Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell excoriated President Joe Biden on Wednesday over the unfolding mayhem in Afghanistan that has followed the abrupt withdrawal of U.S. forces and subsequent Taliban takeover.
In an interview on the Hugh Hewitt radio program, the Kentucky Republican predicted multiple congressional inquiries into the fiasco, noting that three Democratic committee chairpersons have already announced hearings on the matter.
“There’s going to be plenty of inquiries,” McConnell told Hewitt. “We need to find out how this happened and monitor and keep the pressure on. This job is not over. This withdrawal is not complete until all the Americans are safely out.”
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Up to 15,000 Americans are believed to be in Afghanistan and seeking exit through the airport, which is surrounded by the Taliban. Thousands of Afghans who aided the United States during the past two decades are also trying to get out.
McConnell blamed Biden for ignoring the advice of military generals, who warned the rapid withdrawal would undermine the Afghan military and leave it vulnerable to the Taliban.
Military leaders, McConnell said, “surely were blindsided by the rather rapid decision and the announcement of it.”
McConnell called the withdrawal “a botched job all the way around,” adding, “Rather than President Biden pointing the finger at everybody else, he should point the finger at himself. It was his decision, he owns it, and it’s an embarrassment of gargantuan proportions for our country.”
McConnell has long opposed U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and made his opinion clear during the past three presidential administrations.
Biden, he said, made matters worse by abandoning U.S. citizens and the people of Afghanistan who are now vulnerable to the brutality of the Taliban. McConnell has been criticizing the Biden administration’s withdrawal effort for weeks as the country fell further into the hands of the Taliban.
“What about the human rights concerns of Afghan women and girls? Those who cooperated with us?” McConnell said. “This is a human rights debacle.”
Democrats have largely stood by Biden.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, has circulated talking points supporting the decision to withdraw troops fully, which has been a longtime goal of many liberal lawmakers.
The president, Pelosi said, “was not willing to enter a third decade of conflict and surge in thousands more troops to fight in a civil war that Afghanistan would not fight for themselves.”
The Afghan army folded quickly after U.S. air and ground support ended.
Deposed Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled by helicopter to the United Arab Emirates with his family, several vehicles, and $169 million in cash.
Senate committee chairpersons are pledging to investigate U.S. handling of the withdrawal.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, is among the lawmakers who plan to hold hearings on the situation.
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Menendez issued a statement this week that placed blame on both Biden and his predecessor, President Donald Trump, who had negotiated a plan for U.S. forces to leave the country.
“Senate Foreign Relations Committee will continue fulfilling its oversight role with a hearing on U.S. policy towards Afghanistan, including the Trump administration’s flawed negotiations with Taliban and the Biden administration’s flawed execution of the U.S. withdrawal,” Menendez said.
The Senate Armed Services and Intelligence committees, run by Democrats, also plan to hold hearings.
