Washington — Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee accused the Biden administration of misleading the public about the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan in a report seen by CBS News detailing the panel’s three-year investigation into the 2021 withdrawal.
Republicans have criticized President Biden for the deadly evacuation, which 13 US soldiers killed in suicide bombing in Kabul, and now they are also criticism of Vice President Kamala Harristhe Democratic presidential candidate.
The lengthy report, which will be released Monday but was shared exclusively with CBS News, is highly critical of Biden’s decision to withdraw from Afghanistan. It accuses the president and his administration of ignoring repeated warnings from military officials, national security advisers and U.S. allies about the risks of reducing U.S. troop levels to zero because he “put politics and his personal legacy ahead of America’s national security interests.”
“President Biden appeared confident that his historic stance on Afghanistan would secure his legacy,” the report said, adding that Harris worked “in close coordination” with the president to withdraw all U.S. troops.
Biden has rarely spoken out about withdrawing from Afghanistan, but in September 2021 he said he would “not extend this ‘forever war,’ and I would not extend a ‘forever withdrawal.'”
Samuel Corum / Getty Images
Last year was the White House Released his own report summarizing a confidential assessment of the exodus from Afghanistan, largely blaming the Trump administration for a deal it struck with the Taliban to withdraw U.S. troops from the country by May 2021. The deal, known as the Doha agreement, included a series of conditions the Taliban had to meet in order for U.S. troops to fully leave Afghanistan. Another report Last year, the State Department published a report criticizing both the Trump and Biden administrations for “insufficient” planning around the withdrawal, which was partially declassified.
The White House report said that intelligence officials had assumed that the Taliban would make gains only after a full U.S. withdrawal, not before. But that is not what ultimately happened in the summer of 2021.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee report details the overly optimistic statements made by White House, State Department and Pentagon spokespeople in the weeks and days leading up to the withdrawal, even as the Taliban consolidated control of the country. One example was a Pentagon statement that Kabul was not in imminent danger. Two days later, Kabul fell into the hands of the Taliban.
In its investigation, the committee conducted 18 transcribed interviews with Biden administration officials, including former Ambassador to Afghanistan Ross Wilson, Gen. Austin Miller and former White House press secretary Jen Psaki, the committee said. The panel also obtained more than 20,000 pages of State Department documents after subpoenas for the materials, and has held public hearings since the investigation began.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken did not testify before the committee for the report, despite requests from Chairman Michael McCaul. Last week, McCaul subpoenaed Blinken to testify at a public hearing on the Afghan withdrawal scheduled for later this month.
The report includes recommendations to prevent a similar situation, including reestablishing a Crisis Bureau at the State Department and congressional action for the State Department and the Pentagon to maintain standard operating procedures. The report also calls for the release of the Defense Department’s review of the Abbey Gate investigation.
The report also details the chaotic month of August 2021, including when Wilson fled with embassy staff, leaving the entire evacuation support team to fend for itself. The diplomat took two weeks of vacation in July and August despite the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, the report said.
Local workers were “actively deprioritized” in the evacuation and the report said many left Kabul airport in tears. U.S. legal permanent residents without U.S. passports were beaten by the Taliban and denied entry, while there were also instances when U.S. citizens were beaten, including a 12-year-old boy from Virginia, the report said.
Jim DeHart, the consul general responsible for special immigrant visas, described the scene at the airport as “apocalyptic.” The report said the Taliban whipped to death entire groups of Afghans who showed up at the airport and that U.S. military personnel were not allowed to intervene.
The committee largely blames the White House National Security Council and national security adviser Jake Sullivan for providing the talking points used during this period, accusing them of being “the source of most of that disinformation campaign.” Sullivan and the National Security Council failed to seek input from key U.S. officials in Afghanistan, the committee said. Republicans have called for Sullivan to testify, which he has so far declined.
The report also criticizes Zalmay Khalilzad, who helped broker the Doha deal. Khalilzad was appointed by President Trump and continued to serve as special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation under Mr. Biden.
The report accused Khalilzad of undermining the Afghan government by excluding it from negotiations, and also undermining the long-standing U.S. policy of not negotiating with terrorists. Top military officials said Khalilzad did not consult the U.S. military during the negotiations and left them “in the dark” about the exact terms of the deal.
In his testimony before the committee in November 2023, Khalilzad explained that there had never been a comprehensive assessment by the [Biden] administration on whether the Taliban were adhering to the Doha agreement,” the report said. State Department documents obtained by the committee through a subpoena showed that the administration knew in March 2021 that the Taliban were violating the agreement.
Still, the following month, Mr. Biden announced a decision to withdraw the remaining 2,500 troops from Afghanistan, leaving before the U.S. marks 20 years since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, he said.
Former State Department spokesman Ned Price told the committee in December 2023 that the Taliban’s compliance with the deal was “immaterial” to the administration’s decision to withdraw.
Despite the decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, the State Department was determined to keep the U.S. embassy in Kabul, the report said. The report criticized the State Department’s lack of preparation for the worst-case scenario that an emergency evacuation would be necessary while the Taliban controlled Kabul.
Multiple witnesses told the committee that planning for an evacuation operation of noncombatants to evacuate the embassy, U.S. citizens and Afghans who had been helping the U.S. military did not begin in earnest until August 2021, the report said, after the Taliban had made significant advances across the country.
So when the evacuation began, the Foreign Office was not working according to a plan. This led to chaotic decisions on the ground, because of the pressure to evacuate as many people as possible.
The evacuation allowed more than 124,000 people to leave Afghanistan. However, not all who qualified, such as many Afghans who had helped the army during the 20-year war, were able to leave, the report said.
According to the committee, the withdrawal from Afghanistan would have long-term consequences for US national security.
“When Kabul fell, many drew comparisons to Saigon, as American helicopters once again ferried Americans from a U.S. embassy, abandoning their old allies. But this investigation shows that what happened in Afghanistan was far worse,” the report said.
Rep. Gregory Meeks, the committee’s top Democrat, warned in an introduction to the minority report that he expected a “partisan” report from Republicans on the committee, who he said have tried to “politicize the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.” The New York Democrat argued that the Republican majority would “go to special lengths to avoid facts involving former President Donald Trump” while ramping up criticism of Harris as Election Day approaches.
In the minority report, which was shared with CBS News, the committee Democrats defend the Biden administration’s preparations for the withdrawal and its response amid rapidly changing circumstances. The report accuses the Trump administration of initiating the withdrawal without the “necessary interagency preparations or contingency planning for an orderly withdrawal,” along with conducting a policy transition to the Biden administration that was “chaotic and uncooperative.”
“President Trump initiated a withdrawal that was irreversible without sending significantly more American troops to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban again,” Meeks said. “Instead of sending more Americans to fight a war in Afghanistan, President Biden decided to end it.”
