vowed to investigate the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, making it one of their top priorities once they took control of the lower chamber earlier this year. The Oversight Committee held its first hearing related to the withdrawal in March, which featured testimony from witnesses who were evacuated from Kabul in September 2021.