Sen. Bob Menendez, chairman of the committee and a Democrat from New Jersey, said he was “very disappointed” that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin did not come to the hearing.“A full accounting of the U S response to this crisis is not complete without the Pentagon, especially when it comes to understanding the complete collapse of the U.S. trained and funded Afghan military. His decision not to appear before the committee will affect my personal judgment on Department of Defense nominees,” Menendez said.“I expect the secretary will avail himself to the committee in the near future and if he does not, I may consider the use of committee subpoena power to compel him and others over the course of these last 20 years to testify,” he added.
2. Sen. Cruz Compares President Biden to President Carter
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called the Afghanistan withdrawal a “disaster” and outlined four mistakes he thought the administration had made:
- President Biden and the Biden administration have presided over the worst foreign policy catastrophe in a generation.Americans across the nation are horrified. Our service men and women, our active duty military are angry, they’re disillusioned, and they’re frustrated. Our enemies across the globe are emboldened, which makes the world more dangerous today for America, and our allies are dispirited.Ever since the disaster began unfolding in Afghanistan, we’ve seen the Biden administration making political excuses. We’ve seen Democrats on this committee explaining at great length, how everything that happened in Afghanistan is [former President Donald] Trump’s fault. It’s all Trump’s fault. Mr. Secretary, Joe Biden is the president of the United States, Kamala Harris is the vice president of the United States, you are the United States secretary of state.Just like [former President] Jimmy Carter owns the disaster of the Iran hostage crisis, you own this. The Biden administration caused this disaster.It was caused by two things. Number one: ideological naivete, and extremism. Repeatedly, Mr. Secretary, in this hearing and also on multiple conference calls over the last month, you keep saying things like the steps the Taliban needs to take to be welcomed into the community of civilized nations.Mr. Secretary, they don’t want to be welcomed into the community of civilized nations. They are terrorists who want to murder us. This administration doesn’t understand that. Joe Biden doesn’t understand that. But sadly, that ideological extremism was combined with manifest incompetence.There were four decisions this administration made that I think were utterly indefensible. Number one, abandoning the Bagram Airfield, giving it to the Taliban. That is a decision that a hundred years from now will be studied at war colleges as a colossal strategic mistake—giving up two secure airfields, necessitating an evacuation from a dense urban environment, a commercial airport, which led tragically to the suicide bombings and murders that killed 13 American service men and women. Had we been evacuating from Bagram with a secure perimeter, the odds are quite high that attack either wouldn’t have happened, or if it had happened it would have been far less severe in its consequences.Secondly, the Biden administration giving the Taliban a list of Americans and of Afghans we wanted out. Third, the decision to leave Americans behind. Hundreds of Americans, perhaps more, perhaps thousands, thousands of green card holders, tens of thousands of Afghans who assisted the U.S. military—the Biden administration abandoned them and left them behind.And fourth, leaving billions of dollars of American military equipment that the Taliban will now use to threaten our lives. Earlier in this hearing, you said about that equipment quote, none of it poses a strategic threat to us or their neighbors. That does not pass the laugh test. When you’re looking at the Taliban potentially having 64,000 machine guns, 33 Black Hawk helicopters, 16,000 night vision goggles.We will see American blood spilled because of these colossal mistakes.
3. Sen. Rubio Asks Why Biden Administration Didn’t Anticipate Kabul Collapse