'Fox News Sunday' on August 13, 2023
Interview
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Hi, Shannon.
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I will not rest until we do get answers and accountability and transparency as to what happened. How did this go so wrong? And the Gold Star families are the best, you know, witnesses to this nightmare. They lost their 13 servicemen and women, Abbey Gate. We had the testimony of Tyler Vargas-Andrews, who said, "I had the suicide bomber in my sights, but I was not given permission to engage him." And after that, the bomb went off killing 170 people, 13 servicemen and women.
And Shannon, this is sort of news breaking. We just have reported today a member of my staff Jerry Dunleavy with his book, "Kabul", that U.S. intelligence had ISIS-K in their sights, knowing they were plotting to take out Abbey Gate on the very same day that it was taken down when the suicide bomber went off. They asked the Taliban to go in, our U.S. military, the Taliban denied. U.S. intelligence requested an airstrike. Guess what, that airstrike was denied, was denied to go in and take out the very forces that then killed our 13 servicemen and women. This story gets worse by the day. And I will not rest until we get to the bottom of it.
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Well, it was the general on the ground, Mr. Donahue, it would be General McKenzie who is in charge of SITCOM in the operation, it goes all the way up, you know, Shannon, to General Milley and in his decision making, and the Secretary Defense.
We've been denied access to these witnesses. And we're prepared to go forward with subpoenas to get to the bottom, because these Gold Star families that you just showed deserve the truth as to what happened to make sure this never happens again.
But this was not a clean operation, this was not a successful evacuation by any stretch of the imagination. And the Taliban was put in charge. And in my judgment, that was the worst mistake of all, was to put them in charge and not our U.S. military to evacuate U.S. citizens and our partners that fought so bravely with us.
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I'm prepared in my position to put a hold on this funding until we get assurances it's not going right into the hands of the Taliban, that by the way, Shannon, are oppressing women, they can't go out of their homes, they can't get educated. Women can even be hired by these NGO, these charitable organizations in Afghanistan, and we're paying the money. The U.S. taxpayers funding this, we need some assurance that this is going to go to the right hands, and it's going to help the women in Afghanistan, and if the Taliban cannot assure us that, I think we need to be prepared to cut that funding off as a stick, rather than giving them just a carrot.
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Well, I -- you know, look, you know, Reagan said trust but verify. But I have to use the word naivete. I -- look, these are like accounts in South Korea frozen assets going to Switzerland and to Doha, Qatar, to then go into Iran, the idea that the Ayatollah is not going to have any control over this money -- and by the way, we're talking about $6 billion, right? $6 billion under Obama, it was $400 million of cash and airplanes that went into Iran.
Look, I want to get these Americans home more than anybody. And one of them is a critical asset. I agree with that. But we have to go in eyes wide open. $6 billion that now is going to go into Iran and prop up their proxy war, terror operations, and their nuclear bomb aspirations. They are now starting to talk about the JCPOA all over again, which in my judgment, will lead us down a course to a legal nuclear bomb in Iran. Prime Minister Netanyahu came out strongly against this. I think we're going back to the mistakes of the past.
And finally, Shannon, get this, our special envoy to Iran to negotiate the JCPOA is under investigation for mishandling classified information. He has the most sensitive information as our top negotiator to Iran, and to the Ayatollah, now under investigation for mishandling classified information, very troubling story.
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Thanks, Shannon, thanks for having me.
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