Afghanistan
Floor Speech
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Mr. KING. Madam President, I have comments today about an extraordinary member of the Federal workforce, but before I do, I would like to respond to a few of the comments that I heard as I entered the Chamber with regard to Afghanistan.
The first is, nobody I know of in any way is denigrating the service of the men and women who served in Afghanistan for 20 years. They served honorably. They served well. They served bravely. They made great sacrifices, and some of them made the ultimate sacrifice. There is no dispute about that. But I think the question of the leaving of Afghanistan is worth a little bit of a broader discussion than what we just heard.
No. 1, the decision to leave Afghanistan was made by the Trump administration. Then-President Trump entered into an agreement in February of 2020 with the Taliban that we would leave by May 1 of 2021; all troops would be gone. I have read the agreement. In return, the Taliban said that they would not attack our troops. They also said they would enter into discussions with the Government of Afghanistan and try to effect a peaceful transfer of power. Of course, that didn't happen.
But I think it is very important for the American people to realize that the fundamental decision to leave Afghanistan was made almost a year before Joe Biden entered the Presidency. When Joe Biden entered the Presidency, he had a decision to make, and the decision was a very straightforward and very profound one. It was whether to honor the agreement that his predecessor had made and keep the word of the United States or whether to stay in Afghanistan, tear up that agreement, subject our people there to attacks by the Taliban, and then almost inevitably reescalate the conflict.
We were down--at the time of the agreement in February of 2020, there were something like 15,000 American troops. By the time President Biden came into office, there were only 2,500 American troops. If he had decided to stay, it wasn't a question of, we will just stay with our 2,500 troops; we would have been at war with the Taliban, and we would have inevitably--he, the President, Biden, would have inevitably been in a situation to increase our presence in Afghanistan once again after 20 years.
President Biden decided that our mission there was complete. The original mission, of course, was about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. And he decided that the American people were not prepared to commit to a war that essentially had no end. So that is point one.
Point two: There is no question that the leaving was chaotic and difficult and dangerous, but I think it is important to understand some of the surrounding circumstances. For example, I was one who stood on this floor in June and berated the administration for not moving aggressively enough to get those who helped our troops out.
The Presiding Officer, I think, took that position. Many of us took that position. We were hammering the administration. But then the President met with President Ghani on June 25 in person, and Ghani specifically said: Please don't start that evacuation in a major way because that in itself will lead to the collapse of our government; it will lead to a loss of confidence. So please don't do that.
So then the question became, when, if we withdrew our troops, would the Afghan Government fail? And we are going to be having hearings here this week, next week, the week after, to discuss that very question: What was the intelligence? I am a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, and I can't talk about what I learned from the intelligence officials leading up to August of 2021. But the question is, Did the administration expect the Afghan Government to fall in a matter of days--8 days, I believe? I think clearly they did not. Should they? Was it a failure of intelligence? I don't believe so.
Intelligence is about data. It is about how many troops, how many guns? Who has the arms? Who holds what territory? The most difficult intelligence questions are psychological: Will the Afghan Army fight? Will they have the will to fight? Indeed, the Afghan security forces have fought for years and lost thousands. But when President Ghani fled the country, the government simply collapsed, and the Afghan security forces essentially said: Why should we fight if the government has gone?
I have heard it said that we left--I think my colleague from Wyoming said we left over 200 Americans or 150 trapped. A hundred or so have left in the last few days, left on a charter flight a couple of days ago. Yes, it is more difficult for them to get out, but the administration is working to get them out. The question is, Should the administration have stayed and triggered a possible conflict with the Taliban and attacks by terrorists, which did occur at the gate of the airport, versus the evacuation of everyone? And it was very difficult to determine, A, who these people were, and B, whether or not some of them wanted to leave. They were dual citizens. So that was a difficult decision.
My understanding is that the military advice to the President was that it was in America's interest to abide by the August 31 deadline and continue to work diplomatically to enable American citizens to leave. In fact, my understanding from public reports is the Taliban has essentially said: If you are an American citizen, if you have the paperwork, we will let you leave. So those people weren't trapped.
What bothers me about this conversation is the ignoring of the fact that 124,000 people were evacuated in 18 days, the largest airlift in history--124,000 people, including about 6,000 Americans, people from NATO, our NATO allies, and thousands of Afghans who were those people who assisted us.
Did we get them all out? I doubt it. But I can remember, as I am sure the Presiding Officer can, earlier this year, we were talking about 18,000 of those SIVs. We got out 124,000 people. It was a logistical-- it was an incredible logistical and diplomatic achievement.
There are plenty of questions left. There are questions to be answered. My problem is concluding that it was a disaster, concluding that the President did it all wrong, concluding and reaching conclusions without the facts. Let's have our hearings. Let's find out what actually happened. What was the intelligence? What did the administration know? What was the basis of the military advice to leave on August 31?
But also, part of the facts is what was achieved: 124,000 people who are now being housed and fed and vetted and treated for, examined for medical conditions. It is an amazing logistical achievement.
If you are talking about the armed services, let's talk about ready, aim, fire, not ready, fire, aim. Let's hold our fire until we understand what actually happened. I believe that is what we should do in this country responsibly rather than immediately going on the offensive and declaring the President incompetent and a disaster and should resign and all of those things.
We ought to understand what actually happened, and we will. That is our role. We should work through the process of gaining the facts before we draw the conclusions that I have heard drawn over the last week.
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