Republican report on Afghanistan criticizes Biden ahead of Harris-Trump debate: NPR

Hundreds of people gather near a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport plane on the outskirts of the international airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 16, 2021.

Shekib Rahmani/AP

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Hundreds of people gather near a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport plane on the outskirts of the international airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 16, 2021.

Shekib Rahmani/AP

A report by Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee alleges that the Biden administration prioritized “optics” over security and misled the American people during the deadly withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

“This could have been prevented if the State Department had fulfilled its statutory duty and implemented the evacuation plan,” said Representative Michael McCaul, who chairs the Republican-led panel, on Sunday. Face the nation. “You have abandoned these 13 soldiers.”

Democrats on the committee said they were not involved in the report's preparation and did not agree with its findings.

Since the chaotic scenes in Kabul in 2021 – when a suicide bomber killed more than 100 Afghans trying to flee the Taliban and 13 U.S. soldiers trying to help them – Republicans have frequently criticized President Biden for the way the administration handled the evacuation.

Former President Donald Trump directed the attack on Vice President Harris during the election campaign, just before the third anniversary of the withdrawal on August 30. The White House rejects the accusation of mismanagement, pointing out that former President Donald Trump set the withdrawal in motion when his administration reached a much-criticized agreement with the Taliban in 2020, known as the Doha Agreement.

The report comes after years of investigations and interviews. The panel said the Biden administration is committed to withdrawing from Afghanistan with or without the Doha agreement – the conditions set by the Taliban to speed up the withdrawal of U.S. forces.

Republicans on the committee also claimed that the chaotic withdrawal “endangered” U.S. national security.

The report's release comes one day before the first presidential debate between Harris and Trump. Harris' name is mentioned 28 times in the report's summary, while Trump's name is mentioned twice. McCaul told CBS News the timing was not politically motivated.

“Why is this important now?” McCaul asked. “Because it's about foreign policy. What happened after Afghanistan had an impact on the world.”

Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was unconvinced. In a memo to Democrats on the committee on Monday, Meeks wrote that Republicans “did not include the minority in this report and did not even provide us with a draft” and said they “went out of their way to avoid facts concerning former President Trump,” who initiated the withdrawal in 2020.

The memo states that Republicans have “attempted to downplay or distort the facts of the Afghanistan withdrawal” for political reasons. In addition, Meeks defended President Biden's handling of the withdrawal.

“President Trump initiated a withdrawal that was irreversible without sending significantly more American troops into Afghanistan to face renewed fighting with the Taliban,” Meeks said. “All of the witnesses who testified on this issue agreed that the United States would have faced renewed fighting with the Taliban if we had not continued the withdrawal. Instead of sending more Americans to the war in Afghanistan, President Biden has decided to end it.”

The White House reiterated in a statement to NPR that Biden had “inherited an untenable position” and said ending the war rather than increasing troops was “the right thing to do.”

“Everything we have seen and heard of McCaul's recent partisan report shows that it is based on select facts, inaccurate characterizations and pre-existing biases that have plagued this investigation from the beginning,” said Sharon Yang, White House spokeswoman for oversight and investigations.

Trump signed the agreement that set the withdrawal in motion, and Biden pushed it through. But as NPR's Tom Bowman and Quil Lawrence reported, the failures in Afghanistan stretch back 20 years, spanning four U.S. administrations.

McCaul told CBS News on Sunday that his investigation into the Afghanistan withdrawal does not end here and will continue “long after the election.”