White House told to hand over botched Afghanistan withdrawal files

Republicans on the Oversight Committee are sending letters to top officials all across the Biden administration requesting documents related to the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan. 

Letters went out Thursday to Defense Sec. Lloyd Austin, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley requesting all records and communications from the day Biden took office until the present regarding contingency and planning for the Afghanistan evacuation. 

'You were at the center of planning the withdrawal and evacuation and advised President Biden on decisions that amounted to tactical and strategic failures. The Committee,' Oversight Chair Rep. James Comer, Ky., wrote. 

Comer also requested records of communications with NATO alliances over the withdrawal and records relating to al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups in Afghanistan. 

Republicans on the Oversight Committee are sending letters to top officials all across the Biden administration requesting documents related to the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan 

'You were at the center of planning the withdrawal and evacuation and advised President Biden on decisions that amounted to tactical and strategic failures. The Committee,' Oversight Chair Rep. James Comer, Ky., wrote 

To Homeland Security Sec. Mayorkas, Comer wrote a letter requesting communications relating to the former Afghan government urging the U.S. not to withdraw and documents related to vetting refugees. 

Records requests also went out to heads of the State Department, US Agency for International Development (USAID),  and the National Security Council.

'You contrived a narrative of success and orderliness as the Taliban retook Afghanistan, as Afghans clung to and fell from planes departing Hamid Karzai International Airport, and a suicide bomber murdered 13 U.S. service members and hundreds of innocent Afghans,' a letter to national security advisor Jake Sullivan read. 

The letter said the committee was taking oversight of the evacuation into its own hands after accusing the Biden administration of trying to 'delay long overdue transparency.' 

The committee noted the Afghan War Commission, established by Congress under the FY 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, does not have to produce a report for three years after its first meeting, which has yet to take place. 

'The Biden Administration was tragically unprepared for the Afghanistan withdrawal and their decisions in the region directly resulted in a national security and humanitarian catastrophe,' Comer said in a statement. 'U.S. servicemen and women lost their lives, Americans were abandoned, taxpayer dollars are unaccounted for, the Taliban gained access to military equipment, progress for Afghan women was derailed, and the entire area is now under hostile Taliban control.'

The Biden administration followed through a Trump administration peace deal with the Taliban that said U.S. troops would fully withdraw from the nation. 

The deal, however, said that the U.S. could claw back its promise to leave if peace talks between the former Afghan government and the Taliban failed, which they did. 

Biden received bipartisan criticism for the chaotic operation, which was rocked when an ISIS-K suicide bomber detonated outside of Hamid Karzai International Airport, killing nearly 200 Afghanis and 13 US service members. 

The Taliban takeover, far swifter than officials from either administration had envisioned, led to the implementation of Sharia law which meant women were mostly stripped of the ability to go to school or work and other human rights were deteriorated.