House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is demanding an investigation into the way President Biden is handling the crisis in Afghanistan after the Taliban took control of the government following the U.S. military withdrawal from the war-torn nation.
Sunday evening Mcarthy told Punchbowl News that Biden’s decision earlier this year to pull thousands of U.S. troops from Afghanistan was a”mistake that will haunt us for decades” and referenced the president’s target date to have troops out by Sep 11.
Mcarthy voiced, it was a mistake to pull U.S troops out of Afghanistan “during the summer when the Taliban is at their height.”
Mcarthy specified he wants an investigation digging into what the American and allied intelligence community were aware of in the weeks and months preceding the Taliban’s attack on the Afghan government.
Several other leading Republicans including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky). and former President Trump, have publicly criticized Biden’s policy decisions.
Over the weekend as the situation in Afghanistan grew more volatile by the hour, the President announced that the U.S. would send 1,000 more troops to Afghanistan to assist with evacuating U.S. personnel.
“Over our country’s 20 years at war in Afghanistan, America has sent it’s finest young men and women, invested nearly $1 trillion dollars, trained over 300,000 Afghan soldiers and police, equipped them with state-of-the-art equipment, and maintained their air force as part of the longest war in U.S. history,” Biden said Saturday in a statement announcing the move. “One more year, or five more years, of U.S. military presence would not have made a difference if the Afghan military cannot or will not hold its own country. And an endless American presence in the middle of another country’s civil conflict was not acceptable to me.”
The White House has deflected blame for the fall of the Afghan government to Trump, with Biden claiming the previous administration left the Taliban “in the strongest position militarily since 2001.”
“How does the rest of the world look at us?” minority leader Mcarthy said, “They like that the president doesn’t tweet, but they don’t think America is very tough.”
