House Probe of Exit From Afghanistan Lacks Answers and Accountability, Ex-Staffer Says
Fred Lucas /
A House committee is set to release an investigative report on the Biden-Harris administration’s botched exit from Afghanistan, but a former committee staffer contends the probe should have been much tougher.
Jerry Dunleavy, a former Washington Examiner reporter and author of the book “Kabul: The Untold Story of Biden’s Fiasco,” was on the investigative staff of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which has probed why so many things went wrong in the chaotic exit in 2021.
Dunleavy announced his resignation Monday with a post on the social media platform X in which he sharply criticized the House committee’s chairman, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas.
Dunleavy wrote in the post that the committee’s investigation has been a “sham” and wrote, the “committee has refused to fulfill its important obligation to thoroughly expose the Biden-Harris Admin’s duplicity & its atrocious decision-making during America’s retreat & defeat in Afghanistan.”
Abbey Gate refers to a section of the Kabul airport where a suicide bomber with the terrorist group ISIS-K set off a device that killed 13 American service members.
McCaul sent a letter Tuesday to Secretary of State Antony Blinken inviting him to testify to the House committee, and warning if he did not, he would be subpoenaed.
“Unlike other senior U.S. Department of Defense, Department of State, and National Security Council officials, you have not yet answered questions as part of the committee’s investigation,” McCaul wrote to Blinken. “The time is now ripe for you to appear, and as you describe, honor the sacrifice of the Gold Star families by providing answers to the American people.”
Dunleavy, a reporter at the Washington Examiner from 2019 to 2023, added in his post in X: “I am worried that the U.S. government, the State Department, the Pentagon, the intelligence community, they have not learned their lessons because they have not had to—because no one has been held accountable.”
“Secretary Blinken should have been brought in months ago,” Dunleavy told The Daily Signal in an interview shortly after this story initially was published. “It is late in the game for this. It will be difficult to verify and investigate what he tells the committee.”
McCaul spokesperson Emily Cassil said the committee chairman is committed to a thorough investigation and committed to the Gold Star families, the term for families that have lost members in active duty military service.
“Having worked for Chairman McCaul for two years, I can tell you he pours his heart and soul into getting answers for our Gold Star families and Afghanistan veterans,” Cassil told The Daily Signal.
She noted that a committee report will be issued in September.
“That will be evident in a few weeks when [McCaul] releases his expansive report, which is the result of thousands of hours of work on both the staff and member level,” Cassil said. “Its release will not be the end of our work, but a crucial next step toward ensuring the personal accountability that the Biden-Harris administration refused to provide.”
But Dunleavy objected to the characterization.
“I’m not asking the chairman to pour his heart and soul into this investigation,” Dunleavy told The Daily Signal. “I’m asking that he do something more simple, which is the basics the committee has refused to do.”
The House Foreign Affairs Committee has noted that it lacks authority to compel testimony from White House or National Security Council officials. Defense Department officials come under the purview of the House Armed Services Committee, which has assisted in the Foreign Affairs Committee’s probe.
The internal clash follows reports earlier this year that the probe was shaping up to be the most successful congressional oversight effort regarding the Biden-Harris administration and thus was most worrisome to administration officials.
President Joe Biden wanted to be out of Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 2021—the 20-year anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America—despite the risk that the Taliban, an Islamist organization, would regain control of the country.
Three weeks before that anniversary, on Aug. 21, 2021, a suicide bomber with the terrorist organization ISIS-K set off an explosion that killed 183 people—including 13 U.S. service members—outside the Kabul airport. The bomber had been released recently by the Taliban.
The hasty exit from Afghanistan led to the Taliban’s gaining control of about $7 billion worth of U.S. military weapons and equipment.
The Biden administration has said that as of March, officials aren’t sure how many Americans were left behind in Afghanistan. As of mid-2023, the State Department said it had rescued about 800 Americans and about 600 legal permanent U.S. residents from Afghanistan after initially leaving them behind in the evacuation.
Afghan translators for the military and other sympathetic natives were among those left behind.
Afghanistan also has grown closer to China since the American exit.
Meanwhile, the White House has argued that bringing the troops home strengthened America.
“We have rallied our allies and partners to support Ukraine and hold Russia accountable for its aggression—and to rise to compete with China,” said an April 2023 statement issued by the White House that was meant to explain decisions and challenges involved in the withdrawal.
“It is hard to imagine the United States would have been able to lead the response to these challenges as successfully—especially in the resource-intensive way that it has— if U.S. forces remained in Afghanistan today,” the White House said.
House Republicans issued an earlier report while the GOP was still in the chamber’s minority in August 2022.
In the investigation that will produce the forthcoming report, committee members and staff investigators conducted transcribed interviews with about 20 senior Biden-Harris administration officials.
Those interviewed include Under Secretary of Defense for Political Affairs John Bass, a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan; former White House press secretary Jen Psaki; Derek Chollet, chief of staff to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and former counselor to the State Department during the withdrawal; Suzy George, chief of staff to Blinken at the time; State Department Senior Adviser Ned Price, former Ambassador Ross Wilson, chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul; and former Ambassador Dan Smith, author of the State Department’s after-action review on the Afghanistan withdrawal.
This story was updated shortly after publication to include comments from Jerry Dunleavy, the former House Foreign Affairs Committee staffer.