Top generals in charge of chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal under Biden slam State Department for evacuation order that came 'too late' and call Kabul's rapid collapse a 'strategic failure'

Two former top generals in charge of the 2021 military withdrawal from Afghanistan that left 13 service members dead said the orders to evacuate from Biden came too late to avoid disaster. 

Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley and former Commander U.S. Central Command Gen. Kenneth McKenzie revealed critical details about the Biden administration's decision-making process behind the withdrawal, including that the president ignored their warnings. 

The now-retired military leaders gave a scathing assessment of the deadly withdrawal, which has been labeled a failure by some Democrats and nearly all Republicans.

In his opening remarks before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Milley told lawmakers that the withdrawal is 'personal to me' and gave his condolences to the Gold Star families that attended in person.

He, along with McKenzie, put the State Department at the center of the breakdown in communication that resulted in the tragic deaths of 13 troops and the abandonment of hundreds of Americans and key Afghan partners as the Taliban took over. 

'On 14th August [2021] the noncombatant evacuation operation decision was made by the Department of State and the U.S. military alerted, mobilized and rapidly deployed faster than any military in the world would ever do,' Milley said. 

'It is my assessment that that decision came too late.'

Former Gens. Mark Milley (L) and Kenneth McKenzie (R) testified that the State Department acted too slow in ordering the evacuation of Americans from Afghanistan 

Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley was the top military official at the time of the 2021 withdrawal

A helicopter displaying a Taliban flag flies above Taliban supporters gathered to celebrate the US withdrawal of all its troops out of Afghanistan

McKenzie agreed, saying he too believes the events of August 2021 were the result of delayed decisions that were the responsibility of the State Department.

'It remains my opinion that if there is culpability in this attack, it lies in policy decisions that created the environment.'

'Culpability and responsibility do not lie with the troops on the ground,' he added.

The conversations between Biden administration officials and the generals on when and how to evacuate were ongoing for months before the August withdrawal. 

Milley said that if he could make the decision again, he would have begun the evacuation over a month before the withdrawal was ordered.

'I would've brought the embassy and the State Department out with the military by the middle of July,' he said. 'If there was a do-over, that would be it.'

Milley even admitted he did not know how many Americans were in Afghanistan at the time of the withdrawal. 

'I'll be candid; I don't know the exact number of Americans that were left behind because the starting number was never clear.' 

He also testified that he believed the rapid withdrawal would lead to a civil war. 

'My personal analysis was that an accelerated withdrawal would likely lead to the general collapse of the Afghan security forces and the Afghan government, resulting in a large-scale civil war reminiscent of the 1990s or a complete Taliban takeover,' Milley said.

The Biden administration, meanwhile, was quick to return fire at the generals participating in the Republican-led hearing. 

'Shameless of House GOP to use Afghanistan to play politics,' White House spokesman Ian Sams posted on X during the hearing. 'They want to distract from their own current failures.' 

The top generals also took time to acknowledge the Gold Star families that were in attendance at the hearing, including Steve Nikoui, who was recently arrested for shouting 'Remember Abbey Gate' at Biden during his State of the Union.  

'I am personally here today voluntarily to help the families of the fallen, the 13 fallen at Abbey Gate,' Milley said.

'We owe them answers and I am committed to assist in the effort to get them answers,' he continued. 'I will work with them to make sure that transparency is established.'

While the hearing was ongoing, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, sent a letter to the Chief of Capitol Police requesting all charges be dropped against Nikoui. 

Nikoui, the Gold Star father of slain Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui who was killed in the Abbey Gate bombing, told DailyMail.com last week that this hearing is critical.

'Joe Biden, personally, is the reason for that fiasco,' he told DailyMail.com, '100%.'

'I'm mad at Milley and Mackenzie, because I feel like they should have been bold and taking a stand and resign. Maybe it would have changed the course of history.'

Christy Shamblin and Alicia Lopez, who also lost family members in the Abbey Gate attack, were also in attendance. 

A suicide bombing during the withdrawal claimed the lives of 13 U.S. service members

Caskets for the 13 fallen service members arrived back to the U.S. aboard a military C-17 on August 29, 2021

Gen. Kenneth McKenzie said culpability for the withdrawal is on policy makers and not troops

Code Pink protestors demanding a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war were escorted out of the hearing Tuesday

Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, opened the hearing blaming Biden for the disaster before reading off the names of the 13 service members that were killed during a suicide bombing as the U.S. military withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021.

Democrats, however, quickly changed the tone by blaming of the disastrous mission on former President Donald Trump, who 'lacked a comprehensive plan for withdrawing from Afghanistan,' Ranking Member Greg Meeks, D-N.Y., said.

One Democrat, Rep. Jared Moskowitz, cast blame on the withdrawal on both the Biden and Trump administrations for the operation. 

'I think there were mistakes made in the withdrawal,' he said. 'There's no doubt that mistakes were made by multiple administrations over 20 years.' 

The generals also noted that $7.2 billion worth of military equipment left behind in the withdrawal.

Milley previously referred to the withdrawal as a ‘logistical success but strategic failure’ and has said he has 'lots of regrets' regarding the operation. 

'It didn’t end the way I wanted it,' Milley said in an interview with ABC News in September before his retirement. 'In the broader sense, the war was lost.'

McKenzie also expressed his regrets about the operation in an interview with NPR, saying 'that’s something that haunts me to this day.'

The Tuesday hearing is just one of several Congressional meetings spent on the 2021 military withdrawal this year.

In January, the committee held a hearing on the Taliban's reprisal murders of key U.S. Afghan allies. 

In February, the committee held a hearing on the Biden administration's failure to uphold the Doha Agreement, which brokered a peace between the U.S. and the Taliban.  

'As a result of the Biden administration’s failure to plan, the U.S. military was forced to conduct this emergency evacuation surrounded by tens of thousands of Taliban terrorists,' House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said during a February hearing. 

'Put simply, President Biden and Secretary Blinken put thousands of American lives at risk through their incompetence and willful blindness.'

Videos and images of the 2021 withdrawal show U.S. military aircraft evacuating the country as desperate residents cling on to the exterior of the plane to try and escape Taliban rule

The withdrawal culminated with tens of thousands of Afghans attempting to evacuate the country on U.S. military transports

McCaul also threatened to hold Secretary of State Antony Blinken in contempt of Congress last month for failing to handover the departments After-Action Review (ARR) notes of the Afghanistan operation.

The Texan claim the notes may contain damning first-hand accounts of the withdrawal.

The Biden administration, however, has largely blamed the Trump administration for the operation. 

'President Biden had committed to ending the war in Afghanistan, but when he came into office he was confronted with difficult realities left to him by the Trump Administration,' the White House wrote in a report detailing the withdrawal.