Unanimous Consent Requests--Executive Calendar

Floor Speech

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Mr. HAWLEY. Reserving the right to object, I appreciate the earnestness on this issue from my friend and colleague the Senator from New Jersey. He mentions that something could happen in the world, that something will happen in the world. Something, I submit to you, has happened in the world, and today we have been learning about it. I am talking about the crisis in Afghanistan, the debacle in Afghanistan.

All day, the Senate has been hearing testimony in the Armed Services Committee from Secretary Austin, from General Milley, and from General McKenzie about how it came to be that 13 American servicemembers are dead, 169 civilians killed, and hundreds of Americans left behind enemy lines there as we still speak--the greatest foreign policy crisis that this country has seen since Vietnam. And those aren't my words; those are the words--the comparison of the Democratic members of the committee who repeatedly referenced today Vietnam, the fall of Saigon. That is the level of crisis that we are dealing with.

What accountability has there been for this crisis, for this debacle? Because ``crisis'' isn't even quite the right word. That sounds like a natural disaster, as if it accidentally happened. That is not the case. This is a debacle, a failure of leadership in the first order, and what accountability has there been for it? Who has resigned? Who has been fired? Who has been relieved of command? Nobody. What actions have the administration taken? None.

What does Secretary Austin say today? He says: Well, we will take a hard look at ourselves, and we will ask some tough questions.

Mr. President, that is not nearly good enough. Americans are dead. Americans are stranded behind enemy lines. Our foreign policies are in a state of collapse. Our national security is in a state of collapse. Enemies around the world are watching what is happening in Afghanistan, are seeing an opportunity as the United States shows weakness and disarray and chaos. There must be accountability.

Let me say something more about what we learned today because we did learn quite a lot, and all of it is frightening. We learned that the President of the United States lied. He lied when he said to the American people in an interview on television just a few weeks ago that he was never told by any of his military advisers--never told that a drawdown on this timetable, his timetable, would result in catastrophe.

He was asked by George Stephanopoulos:

Your top military advisers warned against withdrawing on this [timetable]. They wanted you to keep about 2,500 troops.

President Biden:

No, they didn't.

Stephanopoulos:

They didn't tell you that they wanted troops to stay?

President Biden:

No.

Stephanopoulos:

So no one told--your military advisers did not tell you, ``No, we should just keep 2,500 troops.''

President Biden:

No. No one said that to me that I can recall.

Today, we heard from General Milley, General McKenzie, and Secretary Austin, who--each of them said that they advised the President--it was their considered military judgment that the President's plans were mistaken. They advised against it. They advised him against it. Yet he said: No, no one ever told me. I am not responsible. No one ever told me.

We also learned this: We learned that the President lied when he said that he had no idea that the Taliban would take over the country in such a short time period.

From the same interview, George Stephanopoulos said to President Biden:

Back in July, you said a Taliban takeover was highly unlikely. Was the intelligence wrong, or did you downplay it?

Biden said: No. I think that there was no consensus. If you go back and look, they said it is not going to happen.

Stephanopoulos:

[But] you didn't put a timeline on it when you said it was highly unlikely. You just flat out [said], ``It's highly unlikely the Taliban would take over.''

President Biden said:

Yeah.

We learned today, in fact, that his commander on the ground, General Miller, warned as early as March, March of this year, that the military situation in Afghanistan was deteriorating rapidly; that the Taliban was on the offensive; that the drawdown of American troops would likely result in the collapse of the Afghan Government and the Afghan security forces sooner rather than later. It was going to come fast is what General Miller said. Yet the President says no one ever told him that. He never knew about it. In fact, his own commanders on the ground warned him about it.

What was the consequence of this? Well, the President is either forgetting or ignoring or just outright lying about what he was advised by his own commanders.

His administration was failing to plan for the collapse of the Afghan security forces. We learned that today too. Secretary Austin said: We just didn't plan for a scenario of an Afghan security forces collapse. We didn't plan for it.

Why didn't they plan for it? Why isn't somebody being held accountable for it?

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan has been warning for years that the Afghan security forces were not ready, that they were not well equipped, that they were not well trained, and that they would not likely stand on their own. We know that the commander on the ground shared the same assessment. Yet the administration did not plan for--by their own admission did not plan for the collapse of the Afghan security forces or the collapse of the Afghan Government, which also meant that they did not order the evacuation of American civilians in time. They dilly-dallied. They waited. They dithered. They did not order the evacuation in time. They waited until the middle of August to undertake an evacuation of civilians in earnest, after American troops had withdrawn from the country. No wonder there was chaos in Kabul. No wonder there was a total disaster. That is the administration's fault. They waited because they hadn't planned. They waited because apparently they were fighting among themselves--the State Department, Defense Department, the White House--all fighting because President Biden wasn't leading. It was a total debacle, total chaos.

My friend the Senator from New Jersey quite reasonably wants to know, what is the connection? Why I am objecting to these nominees? Why do I want a vote?

Here is the connection: It is about accountability. No one has been held accountable. I note the Senator wants to hear from Secretary Austin in his committee. He should hear from the Secretary in his committee because what we learned today contradicts quite a lot of the testimony that the Secretary of State gave to the Senator from New Jersey and his committee earlier--quite a lot of contradictions. He is quite right to want to hear from Secretary Austin.

We need to do more than hear from him; we need to have accountability for what has happened. Until we get that accountability, until someone is held responsible, until there is some turn, some change, some shift in policy--and I have called for the resignations of General Milley, Secretary Austin, Secretary Blinken, and the national security advisers, all of whom planned and executed this operation. Until there is accountability, I think the least the Senate can do is actually vote, take at least a vote on this floor for nominees to leadership position at the State Department and the Department of Defense.

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