WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, today released the following statement on the U.S. Army’s investigation into the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan last year:
“Reports regarding the U.S. Army’s investigation into the botched Afghanistan evacuation mirror the findings in my report released last week. The Biden Administration failed to heed intelligence warnings about a speedy Taliban takeover and discounted reports from the ground on the deteriorating situation, senior leadership did not properly plan for an evacuation which resulted in the disastrous effort that left thousands of Americans and partners behind, and the administration failed to coordinate with our allies, seriously damaging our reputation. While this administration continues to try to put its botched withdrawal in the rearview mirror, it is important to examine the failures of leadership so they will not be repeated.”
Last week, Senator Risch published a report entitled “ Left Behind: A Brief Assessment of the Biden Administration’s Strategic Failures during the Afghanistan Evacuation,” to give an overview of what went wrong in the planning and execution of the Biden Administration’s hazardous withdrawal from Afghanistan. A copy of the report can be found here.
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