Ensuring Accountability for Key Officials in the Biden-Harris Administration Responsible for Decisionmaking and Execution Failures Throughout the Withdrawal From Afghanistan

Floor Speech

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Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, a decade ago, we faced a tough situation in Afghanistan. We could have stayed indefinitely at a cost of $50 billion a year and perhaps a dozen casualties a year, but then Donald Trump promised the American people that we would withdraw and that, at that point, it was no longer a possibility that America would remain indefinitely.

So what was accomplished during the Obama administration in Afghanistan? One important thing: We got bin Laden. What was accomplished during the Biden administration? A very difficult withdrawal, one of the most difficult military maneuvers carried out early in the Biden administration. Not only did we withdraw our troops, but we were able to get out perhaps 100,000 others. It was a difficult maneuver accomplished, but not without casualties.

What did we get under the Trump administration? Nothing, except he was able to sign a surrender agreement toward the end of his administration that he could have signed at the beginning of his administration.

This resolution is entirely appropriate if you change one thing: Condemn not that list of people to which they added Harris at the end; condemn one man, Donald J. Trump.

During his Presidency, 63 Americans died in Afghanistan, 57 of them returned to dignified return ceremonies that Donald Trump was too busy to attend. He was busy golfing instead.

During his Presidency, his golf handicap did not suffer, but 57 American widows and fathers and mothers and families suffered as they saw the coffins brought back to America and a President too busy to be there.

What did we accomplish for the $200 billion that Donald Trump spent for the 63 who died? We signed a surrender document.

Now, I know they will say there are all kinds of wonderful things in the document. It is nothing but meaningless promises with no enforcement provisions, but don't take my word for it.

Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, Trump's National Security Advisor said, our Secretary of State, Mr. Pompeo, signed a surrender agreement with the Taliban.

Why surrender after you lose the 63 lives? Why not surrender in 2017? That is because withdrawals are difficult; surrender documents easier. Trump signed the surrender document and then left it to his successor to accomplish the withdrawal.

So we are told, oh, well, Donald Trump somehow would have enforced these meaningless conditions all without enforcement provisions. That is not what he would have done.

What does John Bolton, Donald Trump's other National Security Advisor, say. He said, had Donald Trump been reelected, he would have been doing the same thing on the question of withdrawal from Afghanistan.

But don't trust his staff. What did Donald Trump say? Donald Trump said in October of 2020, after the 5,000 Taliban fighters had been released because of Donald Trump's decision, he said, without any of the conditions having been met, that he would have all those troops home by Christmas 2020.

Those conditions were meaningless. They were meaningless to Donald Trump. They were meaningless to his National Security Advisor. They had no enforcement provisions in them.

Why did we stay in Afghanistan past 2017? So that Donald Trump didn't have to accomplish the withdrawal that was so difficult and for which he produced no plan.

We lost $200 billion, we lost 63 lives, we sent over $10 billion worth of our equipment that was spread all over Afghanistan with no prospect of recovering it, knowing that the Taliban would get it. We did all that during the Trump administration.

Now, we are having a partisan resolution as to who is at fault? The man who keeps our troops there, has 63 casualties, spends $200 billion, signs a surrender agreement, announces he is not going to enforce the provisions, and now we have this.

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Mr. SHERMAN. At least Mr. Trump was able to golf and didn't have to go to the return ceremonies.

I would say that once you force the release of 5,000 Taliban fighters, it is very difficult to say things are condition-based because at that point, the Taliban has those 5,000 fighters and is able to inflict hundreds and hundreds of casualties on our forces unless they withdraw.

This was not a condition-based document. It was, in the words of General McMaster, a surrender, and the surrender was in the fourth year of the Trump administration.

Mr. Speaker, 63 of our finest died. Let us have a resolution condemning the one man who should be condemned: Donald J. Trump.

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Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, some say that we should have left Americans there for this or that reason or the Taliban are doing this or the Taliban are doing that.

They are saying that Biden should have left those Americans there to die at the hands of the 5,000 Taliban fighters that Donald Trump had released.

How many hundreds would have died if they had stayed there? I don't know. Once you put 5,000 fighting Taliban into Kabul, I think at that point, it is hard to insist on conditions.

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