[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 144 (Thursday, September 8, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4499-S4500]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              AFGHANISTAN

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, now on another matter, in January 2019, 
a bipartisan supermajority of the Senate voted for an amendment I 
authored warning that the ``. . . precipitous withdrawal of United 
States forces from [Afghanistan] could put at risk hard-won gains and 
United States national security.''
  Two years later, senior experts and advisers repeated the same 
warning to President Biden. His own experts made it clear that a hasty 
retreat from counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan would lead to 
the collapse of the Afghan Government.
  Those warnings, of course, fell on deaf ears. Thirteen American 
servicemembers died fulfilling the Biden administration's rush to 
evacuation. The Taliban now rules again in Kabul, as it did before U.S. 
forces arrived. Now, 1 year on from last August's disaster, the 
devastating scale of the fallout from President Biden's decision has 
come into sharper focus. Afghanistan has become, once again, a global 
pariah. Its economy has shrunk by nearly a third. Half of its 
population is now suffering critical levels of food insecurity. Afghan 
women and girls have had their rights to work, attend school, and live 
independently torn away under Taliban rule. And just as we feared, just 
as was predicted, Afghanistan is again becoming a serious haven for 
terrorists.
  The recent American strike that took out al-Qaida's leader al-
Zawahiri is a credit to decades of work by the professionals of our 
intelligence community.
  Ah, but the fact that a terrorist kingpin felt comfortable in Kabul 
just months after America's withdrawal is a damning condemnation of the 
Biden administration's unjustified confidence that the Taliban could be 
trusted not to lay out the welcome mat for our most consequential 
terrorist enemies.
  The strike was a success, but the underlying fact that President 
Biden's policies led this top terrorist to set up shop with impunity 
right in downtown Kabul is a colossal failure.
  In fact, just weeks before the strike that killed Zawahiri, when the 
administration already knew full well that the Taliban government and 
senior Haqqani terrorists were harboring him, the administration 
still--still--released another hardened terrorist from Guantanamo and 
returned him into the Taliban's waiting arms.
  So al-Qaida is rebuilding under the patronage of the Taliban and the 
Haqqanis. There is no question that so-called over-the-horizon 
counterterrorism operations are becoming much more difficult. Senior 
administration officials have acknowledged that our intelligence about 
the growing threat is drying up--so is our ability to combat it.
  And the damage, the fallout, isn't limited just to Afghanistan 
itself. America's reckless abandonment has done lasting damage to the 
coalition partnerships that had made our operations there so 
successful. President Biden showed America's allies we couldn't be 
trusted or reasoned with, and he showed our adversaries the weakness of 
our resolve. There is no question in my mind that Russian, Chinese, and 
Iranian leaders watched us retreat from Afghanistan and, of course, 
were emboldened.
  I advised three consecutive Presidents not to withdraw from 
Afghanistan--three of them. I believed a small residual presence was 
sustainable, would help us keep pressure on the terrorists, and protect 
us here at home.
  Gen. Frank McKenzie, CENTCOM commander during the withdrawal, has 
said repeatedly that he voiced the very same view to President Biden.
  But even now, a year after the President's orders were carried out, 
the Biden administration continues to shirk accountability and 
responsibility.
  The fact that their haphazard scramble required an unprecedented 
airlift was not a success; it was a failure. The fact that over a year 
later, the administration still cannot really account for who they 
brought into our country, while both Americans and vulnerable Afghan 
partners still remain in Afghanistan as we speak, is not a success; it 
is a failure.
  President Biden has rejected practically every part of his 
predecessor's agenda, foreign and domestic, but he pretends he was 
somehow powerless to alter the previous administration's Doha agreement 
to pull out of Afghanistan--the one time President Biden decided the 
previous President had it right. Of course, the truth is that President 
Biden wanted to withdraw from Afghanistan. He campaigned on it. 
According to public reports, he spent the entire Obama administration 
pushing back against the generals' advice not to cut and run. And once 
in office himself, he pushed ahead.
  Senate Republicans will continue to press for accountability, will 
continue to pursue answers to tough questions about why the Biden 
administration

[[Page S4500]]

ran headfirst--headfirst--into this national embarrassment. Just as 
importantly, we will also keep pushing to rebuild America's military, 
both to meet major threats from Russia and China and to defend the 
terrorist challenges President Biden has left to fester.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection.

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