GOP Rep. Andy Biggs is pushing the Biden administration for answers about the U.S withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Taliban’s subsequent takeover, and conditions in the country since then.
The Arizona lawmaker, a frequent critic of the current administration, wrote a letter to President Joe Biden on Monday outlining his questions and concerns.
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The letter, obtained by the Washington Examiner, addressed the two defining moments of the final week of the United States’s 20-year war in Afghanistan: the ISIS-K suicide bomber who killed 13 U.S. service members and roughly 170 additional civilians and the errant U.S. drone strike that targeted an aid worker and killed 10 civilians, including multiple children.
“It’s been months since Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal and there are still many unanswered questions that have been left ignored by the Biden administration,” Biggs told the Washington Examiner in a statement. “Not only did we needlessly lose 13 American soldiers, but there are still American citizens stranded in Afghanistan. And, adding insult to injury, the Taliban is now flaunting and employing American weaponry that Biden carelessly left behind. Bottom line: the Afghanistan withdrawal was an unmitigated disaster. We deserve answers.”
Abdul Rehman Al-Loghri, previously identified as the bomber responsible for the Aug. 26 attack at the gates of Hamid Karzai International Airport, was held at the Bagram prison until the Taliban let a few hundred prisoners go free when they took over the country.
“A mere 9 days after being freed, this terrorist attacked American soldiers protecting Kabul airport,” the letter reads. “This national security catastrophe could have been avoided if your administration had simply waited to leave Bagram until all Americans had left or had removed the terrorists before leaving Bagram.”
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin previously said in testimony on the Hill that retaining the base “would have required putting as many as 5,000 U.S. troops in harm’s way just to operate and defend.”
“Staying at Bagram, even for counterterrorism purposes, meant staying at war in Afghanistan, something that the president made clear that he would not do,” Austin said.
Biggs also rebuked the botched drone strike, saying the administration “failed to take the steps necessary to ensure that you were targeting a terrorist and not a family of 10,” speaking similarly about the Air Force inspector general’s report that found no illegalities with the strike.
Despite the report’s findings, “it’s not possible that a family of 10 is mistaken for a terrorist and the resulting deaths are not caused by misconduct or negligence,” Biggs noted, questioning how the inspector general reached his conclusion.
The letter concluded with a list of questions seeking answers from the president regarding the botched strike, Bagram Air Base and the prison, and those left in Afghanistan following the U.S. departure.
A White House spokesperson rebuked Biggs’s letter, pointing to a statement from the lawmaker from Nov. 12, 2020, in which he called for then-President Donald Trump to bring the troops in Afghanistan and Iraq home before the holidays.
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“Congressman Biggs wanted America to leave Afghanistan until Joe Biden did just that. If Biggs now thinks we should have troops on the ground in Afghanistan for a 21st year, he should just come out and say it,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “Biggs attacks are nothing more than partisan hypocrisy at its worst. The fact is, Biggs stood by Trump as he planned to meet with the Taliban at Camp David, freed thousands of Taliban fighters, undermined the Afghan government and withdrew troops with no plan on what to do next.”
“When President Biden took office, he was faced with a choice between doubling down in Afghanistan and putting more American troops at risk, or finally ending our involvement in the U.S.’s longest war after two decades,” the spokesperson added. “Joe Biden had the conviction to end the 20-year war even though it was never going to be easy. The President did what needed to be done to protect American interests and American troops from a war that would have gone on forever.”
