[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 157 (Monday, September 13, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6445-S6446]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Afghanistan

  Madam President, now I want to talk about the fall of Afghanistan. It 
is the thing that people in Wyoming want to talk about. They want to 
talk about Rylee, and they want to talk about what happened in 
Afghanistan.
  Over the last 20 years, nearly 2,500 Americans gave their lives in 
Afghanistan. Our mission in Afghanistan was twofold: first, to kill the 
terrorists who attacked us on 9/11/2001, and, second, to take away the 
safe haven where terrorists planned attacks on America.
  For the last 20 years, both missions were a success. Yet, in a matter 
of just weeks, everything changed, and they changed because of the 
complete incompetence of President Joe Biden. Because of that 
incompetence, the Taliban are stronger today than they were 20 years 
ago. They are stronger than ever. Afghanistan is now a safe haven for 
terrorists, and America is more at risk to terrorists today than it has 
been in two decades.
  Afghanistan fell because President Biden paid exclusive attention to 
the calendar on the wall instead of the conditions on the ground. Joe 
Biden set an arbitrary political deadline of August 31.
  The President wanted symbolism for September 11. Well, he got 
symbolism, but it wasn't what he wanted. It was the kind of symbolism 
that terrorists wanted.
  Now, in April, when President Biden announced his deadline, I warned 
this would happen. I said, if we pulled out, the Taliban would take 
over. Leader McConnell and other Senate Republicans came and warned the 
President as well. Some of the top generals in our military warned the 
President also. Yet President Biden stubbornly refused to listen. He 
refused to listen to his military and refused to listen to his national 
security advisers.
  Our enemies knew we were leaving, and so they were on the offense. In 
a matter of weeks, Afghanistan fell to the Taliban. It was predictable, 
and it was preventable.
  When Kabul fell, President Biden was on vacation. So were the 
Secretary of State and the White House Press Secretary. When British 
Prime Minister Boris Johnson tried to reach President Biden, he had to 
wait 36 hours. When the Canadian Prime Minister wanted to discuss 
Afghanistan, he couldn't get through to President Biden, but he got 
through to Hillary Clinton. The White House was asleep at the switch, 
and the White House switchboard was turned off to our closest allies.
  Even after Kabul fell, President Biden stuck with his reckless and 
dangerous deadline, and as a result, President Biden has abandoned 
hundreds of Americans behind enemy lines. Many are still trapped there 
right now. I can't imagine any other President in the history of our 
country doing that, abandoning Americans behind enemy lines.
  He also abandoned thousands of Afghan people who have helped us over 
the years. They helped our troops. That even includes an interpreter 
who helped save the President's life when he visited Afghanistan as a 
Senator. Many of these people are going to be killed by terrorists. 
President Biden signed their death warrants.
  This is worse than Benghazi. This is worse than the Iranian hostage 
crisis. This is worse than the withdrawal from Vietnam. To me, this is 
America's worst national humiliation in more than 50 years. Simply 
stated, the fall of Afghanistan is a dereliction of duty--a dereliction 
of duty--by the Commander in Chief.
  Joe Biden ran for President on two things. One, he raced on 
competence, and on foreign policy expertise. He has failed this entire 
Nation on both.
  Nearly every prediction that President Biden made about Afghanistan 
has proven to be wrong.
  On July 8, President Biden said there would be ``no circumstance''--
no circumstance--``where you [would] see people being lifted off the 
roof of the embassy of the United States from Afghanistan.'' Just 5 
weeks later, that is exactly the video of what the world saw.
  President Biden claimed al-Qaida is gone from Afghanistan. Just hours 
later, the Pentagon had to admit that what the President said was not 
true. The President had lied to the American people. ISIS fighters are 
also in Afghanistan. They are the ones who killed the 13 
servicemembers. Russians and Iranians are also in Afghanistan.
  The President's hasty withdrawal left behind billions of dollars' 
worth of American weapons. Now it is all property of the terrorists. 
Joe Biden armed the terrorists beyond their wildest dreams. In total, 
the Taliban has seized more than 600,000 American weapons; 2,000 
armored vehicles--humvees, American tanks; and 40 aircraft, including 
Black Hawk helicopters. Because of the incompetence of President Biden, 
the Taliban is now the best armed terrorist group in history. President 
Biden surrendered to the terrorists, and now the terrorists will be 
coming for us.
  I join with my fellow Republicans in demanding a full accounting of 
American military equipment in Afghanistan. President Biden has 
absolutely no plan to either get the weapons back or to destroy them 
where they are. Instead, President Biden is making excuses. He claims 
he had to follow President Trump's withdrawal agreement. Well, that is 
not true, and we know it. President Trump's plan was conditioned on 
successful peace talks with the Afghan Government. Those talks are 
still unsuccessful.
  President Biden has overturned dozens of policies from the previous 
administration. Let's look at a few of the Trump policies that 
President Biden reversed.
  Well, he reversed the very successful ``Remain in Mexico'' policy, 
which has resulted in a complete collapse of our border security. He 
tried to bring back the Iran deal. He put us back in the Paris accord. 
He rejoined the World Health Organization. So why didn't, then, 
President Biden either enforce the original withdrawal agreement from 
Afghanistan or renegotiate that agreement? He never even tried.
  President Biden even chose to give up Bagram Air Force Base, north of 
Kabul. It is a strategic military location that military leaders will 
tell you should never have been abandoned under any circumstances. It 
is probably the only facility big enough to get every American out 
quickly. We left there in the middle of the night without even telling 
our allies on the ground. The U.S. Senate must investigate why the 
President ordered the military to abandon it.
  The United States, I believe, has a sacred duty to finish the job of 
safely evacuating every American civilian in Afghanistan.
  The President said on national television just a few weeks before the 
collapse that he would not leave Afghanistan and would not follow the 
directive that he had placed, the August 31 deadline, until every 
American was out. Yet, on August 30, he had every American 
servicemember out, and his own Secretary of State said there were still 
up to 200 American citizens trapped behind enemy lines. I believe we 
also have to evacuate the Afghans who risked their lives by providing 
us with assistance.
  I believe the United States must never recognize the Taliban as a 
legitimate government. The Biden administration claimed they would not 
recognize any government which came to power by force in Afghanistan. I 
find it very hard to trust anything that President Biden says anymore.
  Let me conclude with a word about our heroes who served our country 
in Afghanistan. Over my time in the Senate, I visited Afghanistan nine 
times. Each time I go, it is to say ``thank you'' to the men and women 
in uniform who are there. I visit with Wyoming National Guard. I visit 
with Wyoming regular military. Our National Guard, our Cowboy 
Cannoneers, have been deployed to Bagram Air Force Base, and I visited 
with them numerous times over a number of years. To them and to all 
Americans, I say, no matter how disgraceful this withdrawal, no matter 
how incompetent our Commander in Chief, no matter the failures of this 
administration, the truth remains: Our soldiers served with honor, they 
fought with valor, and they have kept us safe and free for the last 20 
years. They are all heroes. We will always--always--hold them in high 
honor.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Mr. KING. Madam President, I have comments today about an 
extraordinary member of the Federal workforce, but before I do, I would 
like to

[[Page S6446]]

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.