House Republicans release report on Afghanistan withdrawal

Sept. 9 (UPI) -- House Republicans released a report Monday criticizing the Biden administration's withdrawal from Afghanistan .

The 345-page report analyzes the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan after 20 years, a timeline of events and the roles prominent members of the Biden administration played. The report is titled "Willful Blindness: An Assessment of the Biden-Harris Administration's Withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Chaos that Followed."

The report also calls for Congress to hold President Joe Biden , Vice President Kamala Harris and others accountable. It does not make direct recommendations about this.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Michael McCaul , R-Texas, said the withdrawal "damaged U.S. credibility."

"As a result of the Biden-Harris administration's failure to plan for all contingencies, the U.S. government conducted an emergency evacuation without the necessary personnel, supplies, and equipment. The administration's dereliction of duty placed U.S. servicemembers and U.S. State Department personnel in mortal danger, where the Taliban -- our sworn enemy -- became the first line of defense," McCaul said in a statement .

"As a direct result of the failure to plan for all contingencies, 13 U.S. servicemembers and 170 Afghans were murdered in a terrorist attack at Abbey Gate on August 26, 2021, and 45 U.S. servicemembers and countless Afghans were injured. This was preventable."

The report alleges that the Biden administration was focused on politics in its execution of the withdrawal and ignoring potential threats posed by the Taliban.

Democrats on the committee pushed back on the report as an attempt to politicize the operation. Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., said in a statement that Republicans ignored the role former President Donald Trump 's deal with the Taliban to withdraw played. The deal included the release of 5,000 Taliban soldiers. Trump also reduced the number of U.S. soldier on site by 2,500 in his final days in office.

"Republicans' partisan attempts to garner headlines rather than acknowledge the full facts and substance of their investigation have only increased with the heat of an election season," Meeks wrote. "With the ascendance of Vice President Kamala Harris to the top of the Democratic presidential ticket, the GOP performance has reached a crescendo -- Republicans now claim she was the architect of the U.S. withdrawal though she is reference only three times in 3,288 pages of the committee's interview transcripts."

The report said Harris was the "last person in the room" with Biden before he finalized the decision to withdraw.

The White House accused McCaul and House Republicans of ignoring significant details to politicize the deaths of 13 service members. While it did make mention of former Trump, he was not listed among the people it recommended to be held accountable.

"Everything we have seen and heard of Chairman McCaul's latest partisan report shows that it is based on cherry-picked facts, inaccurate characterizations, and pre-existing biases that have plagued this investigation from the start," Sharon Yang, White House spokeswoman, said in a statement . As we have said many times, ending our longest war was the right thing to do and our nation is stronger today as a result."

The Taliban swiftly took control of Kabul following the withdrawal of U.S. troops. About 124,000 troops were evacuated from the Hamid Karzai International Airport beginning on Aug. 15, 2021. Retired Gen. Mark Milley called it a "strategic failure" in his testimony to the Senate.