Final House report on Afghanistan withdrawal missing key testimony, does not call for resignations

The final report by the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the Afghanistan withdrawal detailed several failures by the Biden administration but appears to have missed opportunities to hold officials accountable, failed to interview key decision-makers before publication, and calls for no resignations over the debacle which left American service members and Afghan allies dead. 

The report comes less than a month after one key investigator with the committee resigned in protest and raised concerns that Chairman Michael McCaul was “derelict in his duty” to seek answers, documents, and testimony to get to the truth of the deadly operation.

Yet, the committee members acknowledge that the investigation so far is only the beginning and more effort is needed to get the truth, including interviews with high-ranking Biden administration officials such as Secretary of State Antony Blinken. 

The report, released Monday, criticized the Biden administration’s handling of the withdrawal, saying the evidence the president’s decision to evacuate from the South Asian country was “not based on the security situation” but instead on a “longstanding and unyielding opinion” that the United States should no longer be in the country. 

Additionally, the committee found that the Biden administration was concerned with the optics of implementing a noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO) to safely remove embassy personnel and any Americans remaining in country rather than assessing the “dangers associated with failing to call” for one, Just the News reported. This concern ultimately led to the unsafe environment at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul “exposing…personnel to lethal threats and emotional harm.” 

The committee also concluded that the Biden administration “misled and, in some instances, directly lied to the American people at every stage of the withdrawal” and identified National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and National Security Council as “the source of the majority of that misinformation campaign.”

You can read the report here. 

The final report left many questions unaddressed. In an interview on CBS's "Face the Nation," Chairman McCaul said there are still “a lot of unanswered questions regarding the DOD. You know, what happened on the ground?” But, the investigator who resigned in protest, Jerry Dunleavy, said these are the exact issues he raised in his resignation letter.

“McCaul just went on TV & admitted a huge number of questions remain related to the DOD when it comes to the Afghan evac & Abbey Gate, & he claimed his investigation still needs to look into it,” Dunleavy posted to X in response to McCaul’s interview. “So… he’s admitting I was right & the Committee failed to look into crucial issues.” 

In his letter last month, Dunleavy claimed that he “repeatedly requested” interviews with senior military officials precisely to answer these questions, but was denied by committee leadership.

“I have also requested that we pursue testimony from other key U.S. military figures and U.S. service members who could also shed further light on the NEO, on U.S. interactions with the Taliban, and on the Abbey Gate bombing, but this has similarly never happened,” he wrote. “I have compiled dozens of questions that military commanders should be asked. I have also laid out a host of documents that we should request from the Pentagon — a request similarly rejected or ignored by senior staff.” 

Three of the individuals Dunleavy wanted to interview, namely Army Lt. Gen. Christopher Donahue, Navy Rear Adm. Peter Vasely, and Marine Corps. Brigadier Gen. Farrell Sullivan were reportedly contacted by the committee after President Donald Trump started talking about Afghanistan on the campaign trail and shared their perspectives with the committee. However, the Washington Post reported that there are no official requests for interviews, according to a Pentagon spokesperson. 

“[A]fter a year of me urging McCaul to bring in Vasely, Donahue, & Sullivan (key DOD leaders during Afghan evac) for transcribed interviews, the Committee has belatedly chosen to try to check the box by doing *far less than that*,” Dunleavy posted to X. 

The military figures were not the only important officials that the Foreign Affairs committees seem to have missed in its review. The report ultimately concluded that National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and the National Security Council served as the “nerve center for critical decision making regarding the withdrawal from Afghanistan,” even beyond its statutory role. 

However, an interview request for NSA Sullivan was only issued on August 25, weeks after Dunleavy’s public resignation. Though in the letter sent to Sullivan that day, Chairman McCaul referenced the findings of his investigation that the NSC was an important decision making hub during the withdrawal, he ultimately released the final report before Sullivan actually testified before the committee. 

The former investigator said in his letter that he had pushed from one of Sullivan’s fellow advisors on the NSC, Russ Travers, but was rebuffed once again by committee leadership.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee and a spokesperson for Chairman McCaul declined to comment. The committee has been pursuing Secretary of State Antony Blinken for his testimony. After multiple requests for an interview have gone unanswered, Chairman McCaul last week formally subpoenaed the secretary and threatened contempt if he did not appear for a September 19 hearing. It remains to be seen if Blinken will be prosecuted for contempt of Congress, as was Trump confidant Steve Bannon. During the administration of President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder was also charged with contempt of Congress over his refusal to testify regarding the "Fast and Furious" gunwalking scandal, but was not prosecuted.

Also, despite the unanswered questions and accusations from the former investigator, Chairman McCaul says the probe into the withdrawal is still ongoing and his committee will continue to seek those answers. 

“To this day, Secretary Blinken and NSA Sullivan continue to refuse to testify before this committee. I want to be clear – I will use every tool in my belt to compel both men to answer for the catastrophic failure of epic proportions their decisions caused,” Chairman McCaul said in a statement. “While this was a thorough and comprehensive investigation, there are still unanswered questions, and more information must be gathered if we are to ensure such a catastrophe never happens again. Stay tuned.”

McCaul’s efforts to secure Blinken and Sullivan’s testimony even after the final report was published may stem from GOP nominee Donald Trump’s efforts to boost the Afghanistan debacle to the forefront as an election issue. Last month, Trump told a North Carolina rally that he would demand resignations from senior officials for what he and military strategy experts dubbed the “Afghanistan disaster” and claimed the deadly withdrawal damaged American credibility.

Despite these promises, the House GOP’s final report stopped short of demanding resignations from any senior officials criticized in the report and instead called for House resolutions simply condemning them.