Congress' new Afghanistan challenge: Bipartisan oversight of Biden's Pentagon
Democrats and Republicans want to grill Pentagon brass about missteps in pulling out of Afghanistan, particularly abandoning the Bagram airbase.
By ANDREW DESIDERIO and LARA SELIGMAN
09/14/2021 05:46 AM EDT
A new chapter in the turbulent U.S. exit from Afghanistan starts this week, as Congress mounts a bipartisan search for answers from a Biden administration that shrugged off second-guessing while its withdrawal went fatally awry.
Angry lawmakers are gearing up to grill the Pentagon’s top brass on what they see as a series of missteps that preceded the chaotic pullout from the war-torn country. Despite the political downside to criticizing a president from their own party when his approval ratings are wobbling, some Democrats are ready to work with the GOP to force the Pentagon to explain some of its seminal decisions in the final weeks of the withdrawal.
On the House Armed Services Committee, members of both parties have homed in on the choice to hand over Bagram Airbase, the main military airfield in Afghanistan, to the Afghans before the withdrawal was complete. Senate Foreign Relations Chair Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) is among the senior lawmakers already suggesting that the administration lied to Congress about the capabilities of Afghan military and security forces that failed to stave off a Taliban insurgency.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/14/congress-afghanistan-bipartisan-biden-511718
