On the 2020 campaign trail, then-candidate Joe Biden remarked time and time again that "the buck stops with me." He promised that he would take total responsibility for all that happened in his administration. Even though it only occurred one year into his term, in the summer of 2021, Joe Biden's handling of the United States' withdrawal from Afghanistan showed that he will do anything to shirk responsibility.
Since the August 2021 withdrawal, Biden has been keen to lay blame at the feet of his predecessor, Donald Trump. Biden and his surrogates have repeatedly accused President Trump of constraining the conditions of the American evacuation. This mindset was reflected in the National Security Council's (NSC) report from earlier this month, which could be considered a self-authorized get-out-of-jail-free card for Joe Biden. After all, the NSC works for the president, so it's no wonder the report seeks to exonerate Biden for his mishandling of the Afghanistan withdrawal.
But House Republicans also made promises on the campaign trail that we intend to keep, especially in our new House majority. Among these was the promise to hold the Biden administration accountable for the debacle in Afghanistan.
On Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee heard from key witnesses on this matter. The committee confirmed much of what it already knew—that the Biden administration's lack of an exit strategy led to the disastrous withdrawal.
We confirmed that because the Biden administration altered the timeline for the United States' exit, the August withdrawal culminated during "fighting season." This was when the Taliban are traditionally more active and could therefore move unimpeded through the country's mountainous terrain. It was a major reason why we saw the country fall so quickly.
The Biden administration's altered timeline also contributed to the chaotic evacuation of civilians. Its decision to drastically scale down the American military presence further compounded the issues on the ground, which saw the Biden administration fail to prepare to evacuate civilian personnel first.
The rushed drawdown of American military forces also led the Biden administration to choose to abandon Bagram Air Force Base, and instead opt to evacuate civilians from the harder-to-defend Hamid Karzai International Airport.
A major focus of Congress' line of inquiry has been last month's report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan (SIGAR), which made clear that the Biden administration ignored blatant warnings from its advisers. Biden's NSC report was clearly written as an attempt to obfuscate its culpability by continually blaming President Trump. Wednesday's hearing saw Inspector General John Sopko confirm that the Biden administration is obstructing congressional oversight.
To be fair, SIGAR has been identifying issues for years with both Democratic and Republican administrations; however, no administration ignored it to the extent Biden's did. Wednesday's hearing made clear that the White House has even gone so far as to obstruct the office's mission. It would make sense, then, that the Biden administration has tried to whitewash the findings from SIGAR's congressionally mandated investigations.
Biden's refusal to listen to the advice of military commanders, leaders on the ground, and SIGAR ultimately proved tragic.
Nearly two years have passed since Biden's botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, which cost the lives of 13 U.S. servicemembers and led to a power vacuum inside of Afghanistan. And yet no one resigned, and no one has been fired for the shameful debacle. Biden himself still has yet to accept responsibility for the outcome of his poor decisions. Afghanistan is once again becoming a hotbed of terrorist activity and the buck needs to stop with Biden. It falls to our new Republican House majority to hold his administration accountable and expose the truth.
Rep. Pat Fallon serves Texas' Fourth Congressional District. An Air Force Veteran, he is a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, as well as the House Armed Services Committee.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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