US service members killed in Afghanistan get congressional medal

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. congressional leaders on Tuesday posthumously awarded the congressional gold medal to 13 service members killed in the Aug. 26, 2021, suicide bombing at Kabul's airport during the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The ceremony, led by Republican House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson, came as Republicans and Democrats traded accusations of politicizing events surrounding the deadly withdrawal with only eight weeks before U.S. elections.

"Although we can never fully measure your loss, we can and we must memorialize the ultimate sacrifice that was paid," Johnson told relatives of the troops who died in the attack.

On Monday, House Republicans released a long-awaited report blasting Democratic President Joe Biden's administration for failures surrounding the withdrawal.

Additionally, the ceremony took place hours before the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, was to meet former Republican President Donald Trump, his party's nominee, in their only scheduled debate during campaigning for the Nov. 5 election.

Democrats have insisted that some blame for the messy end of the war - less than seven months into Biden's presidency - should be laid at the feet of Trump, who began the withdrawal process by signing a deal with the Taliban in 2020.

Republicans have dismissed that contention as partisan politics, saying Biden could have ignored Trump's agreement or enforced it, accusing Biden administration officials of allowing the Taliban to disregard its commitments and failing to be honest with the U.S. public.

Trump has been criticized for shooting video for his campaign at Arlington National Cemetery, where he appeared at a ceremony honoring troops killed in the evacuation.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Alistair Bell)