A U.S. Marine grabs an infant over a fence of barbed wire during an evacuation at then-Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Aug. 19, 2021. (Courtesy of Omar Haidiri/AFP via Getty Images)
Meeks also said Republicans did not involve Democrat members in their report and stressed that plans for withdrawing from Afghanistan began under the Trump administration.
He said in the memo's summary that Republicans sought to avoid facts involving Trump, including "his committing the United States to a full, date-specific withdrawal in a deal he negotiated with the Taliban that excluded the Afghan government or any reference to the rights of Afghan women and girls."
The ranking member also knocked Trump's "unilateral announcements to withdraw troops, often a surprise to many of his own senior officials, which undercut U.S. leverage because those announcements were divorced from Taliban compliance with the deal; and his forcing the Afghan government to release 5,000 Taliban fighters back to the battlefield before a final Taliban offensive ultimately took Kabul."
"When former President Trump took office, there were approximately 14,000 American troops in Afghanistan," Meeks wrote. "Days before leaving office, the former President ordered a further reduction to 2,500. President Trump initiated a withdrawal that was irreversible without sending significantly more American troops to Afghanistan to face renewed combat with the Taliban."
U.S. Marines with Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force - Crisis Response - Central Command, assist with security at an Evacuation Control Checkpoint (ECC) during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport, Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 26. ((U.S. Marine Corps photo by Staff Sgt. Victor Mancilla) )
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"American taxpayers have funded this Committee’s oversight, and the American people deserve the truth," Meeks said. "We owe it to them to highlight the facts elicited in this investigation without undue spin and with respect for the seriousness of the subject and the witnesses who have voluntarily testified to us about it."
"It strikes me now as it did during that hearing that many of those critical of the withdrawal effort simply have a fundamental objection to President Biden fulfilling his pledge to be the last Commander-in-Chief to preside over the war in Afghanistan," he added. "They are masking their displeasure with criticisms but have failed to offer feasible alternatives. We must continue to wrestle with these matters not to rewrite the past or assign partisan blame, but to identify lessons that can help us better fight and end wars in the future."
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-dems-issue-response-gop-report-bidens-withdrawal-from-afghanistan