By Brandon Moseley
During House Armed Services Committee hearings on what went wrong in the Biden Administration’s Afghanistan withdrawal, HASC Ranking Member Mike Rogers (R-AL03) said, “I fear the President may be delusional”
“The President repeatedly assured the American people – that the Taliban takeover was not inevitable; that we had plenty of time to safely evacuate Americans and Afghan allies; that this was not going to be like the Fall of Saigon,” Rogers said in his prepared comments during the Committee hearing.
“As late as August 19, the President promised us that ‘if there’s American citizens left, we’re going to stay to get them all out,” Rogers continued. “It’s now clear the President misled us more than once.”
Rogers added, “On August 31st, with hundreds of Americans left behind and 13 servicemembers murdered, the President stood in the East Room of the White House and called the withdrawal an ‘extraordinary success.’ I fear the President may be delusional. This wasn’t an extraordinary success; it was an extraordinary disaster. It will go down in history as one of the greatest failures of American leadership.”
Following the hearings, Rogers released a second statement: “Regardless of how you feel about the decision to remove troops from Afghanistan, I think we can all agree that the withdrawal was an unmitigated disaster:
Hundreds of Americans left behind.
Thousands of Afghan allies stuck with little hope of escape.
Potentially billions worth of U.S-provided military equipment now in the hands of the Taliban.
Thousands of hardened Al Qaeda and ISIS terrorists freed from prisons.
10 innocent Afghans, including 7 children killed in a botched airstrike.
But worst of all, 13 of our bravest service members were murdered by a coward in a suicide vest.
What is most infuriating, is that all this could have been avoided if the President had a plan.”
Rogers continued, “In briefings and hearings since April we have demanded to know the plan to –safely evacuate Americans and Afghan allies, and conduct counter-terrorism operations. For four months, the response from Biden Administration officials was: ‘we’re working on it.' It’s now very clear that they never had a plan.”
Last week, the House Armed Services Committee heard from Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, and CENTCOM Commander Gen. Kenneth McKenzie on President Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The House Armed Services Committee Republicans released their top five takeaways from the hearing:
“According to the latest intelligence assessment, it could be as little as 12 months before Al Qaeda will use Afghanistan as a base to conduct strikes in the United States,” Rogers warned. “That’s unacceptable.”
Following the withdrawal, Biden told the nation the exit was “the unanimous recommendation of the Joint Chiefs and all of our commanders on the ground” to “protect the lives of our troops and secure the prospects of civilian departures” from Afghanistan. The President praised those who helped with the departure, and he defended his strategy.
Although Biden’s mental and physical health has come into question several times during his short time in office, the White House has not directly responded to inquiries on the matter. He is the oldest U.S. president in history.
Afghanistan was America’s longest war lasting nearly 20 years.
Rogers is in his tenth term representing Alabama’s Third Congressional District. Rogers is an attorney from Saks, Alabama. Prior to his election to the Congress in 2002, Rogers represented the people of Calhoun County in the Alabama House of Representatives and on the County Commission.
