House Republicans face thorny challenges in Afghanistan withdrawal investigations

Mike Brest

March 06, 06:15 AM March 06, 06:21 AM

People long thought of the 2001-2021 Afghanistan conflict as "the good war." U.S. military action in the landlocked central Asian conservative Muslim nation was a direct response to the 9/11 attacks, which claimed nearly 3,000 lives on American soil.

The public largely saw the Afghanistan war as a matter of self-defense since its Taliban government had allowed al Qaeda terrorists to train there and use the country as a base from which to plan the Sept. 11 attacks. Though more than 2,400 Americans died in military efforts fighting terrorists in Afghanistan, its moral authority shone brightly compared to the invasion of Iraq and subsequent war, a conflict of choice, which, according to critics, stood as the worst U.S. foreign policy decision of the modern era after it empowered neighboring Shia Mulsim majority Iran and more broadly destabilized the Middle East.

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What the American public wasn't counting on, though, was a chaotic and deadly withdrawal process by American and allied troops, one that harkened back to the U.S. loss in Vietnam, with American helicopters in April 1975 ignominiously taking off from the roof of their country's embassy just before communist troops rolled in.

Worst of all, congressional Republicans said in late summer 2021, problems that plagued the Afghanistan withdrawal were likely foreseeable by President Joe Biden and his military and diplomatic advisers. So, since House Republicans in November won a narrow 222-213 majority, its leaders have been chomping at the bit to investigate the U.S. military's Afghanistan withdrawal.

But GOP lawmakers are finding that simply blaming the Biden administration for the seemingly botched withdrawal isn’t so easy, as they’ve had mixed luck obtaining documents and other materials from the Biden administration. The narrative of the Afghanistan troop withdrawal being Biden’s fault isn’t as simple as they’d make it seem since Biden’s Republican predecessor, former President Donald Trump, laid much of the military and diplomatic groundwork that led to the chaotic withdrawal, completed on Aug. 30, 2021.

A Difficult Investigation

House Republicans have said they want to focus largely on the disastrous end to the war. One main question is how the Taliban's August 2021 offensive easily toppled the U.S.-backed Afghan government despite the Afghan forces having been the recipients of billions of dollars for training and aid since the United States launched operations there on Oct. 7, 2001, upon the orders of then-President George W. Bush.

In the end, Afghan soldiers effectively laid down their weapons. U.S. forces ultimately conducted a chaotic evacuation effort for U.S. citizens and Afghan allies who had worked with American troops and were at risk under the Taliban regime. Thousands of Afghan allies were left behind, and many remain there to this day, under threat as the security situation worsens.

As U.S. forces evacuated more than 120,000 civilians in the final two weeks of August after the Taliban took control, their efforts were marred by a pair of tragic events. On Aug. 26, an ISIS-K operative detonated a suicide vest killing 13 U.S. service members and roughly 170 civilians outside the gates of the airport where the evacuations were occurring. Then, on Aug. 29, U.S. forces launched a strike at what they believed to be another imminent threat to the personnel at the airport, but the target was wrongly identified. Ten civilians were killed, including multiple children, while none of them posed a threat to U.S. forces or those at the airport.

The Biden administration ending the Afghanistan War under such circumstances was an obvious target of GOP investigation once they took power. At the start of the new Congress in early January, the issue got tied to support of Rep. Kevin McCarthy's (R-CA) bid to be House speaker by incoming House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX), Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-AL), and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence lead Republican Mike Turner (R-OH). The trio released a statement in support of McCarthy, saying in part that the California Republican's "Commitment to America agenda outlines ... a plan to investigate the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan."

McCarthy won the speaker's gavel on the 15th ballot, in the wee hours of Saturday, Jan. 7, after three and a half days of voting. The Foreign Affairs Committee became the first panel to get its Afghanistan investigation off the ground and running. McCaul, the new chairman, sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Jan. 12 asking for a litany of documents related to the withdrawal. McCaul set a response deadline of Jan. 26, two weeks later.

The State Department met that deadline late on the night of Jan. 26, a House Foreign Affairs Committee majority staffer told the Washington Examiner, but not to the committee's satisfaction.

“We indicated to the State [Department] that we understand we won’t get everything by the 26th, but expect a substantial initial production. They instead responded on the 26th with a meager 218-page production of documents that had already been FOIA’d — and were heavily redacted,” the staffer said, alluding to past Freedom of Information Act document requests. “They told us in our meeting on Jan. 19 that they would send us unredacted documents. Instead, there were extensive redactions.”

The State Department also claimed to the committee that they couldn’t begin compiling the documents until receiving a letter from the chairman, while the staff said they are not aware of any law that would bar the department from internally compiling the documents they knew he’d want because he wrote them as the ranking member.

The agency declined to detail its response to the GOP-led committee.

That kind of back-and-forth was expected once Republican-led House investigations got underway. Biden administration officials suggested what they deemed legitimate issues of public concern would warrant their response to GOP requests, while other requests, like those probing alleged misdeeds by presidential son Hunter Biden, might be ignored. Biden administration officials cited ignored subpoenas by figures from the administration of former President Donald Trump and even Republican House members themselves during the Jan. 6 committee investigation.

A State Department spokesperson directed the Washington Examiner to spokesman Ned Price's recent comments on the topic: "On the various topics and regions of oversight, we are going to continue with the approach that we have exercised with the prior Congress, with the 117th Congress, with the 118th Congress. Congress has important functions: authorization function, appropriation function, and an oversight function."

McCaul, whose 10-page letter included a long list of questions he wants answers to, is planning for public hearings on the Afghanistan withdrawal. The majority staffer called the investigation "a top priority for the committee."

Nor is McCaul the only House committee chairman eager to bring the disastrous end of the Afghanistan War back into the public sphere.

House Oversight Chairman James Comer (R-KY) sent letters in December, before he took the committee gavel, requesting information and documents from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, Blinken, national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Majorkas, and U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Powers.

“The Biden Administration’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal was a humanitarian and national security catastrophe," Comer told the Washington Examiner in a statement. "U.S. servicemen and women lost their lives, thousands of Americans were abandoned, billions of taxpayer dollars are still unaccounted for, military equipment fell into the hands of the Taliban, progress for Afghan women has stalled, and the entire region is now under hostile Taliban control. Nearly two years later, the American people are still without answers and sitting in the dark."

Comer spokesman Austin Hacker told the Washington Examiner that no Biden administration officials have responded to the requests.

Trump Administration Responsibility?

While the end of the war did not go as Joe Biden intended, the situation was more complicated, having bedeviled four presidential administrations. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction found that the Trump administration's agreement with the Taliban in February 2020 to leave within 14 months put the Biden administration in the position of having to uphold it.

That was a "catalyst" and the "single most important near-term factor" in the Afghan military's collapse, in part because it led to a drop in morale, a SIGAR report from last May lays out.

Anthony H. Cordesman, the emeritus chair in strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the best way to learn from the mistakes in the war is to look much further back than just how it ended.

"One of the key issues is, does the committee basically focus on trying to blame the [Biden] administration for the near chaos of the worst phase of the collapse? Or does it look at the overall set of problems that led to the collapse? Historically, I think we can just focus on the most immediate crisis and never really look at the causes, and I think that if we do that again, it simply will not provide any clear guidance for the future," Cordesman told the Washington Examiner.

Cordesman believes that to get a comprehensive understanding of the collapse of the Afghan government, the scope of the investigation should “certainly” go back to “at least 2015,” during the Obama administration, specifically on how the U.S. could have begun the peace process with a date certain — without "having any clear plan for peace or examination of how the sort of negotiating options would occur."

Bradley Bowman, an expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who was a defense adviser for former Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), thinks the national security implications from the withdrawal are too important for committees to get dragged into partisan exercises.

"I get frustrated by Democrats who just want to put it all on Trump, and I get frustrated by Republicans who just want to put it on Biden because I think neither of those approaches is fact-based or accurate. It's just not," Bowman told the Washington Examiner. "And I think the stakes that we confront and the threats that we confront as a country are just too serious for partisan gamesmanship, and I think on Afghanistan and everything else, if we're going to adopt the national security policies we need, we need more serious-minded folks who are more interested in securing our country then winning partisan points."

With the U.S. leaving Afghanistan, Joe Biden and defense officials have said their counterterrorism strategy in the region focuses largely on the U.S.'s over-the-horizon capabilities, or the ability to launch strikes without troops in the country, though it's much harder to collect the necessary intelligence required for such an action without personnel there to gather it. In the roughly 18 months since forces withdrew, the U.S. has conducted one such strike, in July 2022, that successfully targeted Ayman al Zawahiri, the successor of Osama bin Laden in al Qaeda’s leadership.

Al Zawahiri's presence in Kabul’s Shirpur neighborhood, where U.S. officials alleged Taliban leaders not only knew he was there but engaged in a cover-up in an attempt to his presence there, demonstrates the tenuous security situation in Afghanistan.

NGOs suspend work in Afghanistan after Taliban regime bars female employees

Samantha-Jo Roth

December 25, 04:15 PM December 25, 04:23 PM

Major international aid groups suspended operations in Afghanistan on Sunday after the Taliban banned women from working at nongovernmental organizations until further notice, prompting worldwide condemnation.

The Taliban’s Economy Ministry announced Saturday that women could no longer work for NGOs as a result of complaints that some women had not adhered to the Taliban’s interpretation of the Islamic dress code for women, which includes wearing the hijab correctly. Earlier this year, the Taliban ordered all Afghan women to wear head-to-toe coverings in public.

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Save the Children, the International Rescue Committee, the Norwegian Refugee Council, and CARE International suspended their operations in the country after the decision was made Saturday. The four NGOs were providing education, healthcare, nutrition services, and child protection amid deteriorating humanitarian conditions.

“We cannot effectively reach children, women and men in desperate need in Afghanistan without our female staff,” read a joint statement from Save the Children, the Norwegian Refugee Council, and CARE International.

Separately, the IRC said it was suspending services in Afghanistan for similar reasons. Nearly half of the committee’s employees are women.

“Our ability to deliver services rely on female staff at all levels of our organization. If we are not allowed to employ women, we are not able to deliver to those in need,” the IRC said in a statement Sunday, according to Axios.

Charge d'Affaires of the U.S. Mission to Afghanistan Karen Decker questioned on Twitter how the Taliban planned to prevent hunger among women and children after the ban, pointing out that the United States is the largest donor of humanitarian aid in the country.

A spokesman for the Taliban administration, Zabihullah Mujahid, attempted to defend the move, saying all organizations in Afghanistan are required to follow the rules set by the country.

“We do not allow anyone to talk rubbish or make threats regarding the decisions of our leaders under the title of humanitarian aid,” Mujahid said on Twitter.

Earlier this month, the U.N. humanitarian office warned that a record 28.3 million people will need humanitarian and other assistance next year.

Taliban bars women from working in human rights organizations in crackdown

Asher Notheis

December 24, 04:50 PM December 24, 05:03 PM

The Taliban have ordered all nongovernmental organizations to stop all female volunteers from coming to work, marking another backstep in the group's 2021 pledge to uphold women's rights.

The order was given by the Ministry of Economy in a letter to all local and international NGOs. The order claims that the organizations have failed to adhere to Islamic dress rules and other laws of the Islamic Emirate as the reason for the move, according to CNN.

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“Lately there have been serious complaints regarding not observing the Islamic hijab and other Islamic Emirate’s laws and regulations,” according to the letter, which went on to read that “guidance is given to suspend work of all female employees of National and international non-governmental organizations.”

Any NGO that fails to abide by this new rule will have its license revoked, the ministry warned.

The announcement of the new rule came in the same week that the Taliban government announced a ban against women from attending private or public universities in Afghanistan. Ziaullah Hashmi, the spokesman for the Ministry of Higher Education, shared a letter on Tuesday ordering all private and public universities to enact the ban as soon as possible, according to NPR.

The Taliban managed to topple the U.S.-backed government of Afghanistan in August 2021 and had initially said it would uphold women's rights in the country. In the 16 months since then, however, the group's initial promise has rung hollow.

In May, the Taliban ordered that all women must be covered from head to toe when in public and that any women who fail to obey this order could have their father or closest male relative imprisoned or fired from their government positions.

Top rated Russian diplomat between at minimum six killed in suicide bomber blast in Kabul

Brady Knox

September 05, 10:00 AM September 05, 10:00 AM

A top rated Russian diplomat and security guard are between at least six killed by a suicide bomber exterior the Russian embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, according to Russian and Afghan officers.

The explosion happened Monday when the Russian diplomat went out to a gathered group to announce candidates for a visa, in accordance to RIA Novosti. Citing Russian media, the Washington Write-up recognized the two Russians useless as diplomat Mikhail Shakh and a safety guard. The remaining casualties were being gathered Afghan civilians. The suicide bomber was found and engaged by Taliban law enforcement just before he could get closer to the group, but the taking pictures set off his suicide vest, authorities mentioned.

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"At about 11:00, a suicide bomber tried to detonate himself in the crowd of the Russian Embassy in the seventh district of Kabul, but right before reaching his goal, the safety forces focused him, leading to the explosion," Taliban Kabul Police spokesman Khalid Zadran wrote on Twitter.

Russia's International Ministry confirmed the account of occasions in its have assertion, in accordance to TASS, and announced it is working carefully with Afghanistan's safety companies in the investigation of the attack.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. Having said that, the Taliban's rival Islamic State's Afghan department has overseen an intensifying wave of suicide bombings concentrating on Taliban and civilian targets.

Citing stability sources, Al Jazeera put the demise toll increased, with at minimum 8 deaths.

“It is pretty surprising since the stability officers of Kabul believe that the stability all over Kabul is really restricted. And these type of places like embassies are well guarded,” Kabul-centered reporter Najib Lalzoy told Al Jazeera.

In talks with Tajik diplomats in Moscow, International Minister Sergey Lavrov observed a moment of silence.

“Speaking about the scenario in the location, the terrorist danger has not dissipated, which include from Afghanistan. ... And this early morning … there was a terrorist attack. An unidentified militant made use of an explosive gadget in close proximity to the entrance to the consulate of our embassy [in Kabul]. Two of our comrades died,” he stated, claimed Russia These days. "Let us hope that those people who perpetrated that assault, these who executed this assault, will be held responsible in the nearest foreseeable future."

The Taliban's Ministry of Overseas Affairs spokesman expressed his dedication that it would not let the attack damage relations with Russia.

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"[The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan] has near relations with the Russian Federation & will not enable the enemies to sabotage relations among the two international locations with these kinds of destructive steps," Abdul Qahar Balkhi tweeted.

Russia is just one of the number of international locations to retain diplomatic relations with the Taliban authorities in Afghanistan in spite of not formally recognizing it and keeping it to be a banned terrorist team in Russia, according to the Washington Write-up. It has more and more warmed relations with the team pursuing the war in Ukraine, web hosting several diplomatic delegations in Russia, including just one to focus on Afghanistan's foreseeable future at the St. Petersburg Global Financial Summit, the so-named Russian Davos, in June.

Man’s perform: Taliban immediate gals to ship male family members to get their work

Cami Mondeaux

July 18, 08:19 AM July 18, 08:19 AM

Several gals in Afghanistan who keep jobs in the govt have been directed by Taliban leaders to mail their male kin to switch them, in accordance to reports.

Some female workers who however hold federal government work opportunities have been informed to uncover male relatives to send as replacements mainly because the “workload in the place of work has improved and they want to seek the services of a person rather of us,” 1 woman explained to the Guardian.

“I was requested to introduce a male household member to replace me at the ministry, so I could be dismissed from the position,” just one female who worked as the head of Afghanistan’s Ministry of Finance said. “This is a difficult and technical position I was skilled for and have decades of knowledge in. And even if he could do the exact work at some point, what would materialize to me?”

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The conclusion has prompted pushback from various girls, with some mobilizing to protest.

“We do not accept their order and we will test to get them to adjust it,” one particular feminine employee in the Ministry of Finance reported. “We have designed a group of female workforce of the ministry. We are negotiating now, and we will display if they really do not listen to us.”

It’s not very clear how a lot of govt departments have been instructed by the Taliban to commence replacing their female employees with male relatives.

The change in plan will come months after the Taliban eradicated gals from their employment and sent them property, besides for these with federal government positions that could not be crammed by adult men, who remained in their jobs at significantly reduce salaries. Now, Taliban leaders are seeking to switch even girls who remained used right after that choice.

The constraints on woman employment have resulted in widespread economic strains on the country, creating an financial reduction of about $1 billion to the overall economy, which is about 5% of the country’s GDP, according to estimates from the United Nations.

“There is nearly universal poverty in the place,” reported U.N. Females Executive Director Sima Bahous. “More than 50 % of the population wants some kind of humanitarian guidance, and an total generation is threatened by food stuff insecurity and malnutrition. The latest limitations make makes an attempt at recovery more difficult, if not unattainable.”

Prior to the Taliban took energy in August 2021, nearly 3,000 of Kabul's employees had been ladies, building up about one particular-third of the city's workforce, in accordance to the .

More than 9 million persons have been displaced due to the fact the Taliban took regulate of Afghanistan, and 20 million now encounter intense starvation, according to an Built-in Meals Stability Phase Classification evaluation released in May.

Who's the manager?

W. James Antle III

June 02, 11:00 PM June 02, 11:01 PM

The midterm elections are continue to months absent, but the recriminations have previously started off. Democratic lawmakers, operatives, and even President Joe Biden are finding quoted in the media expressing irritation with the White House. In addition, there are rumors main of employees Ron Klain could be on his way out before November.

When it comes to the palace intrigue, the veracity of precise reviews is less critical than the White Household starting to grow to be a leaky vessel. As Biden’s career approval rankings began their first descent final summer months, the West Wing remained somewhat peaceful and secure, with the sizeable exception of Vice President Kamala Harris’s business.

Now, key Biden lieutenants such as former White Property press secretary Jen Psaki and erstwhile head of the White Home Business office of General public Engagement Cedric Richmond have begun heading towards the exits. Virtually two dozen black staffers have left or are claimed to be considering their departures from the Biden team, a phenomenon present and previous officers explained to Politico as “Blaxit.” Richmond, who stays a vocal Biden defender from his new perch at the Democratic National Committee, is black, but Psaki was changed by Karine Jean-Pierre, the to start with black White Property press secretary.

Due to the fact using office environment, complications have plagued Biden, 1st with the migration surge at the southwestern border, adopted by the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, then inflation spiking to a 40-12 months higher. A little one components shortage has hit the country, and as soon as crimson-warm economic advancement is exhibiting indicators of cooling, with GDP contracting marginally during the to start with quarter of the calendar year.

The White House has continued to keep that couple of these challenges were self-inflicted or the consequence of deliberate coverage options the president manufactured. The White Residence claims Biden’s two most considerable legislative achievements, the $1.9 trillion partisan American Rescue System and the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, have pushed most of the financial restoration but none of the inflation.

But the White Property was warned about inflation, most prominently by former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, a top economic adviser to Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Jared Bernstein of the White Home Council of Economic Advisers identified as one of Summers’s content wanting to know no matter whether Biden's deputies ended up taking inflation very seriously plenty of “flat-out erroneous.”

“Janet Yellen is our treasury secretary,” Bernstein stated at a White Dwelling press briefing in February 2021. “She knows a very little one thing about inflationary risks.” When citing numerous of the identical variables favored in administration talking factors about the resources of substantial inflation, these as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Yellen explained to CNN late previous month, "I believe I was mistaken then about the route that inflation would take.” The Federal Reserve Lender of Chicago mentioned in an April 2021 letter about the American Rescue Program, "The upswing in expansion is most likely to raise source pressures and thus customer value inflation as nicely."

It’s not the only indication of self-doubt to emanate from the administration. Biden’s unique southern border coordinator conceded final year that border “surges are likely to reply to hope” and that the “idea that a extra humane policy would be in position,” specially, Biden’s immigration policy as opposed to previous President Donald Trump’s, “may have driven people today to make that final decision.” Furthermore, Biden’s Fda Commissioner Robert Califf testified his agency’s infant components shortage reaction was “too sluggish, and there had been decisions that had been suboptimal along the way.”

Biden is amongst the critics of the latter. "I became informed of this difficulty someday in — right after April or in early April about how intense it was. And so, we did everything in our power from that place on," he mentioned at a White Household celebration the working day following NBC News reported he was “annoyed that he was not alerted faster.”

"I really don't have a timeline on that,” Jean-Pierre later told reporters. “All I can explain to you, as a full-of-federal government strategy, we have been functioning on this because February." She was then questioned about her obvious discrepancy with Biden’s timeline. "No, I am not questioning the president at all,” Jean-Pierre said. “I'm just declaring I have not spoken to the president.”

The report about Biden’s formula frustrations also described him as “unhappy” about aides’ makes an attempt to clean up his “clear and succinct” statements, amplifying Republican criticisms that he is not genuinely in command. A White House spokesperson speedily disputed this on Twitter.

Biden has lengthy been known as an undisciplined speaker, a trait that is less problematic as a senator than commander in chief. But the to start with credible accounts of finger-pointing in the White Property could be a signal that the chronic optimism that better messaging that would direct to far better poll quantities is just close to the corner is starting to ebb, leaving a blame match above what guarantees to be a dispiriting election cycle.