Nine current and former State Department officials have until the end of Thursday to provide House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul with transcribed interviews about their role in the “disastrous” 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan that led to the deaths of 13 American service members.
The Texas Republican has repeatedly hammered the Biden administration for a “chaotic and deadly” game plan that also resulted in multiple injuries and the “disgraceful surrender to the Taliban,” all of which could have been prevented, McCaul has claimed.
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Two summers ago, the Taliban took key cities in Afghanistan much faster than most U.S. officials had predicted. As the situation escalated, more than 6,000 U.S. troops were dispatched to Kabul to help evacuate thousands of people desperate to leave the country. At Abbey Gate, one of the only remaining public entrances for civilians, a suicide bomber detonated his device on Aug. 26, 2021, killing 13 service members and more than 170 Afghan civilians.
Confusion over the chain of command and disjointed guidance about the evacuations added to the breakdown in communication and resulted in horrific scenes that played out on camera, with crews capturing people hanging on to the wings of moving airplanes in a bid to escape Taliban rule.
“This was an unmitigated disaster of epic proportions, and I will not rest until the American people receive the transparency and answers they deserve,” McCaul said.
The incident marked a low point in the Biden administration and one that Gold Star families have refused to let the president forget. McCaul recently hosted a round-table meeting with the families of the service members killed and pledged to hold people accountable.
Specifically, the chairman believes that nine current and former Biden administration officials have “important information that is critical to uncovering how and why the withdrawal devolved into chaos.”
The nine people McCaul wants information from include Ross Wilson, former U.S. acting ambassador to Afghanistan, Brian McKeon, former deputy secretary of state for management and resources, Zalmay Khalilzad, former special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, Carol Perez, former acting undersecretary of state for management, Ambassador John Bass, Derek Chollet, counselor to the secretary, Suzy George, chief of staff to the secretary, Salman Ahmed, director of policy planning staff, and Dean Thompson, U.S. ambassador to Nepal.
Wilson, the charge d’affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, was the last American diplomat to depart Kabul and continued working at the airport to process the paperwork for Afghans who wanted to leave two weeks after the embassy shut down on Aug. 25. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has since thanked Wilson, who he credited for “exceptional, courageous work during a highly challenging time.”
McCaul called Wilson a “critical witness for this investigation” in his Aug. 30 letter and asked him to provide more information.
McCaul also wants to speak to McKeon, a longtime confidant of Biden, whose responsibilities included the oversight of U.S. embassies and personnel abroad. His role made him a target of Republican-led congressional hearings.
McCaul told CBS News’s Face the Nation that the “State Department probably didn’t have the resources it needed to carry out an evacuation of this size and enormity.”
“They had 36 consular officers at HKIA trying to process hundreds of thousands of people,” the lawmaker said, referring to the chaotic scenes surrounding Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul last year. “They were overwhelmed, but there were so many mistakes.”
McCaul also wants information from Khalilzad, the man who negotiated a peace deal with the Taliban under then-President Donald Trump. It was a commitment Biden kept, but one that resulted in the failure.
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The House Committee on Foreign Affairs is also seeking information from Perez. Following the withdrawal, Perez faced criticism for her inability to respond to the brewing crisis in Afghanistan. “Given your service as Acting Under Secretary of State for Management and your significant involvement in matters related to Afghanistan, you are a critical witness for this investigation,” McCaul wrote to the former acting undersecretary of state for management.
In a letter to Blinken, McCaul asked that Bass, Chollet, George, Ahmed, and Thompson all be made available for a transcribed interview as to what led to such a sloppy disconnect in information and the misreading of the situation there.
