Two years after the botched U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, military veteran Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Calif., reflected on the strategic and tactical "failures" by President Biden's administration that left 13 U.S. service members dead.
On "Sunday Night in America," Garcia pointed to several missteps he argues were apparent during the "flawed" operation as host Trey Gowdy called the process "embarrassing" and "unfit for a superpower."
"The fact that we communicated the withdrawal in advance, and gave them a prescribed date with an unconditional withdrawal commitment, the fact that we abandoned Bagram in the middle of the night, leaving our Afghan partners completely off kilter and unaware that we were doing that, releasing hundreds, if not thousands of prisoners," Garcia said. "The fact that we pulled the troops out before we pulled American civilians out, and the fact that we left hundreds, if not thousands of Americans behind, were very self-evident at the time, but this more subtle lesson learned, that we were so hell-bent to make sure that this was a diplomatic mission that we didn't put the resources on the ground necessary to truly protect our troops."
Garcia criticized the Biden administration's decision to maintain operation control under the State Department instead of transitioning to the Department of Defense (D.O.D.), which he argued would have better protected American and Afghan lives.
"We failed to pivot into a D.O.D. mindset with a D.O.D. Operational Control Authority under the Secretary of Defense. This is the fault not only of the president, but also Secretary of State Blinken, and most importantly, in my opinion, Secretary of Defense Austin, who didn't have the courage to assert himself," he said. "This weekend, as you know, we honor the 13 service members who died as a result of this very important strategic failure and there were a lot of tactical failures beneath that, but they all stemmed from the fact that this was not a military operation, this was a State Department diplomatic mission from day one, and it never transitioned."
AFGHANISTAN WITHDRAWAL: A POLITICAL TURNING POINT FOR WAY PUBLIC FELT ABOUT BIDEN
Gowdy asked Garcia if it was still worthwhile to debate the Biden administration's decision to withdraw or focus primarily on how the withdrawal was conducted. Garcia acknowledged that it was "popular" and "legitimate" to say it was time to withdraw. However, he added, "the extent to which you withdraw matters."
"We all know the way we withdrew was the wrong way, and that's why we lost so many lives and left so many folks behind. And now there's literally hundreds and thousands of Afghan partners being killed on a daily basis under this current Afghan Taliban regime," he said.
Eleven Marines, one Army soldier and one Navy personnel were killed during the suicide bombing at Kabul's airport on Aug. 26, 2021.
Families of the 13 U.S. service members came before Congress together for the first time earlier this month to seek answers about their loved ones’ deaths. Several called out President Biden and his top Cabinet officials by name, accusing them of lying about the circumstances surrounding the attack and calling on them to resign.
A Defense Department official said of the testimony, "The Department of Defense expresses our deepest condolences to the Gold Star Families who lost loved ones during the tragic bombing at Abbey Gate. We are forever grateful for their service, sacrifice, and committed efforts during the evacuation operations. We also commend the historic and monumental efforts of all our service men and women who served honorably during the withdrawal period from Afghanistan."
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Fox News' Lawrence Richard and Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report.
