Nearing anniversary of Afghanistan withdrawal disaster, accountability may be slipping away

As the three year anniversary of the Afghanistan withdrawal approaches, accountability for the chaotic pullout appears to be slipping away even as the Biden-Harris Administration faces scrutiny for the debacle on the campaign trail.

Last week, the resignation letter from a key congressional investigator raised concerns about whether the Republican Congress can successfully hold administration officials or military leadership to account for the chaotic pullout that left 13 U.S. service members dead.

President Joe Biden, who oversaw the withdrawal in the first year of his term, has yet to fire or reprimand anyone because of the botched withdrawal.

In a resignation letter last week, former House Foreign Affairs Committee senior investigator Jerry Dunleavy laid out his concerns that Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Tx., has been “derelict in his duty” to seek answers, documents, and testimony to get to the truth of the deadly operation.

“I did not come lightly to this decision to resign & to blow the whistle publicly, but I could not be a part of this sham any longer & my conscience simply will not allow me to be silent—after a year of pushing the Committee to do the right thing & to run a serious investigation that relentlessly searches for the truth, it has become undeniably clear to me that McCaul & his team are unwilling to take even the most basic steps necessary to ensure that President Biden, VP Harris, & all the top Biden-Harris diplomatic & national security & military leaders are made to answer for the horrors which unfolded & continue to unfold in Afghanistan & around the world,” Dunleavy wrote in his resignation letter, which he posted to X.

“The Committee’s disappointing lack of courage & lack of moral clarity just cannot go unremarked,” he added.

Dunleavy told The Hill the committee’s hearing with retired Generals Mark Milley and Kenneth McKenzie as an example of McCaul’s reluctance to “hold the military commanders and generals accountable for what happened.” Republicans treated the top military commanders at the height of the withdrawal with “kid gloves” during that March hearing, Dunleavy said.

The Washington Post reported that retired Gen. Austin Scott Miller, the senior commanding general during the 2021 withdrawal, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee "he was so troubled by the administration's 'lack of understanding of the risk' that he privately warned a Marine Corps commander charged with planning for a possible evacuation to prepare for 'really adverse conditions.'"

The former senior investigator said McCaul and his committee also refused to call key witnesses from the State Department and the military’s Central Command and failed to look into “obvious & important” leads about the ISIS-K attack at Abbey Gate at the height of the pullout that left 13 service members dead.

The Gold Star families of the soldiers killed in that attack have previously slammed President Biden for refusing to say their names out loud. Several spoke at the Republican National Convention last month.

“McCaul & his team have allowed a crucial opportunity for a real & deserved reckoning to potentially slip away,” he wrote of the committee’s failures in his letter. McCaul’s committee does plan to release a final report at the beginning of September, which is slated to include a review of the Department of Defense’s role in the chaotic withdrawal.

The House Foreign Affairs Communications Director did not answer a question about Dunleavy’s resignation, but pointed to the committee’s final report which will be released on September 9th. “It will be a comprehensive review of our thorough investigation, including an assessment of the role the DOD played,” she wrote in an email to Just the News.

A spokeswoman for McCaul previously told The Hill that the representative “pours his heart and soul into getting answers for our Gold Star families and Afghanistan veterans” in response to Dunleavy’s letter.

GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump recently made accountability for Afghanistan a campaign promise. On Wednesday, he told a North Carolina rally that he would demand resignations from senior officials for what he dubbed the “Afghanistan disaster” and claimed the deadly withdrawal damaged American credibility.

“It was the most humiliating event in the history of our country,” Trump said. “I will ask for the resignations of every single senior military official who touched the Afghanistan disaster,” he added. “I want their resignations immediately.”

President Trump originally set the plan to withdraw from Afghanistan in motion, however, the negotiated deal with the Taliban was based on set conditions, ones that were not achieved before his successor pulled the trigger. Military experts say that Biden misfired.

Military writer and strategy blogger Austin Bay, a retired Army colonel and Bronze Star recipient for service in Iraq wrote that "Joe Biden ordered a withdrawal based on the calendar and not on battlefield conditions. 'Completely out by 9/11' is a sound bite, a political bumper sticker. It isn't clear-headed senior leader strategic guidance for a military withdrawal from a complex war zone."

Now, Trump has tried to tie the debacle to his 2024 election opponent, arguing Vice President Kamala Harris deserves a portion of the blame.

“Exactly three years ago this month, the weakness and incompetence of Kamala Harris and crooked Joe Biden delivered the most humiliating event in the history of our country, and one of the biggest military disasters in the history of the world," he declared at a North Carolina rally. "As far as I'm concerned, no one will ever forget the horrifying images of their catastrophic retreat from Afghanistan.”

At the time of the withdrawal, Harris bragged to the press that she was the last person in the room when President Biden made the decision to pull the troops out, however, the vice president has made few public statements since. According to a spokesperson, Harris asked "probing questions” during the planning stages and "strongly supported President Biden’s decision to end America’s longest war.” But, the specifics of her advice to the president are unclear, and may remain that way for years.

Despite Trump’s demands on the campaign trail, any accountability from the top would still be months away, provided it comes at all. However, Dunleavy says he resigned in part to bring attention to the fact that Republicans have the power to hold officials accountable before the election.

“House Republicans had (and, for at least a few more months, still have) a congressional majority which empowered them to run serious & credible oversight investigations—the power to compel sworn witness testimony, the power to force the production of hidden documents, the power to issue subpoenas—but, with regard to the investigation into the Biden-Harris disaster in Afghanistan, McCaul has failed to wield this awesome power with anything resembling strength or consistency,” Dunleavy wrote.