The top generals who oversaw America’s evacuation from Afghanistan testified Tuesday, March 19, before the House Foreign Affairs Committee about the widely criticized military operation. Gen. Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, the former commander of U.S. Central Command, have both since retired but appeared to publicly explain what happened during an evacuation that resulted in the death of more than a dozen U.S. service members.
“So having a plan is one thing, preparing the plan, vetting the plan, coordinating the plan with the people that are going to actually carry you out, the Department of Defense, that’s another set of tasks completely,” McKenzie said.
“And that was too little, too late,” Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, said.
“It was my judgment that it was far too little, far too late,” McKenzie said.
The generals described disorganization between the Defense and State departments, evacuation orders that came too late and the Abbey Gate terrorist attack, when a suicide bomber killed 13 military service members and injured dozens more.
“If there’s fault, it lies in a policy decision that placed the joint force in this situation and exposed the force over time to the possibility of these kinds of attacks,” McKenzie said.
McKenzie also said he alone bears military responsibility for what happened at Abbey Gate.
The testimony made clear that there are still questions as to what happened during the evacuation.
“How many Americans were left behind, how many of our allies and what has happened to them,” Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., asked.
“I’ll be candid, I don’t know the exact number of Americans that were left behind because the starting number was never clear,” Milley answered.
Republicans blamed President Joe Biden and his administration for the failures that took place.
“The damage to our reputation in our credibility, the United States credibility around the world, that damage will last for generations,” McCaul said.
Democrats, meanwhile, said a truly thorough investigation would look not just at the evacuation, but at the entire Afghan war which spanned four presidential administrations.
“If we really want to figure out what went wrong, what we need to fix, we need to look at the entire 20 years of being in Afghanistan, not just the last few months,” Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., said.
Both generals said they appeared before the committee voluntarily and would have come with or without a subpoena.
