Texas congressman releases report criticizing Biden Administration's Afghanistan withdrawal

Mr Chairman. Welcome back to the program. Let's get right to it here. One of the most interesting parts of this report I think is, uh you guys said as, as the US withdrew troops in 2021 it did not simultaneously withdraw diplomats and their families which left them exposed there. That was a so-called fatal flaw in President Biden's plan to leave Afghanistan is what the report concludes. Uh, uh Jason, that's absolutely correct. Um It seemed to me and even that summer getting the briefings that the, um, you know, the military and the intelligence community were in a totally different reality from the White House and State Department. Um, the military had their orders to retrograde uh by July and state departments, uh really saw an evacuation as a failure and so therefore, had rose colored glens lenses if you will not, uh really seeing the real threat on the ground as it existed. And that's what we call willful blindness. I mean, it, it's willful blindness to not want to see what's reality. Um It was very clear what was happening. Uh, the State Department is charged by federal law, uh by Congress to initiate an evacuation plan. Uh It's called a neo. Um, they continued to refuse to implement a plan until the day. The Taliban actually Overran Kabul by that time it was too late. And that is why you saw the chaos ensue uh the ambassador uh Wilson who's tasked primarily with that fled to the airport leaving all of his personnel behind, including the Afghans, um, thousands of classified documents, um, thousands of passports were destroyed. Um And then we saw the worst day and that was the suicide bombing killing 13 servicemen women, killing 100 and 70 Afghans, injuring 45 American personnel uh in Afghan. And then the worst thing Jason I'll finish is they put the Taliban in charge. The Taliban were put in charge of screening both American citizens and Afghans screening travel documents, passports, uh visas. They were the final arbiter as to who got in and who got out. Um It was a nightmare of the day. Um We knew the suicide bomber, the threat was imminent. We actually knew the timing. Um It was reported by the snipers and permission was not given to engage. And now we saw the result, this all could have been avoided if we just had a plan. You know, they say when you fail to plan, you plan to fail, this was AAA failure of epic proportions. Why was the State Department and the Department of Defense so far apart on this? You, you would think that as the number of troops go down, the number of Americans there would, would fall as well. But that didn't happen. Why not? What happened here? Well, they, they're, uh, in different worlds. In fact, from the minute, uh, President Biden decide what they call, go to zero, that means all military personnel, that means all contractors. That means all air power. It leaves Afghanistan when that happens. The Afghan military didn't have a chance. And this is why, uh General Mackenzie sitcom, Commander, General Milly, chairman, joint chiefs of Staff Miller on the ground. The IC all advised against going to zero. What they did advise was what the prior administration had done and that was to keep 2500 troops a light footprint with 6500 NATO and air cover to stabilize Afghanistan from what happened, including Bagram Airbase, which we all know $7 billion in military equipment, cash and most of all, Jason thousands of Isis Isis K got out of those prisons, eight of whom are detained in the United States having gotten through the southwest border. The, the Department of Defense and the State Department both had, you know, after action reports on what happened there. Well, what did you find in those? And were those not sufficient enough to, to prevent this from ever happening again? Well, that's the whole point of the exercise. Jason, I'm not trying to score political points even though I'm being accused of that today. Um I want to get to the truth. Like a, a federal prosecutor would, I didn't make arbitrary conclusions. I weighed the facts, evidence came to uh an investigation that's leading up, you know, to the top, but the, the bottom line here and goal is to make sure this never happens again. You know, we had Saigon, we had Kabul, we had an office to deal with this that the Biden administration shut down prior to the Taliban takeover. So we want to legislate an emergency evacuation plan that everybody knows who's in charge because nobody knew who was in charge at the time. Uh The military had a very different objective than the White House and State state had the optics of politics, the optics of everything's fine. It's going to plan, you're not to see helicopters like Saigon and we know it just didn't end up that way. But, but as far as what's already been out there, this happened what, three years ago now, WW was the existing reports were, were they not sufficient enough to, to show this country, you know that the plan away from this? So it doesn't happen again and, and thank you for bringing that up. So it took me not only a subpoena but a, a motion to compel the after action report and the Dissent cable that was filed by 24 state Department employees at the Embassy. This is an extraordinary exercise. In fact, historically, it's never been done. This is a channel that goes to the secretary. Um in the event of a crisis, these 24 employees were in fear of their lives because they saw the Taliban overrunning Kabul coming towards the embassy. They sent a lifeline up to the White House for help and they were essentially discarded by ambassador Wilson who left them behind. So we have to take and their testimonies. Jason are very extensively quoted in my report. Now, I wouldn't have had that if I hadn't threatened a subpoena and a motion to compel and having said that gives us great insight as to what was happening on the ground, both from the diplomatic standpoint and also the military. Despite several years of investigation. Despite the dod report, the State Department after action report your 354 page report that's out right now too. You said there are still unanswered questions, what are they? Well, all roads lead to the National Security Council. Um And you know, I'm not finished with this investigation. Um It's not about the election. It's gonna happen after um all roads lead to the national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, who is in charge of the National Security Council. We have found through all of our testimonies in this report that all of these communications found their way to the Nerve Center if you will, the National Security Council and then ultimately, uh within, within the White House itself. Um Now I know executive privilege will be asserted. Um But we intend to follow those leads as high as we can as far as we can because accountability is important. Here. I was with the Gold Star families last night and they said, you know, not one person has been held accountable uh in our recommendations, we hold those individuals accountable through a resolution by Congress, but almost every one of those officials have been promoted since the evacuation. You said this is not about politics but why release it now? Just two months before the election. And I get asked that a lot. This was not my timing. I didn't choose this by design. Uh The timing is a result of not being able to get documents, witness testimony, having to serve subpoenas. It took me eight months to get Jens soI to testify. Secretary Lincoln is still refusing to testify even though I've served a subpoena and I will threaten him with contempt. They have stonewalled this investigation in the hopes that it would go after the election. So they wouldn't have to deal with this. What they didn't know is that I had enough already to publish a report, but I would have preferred to have, you know, deliver this a year ago. I didn't have the evidence. Secretary Lincoln's supposed to testify before your committee next Thursday, the 19th of September. Uh do you expect he is going to? And if so, uh you know, what do you want to know from him specifically. Well, I've, I've got respect for, you know, him, but I'll, I'll tell you when I talked to him on the phone, he said he didn't have one day in the entire month of September to come before Congress to tell the American people what happened and answer to this report, the gold star families deserve this. The American people deserve this. And I wanna know what is your response to my report? What can you do working with me to fix this problem? But he says, I don't have one day available. I don't think people buy that. I think he's looking for cover. I told them I, you know, he had left me no other choice but to serve a subpoena on him and if necessary move to compel his testimony. If I do that, he'll be the first Secretary of State to have ever been held in contempt. And I don't think he wants that outcome. Few last questions for you here, Mr Chairman, what do you want Texans to take away from this? Because we, we, we all watched what happened three years ago and a lot of people think they know the story. What's the message for Texans here? The message I have is what I've said all along Afghanistan. It's not far from home. I mean, we say it's halfway around the world, but what has happened since the fall of Afghanistan, our adversaries have seen a leader projecting weakness, not strength, inviting conflict, aggression and war months after Afghanistan fell, we saw Putin and the Russian Federation invading Ukraine. We saw Putin's ally, Chairman Xi now threatening Taiwan and the Pacific. We've also seen recent events, the Ayatollah who is an ally of Putin and Xi rear his ugly head with Hamas Hezbollah and the Houthi rebels threatening Israel. They're all tied together to bring you home to Texas. Thousands of Isis prisoners let out of Bagram prisons. Now in the Khorasan region which is a dangerous external operation in the territory have now found their way to get in to Mexico up through our southwest border and into the United States. Eight are under detention by the FBI others had a smuggling ring of 400 people. We don't know what, we don't know how many more have been allowed to come in and it's all a result of a failed uh policy with respect to Afghanistan, which then led to a failed foreign policy that is making the world very dangerous right now. For the United States. Last question here, Mr Chairman, you said you hope this leads to legislative and policy solutions. Is there a piece of legislation, a bill that you would present or you think is going to come out of this that would prevent such a disaster from ever happening again? Absolutely. I mean, number one, the you can't have this uh bifurcation of military and state, you know, they need to be integrated, diplomatic security co needs to be reporting straight to the Secretary of State. We need a uh legislation that provides direct guidance as to who's in charge what needs to be done when the plan needs to be executed. Uh All those things were missing, there was no plan and that's why you saw what you saw was an utter disaster on the ground that resulted in loss of life that didn't really have to happen. I talked to the secretary about this very extensively and I think this is one area of good faith where I do think I can work with him to try to come up with legislation to ensure this never happens again. And is that legislation you, you intend or hope to introduce this Congress or, or what? We don't have time, you know, you know, how many embassies are under threat around the world and, and I don't have time to go into this. This could happen again. Not on the scale maybe, but we need to fix the problem, Mr Chairman. I always appreciate the time. Thank you, sir. Thanks Jason.