Representative Mike McCaul of Texas, the Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, issued a scathing report that closely examined the military’s failings. 2021 Afghanistan return and highlighted areas of serious mismanagement.
The Republican-led report begins by recalling President Joe Biden’s urgent desire to withdraw from the Vietnam War as a senator in the 1970s. This, along with the withdrawal from Afghanistan, reflects a “pattern of hardline foreign policy stances and a readiness to abandon strategic partners,” according to the report.
The report was also disputed Biden’s The claim that his hands were tied by the Doha agreement signed by former President Trump with the Taliban, which set a deadline for a US withdrawal by the summer of 2021, further exposed how State officials had no plan to get Americans and allies out while troops were still there to protect them.
A US Marine holds an infant over a barbed wire fence during an evacuation at the then Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on August 19, 2021. (OMAR HAIDIRI/AFP via Getty Images)
Here is a summary of the findings of the 600-page report, which includes thousands of pages of documents and interviews with high-level officials, conducted over the past two years:
Biden was not bound by the deadlines in Trump’s Doha deal with the Taliban
The report found that Biden and Vice President Harris were advised by top leaders that Taliban They were already violating the terms of the Doha agreement, so the US could not be forced to leave.
House committee issues subpoena to Blinken over withdrawal from Afghanistan
The committee also found that NATO Allies have expressed strong opposition to the US decision to withdraw. The British Chief of Defence Staff warned that “withdrawal under these circumstances would be seen as a strategic victory for the Taliban.”
Biden retained Zalmay Khalilzad, the Trump appointee who negotiated the deal, as special representative for Afghanistan — a sign that the new administration supported the accord.
At the Taliban’s demand, Khalilzad had excluded the Afghan government from the talks – a major blow to President Ashraf Ghani’s government.
When Trump left office, about 2,500 U.S. troops remained in Afghanistan. Biden himself was determined to get that number down to zero, according to Col. Seth Krumrich, chief of staff of Special Operations Command, who told the committee, “The president decided we were going to leave, and he wasn’t listening to anybody.”
Then-State Department spokesman Ned Price acknowledged in testimony that the Doha agreement was “helpless” for Biden’s decision to withdraw.
Taliban fighters are marking the third anniversary of the withdrawal of US-led troops from Afghanistan in Kabul last month. (AP Photo/Siddiqullah Alizai)
Withdrawal: The State Department increased personnel numbers but failed to plan an escape as it became clear Kabul would be captured
The report also details the many warning signs the State Department received to pull out its embassy as it became clear Afghanistan would soon fall to the Taliban. It refused to do so. At the time of the pullout, it was one of the largest embassies in the world.
Ultimately, Americans and American allies were trapped there, as the military was ordered to leave before the embassy could be closed.
At a meeting, Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Brian McKeon dismissed military officials’ warnings, saying “we at the State Department have a much higher risk tolerance than some of you.”
General Austin Miller, the longest-serving commander in Afghanistan, confirmed McCone’s comments and explained that the State Department does not have much tolerance for risk, but instead displays a “lack of understanding of risk” in Afghanistan.
Asked why McCone made such statements, the official explained, “The State Department and the president were saying that. As a result, (Wilson) and others started saying that, thinking they would make it work.”
The report blames former Afghanistan ambassador Ross Wilson for increasing the embassy’s presence rather than reducing it as the security situation deteriorated.
Without showing any hurry, Wilson was on a two-week leave during the last week of July and the first week of August 2021.
The Taliban’s Deputy Ministry of Virtue and Prosecution said on May 7, 2022, that women in public places must wear all types of clothing and cover their faces except for their eyes. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Norouzi)
A non-combatant evacuation operation, NEO, to evacuate the personnel was not ordered until August 15, after the Taliban had entered Kabul.
Sufficient troops were not in place to begin the NEO until August 19, and the first public message from the embassy in Kabul urging Americans to evacuate was not sent until August 7.
And while there were not enough military aircraft for the evacuation, it took until August 20 for the Department of Transportation to allow foreign aircraft to fly in assistance.
The report found that Wilson fled the embassy before his entire embassy staff. He reportedly had COVID-19 at the time, but got a test done by a foreign service officer so he could flee the country.
Acting Under Secretary Carol Perez told the committee that despite months of warnings, the embassy evacuation plan was “still in the works” when the Taliban took over.
Those left behind: Americans and allies sent back while Afghans boarded flights without vetting
Wilson testified that he was “comfortable” with postponing the NEO until August 15, while General Frank McKenzie described it as a “fatal flaw” that led to what happened in August.
Notes obtained by the committee from a meeting of the National Security Advisor (NSC) on August 14, when the Taliban surrounded Kabul, show that the US government had not yet determined who would be eligible for evacuation, nor had they identified third countries that would serve as transit points for evacuees.
Fewer cases for Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) to evacuate US military aides such as interpreters from Afghanistan were processed in June, July and August, the period before Trump took power, than in the previous four months.
When the last US military flight left Kabul, about 1,000 Americans were left on the ground, as were more than 90% of SIV-eligible Afghans.
The report found that local embassy staff were not prioritized for evacuation, and many were turned away from the embassy and airport in tears. On the day of the Taliban takeover, the US’s only guidance for those eligible for evacuation was to “do not travel to the airport until you are notified by email that departure options exist.”
And because the NSC did not send out guidelines on who was eligible for evacuation and who should be prioritized because they were “at risk,” the State Department expelled thousands of people without any documentation at all.
A State Department employee told the committee that the US government “had no idea that the people being evacuated were any threat.”
after the last soldiers had left Afghanistan, Volunteer groups helped at least 314 U.S. citizens and 266 lawful permanent residents exit the country.
Scenes from Abbey Gate: Terror threat warnings ignored before bombing
And when the Taliban flogged groups of desperate Afghans at the airport, burned young women and massacred civilians, American troops were forbidden to intervene.
Consul General Jim DeHart described the scene as “apocalyptic”.
Meanwhile, US intelligence was tracking multiple threats by August 23, including “a possible VBIED or suicide jacket IED that was part of a complex attack.” By August 26, the threat had narrowed to the Abbey Gate specifically. It was so severe that diplomatic security recalled state employees from the gate.
Brigadier General Farrell Sullivan eventually decided, at the request of the British, to keep the gate open despite the dangers.
Afghan general says his country has once again become a ‘hotbed of terrorism’
And on August 26, two bombs planted by the terror group ISIS-K exploded at the airport, killing 13 US service members and more than 150 Afghans. CENTCOM records showed that the ISIS-K terror cell that attacked Abbey Gate had set up an operations base six kilometres west of the airport, which was previously used as a staging area for an attack on the airport in December 2020. But the US did not attack the cell before the bombing.
Two weeks later, an airstrike intended to kill ISIS-K backers killed 10 civilians. The administration initially touted the strike as a success for over-the-horizon capabilities but later acknowledged that a family of civilians had been killed.
The US has not launched any attacks on ISIS-K in Afghanistan since then – a stark contrast to the 313 operations conducted by Centcom against ISIS in Iraq and Syria in 2022.
U.S. military members assist the State Department in non-combatant evacuation operations in Afghanistan. (Department of Defense)
Long-term consequences
In addition to the $7 billion worth of abandoned U.S. weapons, the Taliban may have also received up to $57 million in U.S. funds that were initially given to the Afghan government.
Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban’s interior minister, declared in February 2024 that relations with the rest of the world, particularly the United States, were “irrelevant” to its policymaking.
A NATO report written by the Defense Education Enhancement Program found that the Taliban were using US military biometric devices and databases to seek out US Afghan allies.
According to the report, “nearly 500 former government officials and Afghan security force members were killed or forcibly disappeared” in the first six months of the Taliban’s rise to power.
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Some 118 girls have been sold as child brides since the takeover and 116 families are waiting for buyers. The women are now banned from speaking in public or showing their faces.
In June 2024, the Department of Homeland Security identified more than 400 suspects from Central Asia who had illegally crossed the US southern border with the help of an ISIS-linked smuggling network. The US has since arrested more than 150 of these individuals. On June 11, 2024, the FBI arrested eight individuals associated with ISIS-K who had crossed the southern border.
