WASHINGTON — During the chaotic exit after 20 years of war, the U.S. military did manage to get more than 124,000 civilians -- more than 6,000 of them Americans -- out of Afghanistan before the August 31 2021 troop withdrawal deadline.
But 13 American service men and women were killed in a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport in the operation's closing days.
Marine Corps Sergeant Tyler Vargas-Andrews lost an arm and a leg in the airport blast.
"The withdrawal was a catastrophe in my opinion. And there was an inexcusable lack of accountability and negligence. The 11 Marines, one sailors and one soldier that were murdered that day have not been answered for," he said on Wednesday, testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
The panel's new Republican majority held a hearing: "During and After the Fall of Kabul: Examining the Administration's Emergency Evacuation from Afghanistan."
"What happened in Afghanistan was a systematic breakdown of the federal government at every level. And a stunning failure of leadership by the Biden Administration," said the committee's chairman, Rep. Michael McCaul (R- Texas).
McCaul continued: "This was an abdication of the most basic duties of the United States government to protect Americans and leave no one behind."
A recent independent assessment by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction placed blame for the rapid collapse of the Afghan government and the return of the Taliban on both the Biden and Trump administrations, and previous ones, for failing to set up the Afghan military to function without U.S. support.
At the time of the evacuation, 54 percent of Americans said the decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan was the right one, according to the non-profit Pew Research Center.
