Top generals proved Biden had a 'willy nilly' attitude toward Afghanistan, Republican says: Senator eviscerates White House for calling hearing on withdrawal a 'political show'

Combat veteran Sen. Joni Ernst slammed the White House for calling a Republican-led bombshell hearing on the Afghanistan withdrawal a 'political show' while placing blame on President Joe Biden for mistakes that resulted in the deaths of 13 service members.

Now-retired military Generals Mark Milley and Kenneth McKenzie gave a scathing assessment of the deadly exit during a hearing Tuesday, revealing that Biden ignored their advice and his evacuation orders came 'too late,' stranding allies as the Taliban took over in 2021.

The White House attempted to dismiss the severity of the hearing, saying it was 'shameless of House GOP to use Afghanistan to play politics.'

White House spokesman Ian Sams posted on X that House Republicans on the Foreign Affairs Committee were only trying to 'distract from their own current failures' by holding the hearing.

Ernst, who served the military for over 23 years, told DailyMail.com that it was 'not a political show. It is something that is long overdue.' 

Ernst said yesterday's hearing demonstrated the 'willy nilly attitude that President Joe Biden turned up when withdrawing our troops from Afghanistan'

A U.S. Marine grabbed an infant over a fence of barbed wire during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on August 19, 2021

Milley told lawmakers that the withdrawal is 'personal to me' and gave his condolences to the Gold Star families that attended in person

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

She said yesterday's hearing demonstrated the 'willy nilly attitude that President Joe Biden turned up when withdrawing our troops from Afghanistan.'

'He not only endangered the lives of the Afghans that we had worked with, our allies were caught totally off guard when we pulled out as well as our American troops,' she told DailyMail.com during an interview at the Reagan Institute's National Security Innovation Base Summit.

She said there is an immediate need for accountability for the Gold Star families seeking peace.

One of the soldiers killed at Abbey Gate in August 2021 was from southwest Iowa, the senator added, and she knows his mother 'very well.'

'Unfortunately we saw two decades of an attempt to secure and stabilize that region get thrown down the tube because President Joe Biden wouldn't listen to his military advisers.'

Ernst also addressed the Reagan Institute giving Congress an 'F-' score on their annual defense modernization report card due to 'lack of action' which is 'constraining progress on major initiatives.'

Particularly the lack of a fiscal year 2024 budget resulted in 'significant development delays for priority programs.'

The GOP senator pushed back on the failing grade, while admitting that Congress is 'doing a poor job when it comes to appropriating toward the right projects at the right time.'

Ernst said a lot of the blame should be placed on the Biden administration for putting out budgets that 'well under fund' the innovations needed in defense spending. 

'The administration focuses much heavily, much more heavily on climate ideology and other types of domestic programs that do not secure our nation.' she added.

Ernst told DailyMail.com the U.S. needs to 'invest much more' in public and private innovation in order to 'stay ahead of the power curve when it comes to emerging technologies.'

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.'

He added that his analysis was that an 'accelerated withdrawal' would likely lead to the 'general collapse of the Afghan security forces and the Afghan government' and a complete Taliban takeover.

However, when he expressed that to Biden, Milley said that the president ignored his advice to keep a few hundred troops on the ground.

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.

Afghan people sit inside a U S military aircraft to leave Afghanistan, at the military airport in Kabul on August 19, 2021 after Taliban's military takeover of Afghanistan

British citizens and dual nationals boarded a military plane at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan

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

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.'