The former U.S. commander who oversaw the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan said Tuesday that he alone bears responsibility for the American soldiers killed during the attack at Kabul’s airport.
“I was the overall commander and I and I alone bear full military responsibility for what happened at Abbey Gate,” said former Retired Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., who served as commander of U.S. Central Command from 2019 to 2022, during a congressional hearing.
Gold Star families who lost their loved ones during the Abbey Gate attack attended a hearing Tuesday by the GOP-led House Foreign Affairs Committee focused on an assessment of the Biden administration’s withdrawal. The attack by the Islamic State terrorist group outside the airport at Abbey Gate killed 13 U.S. service members and 170 Afghan civilians on Aug. 26, 2021. The troops were helping people evacuate from the country when the attack happened.
The hearing also featured testimony from Retired Gen. Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Lawmakers hoped the two retired generals could be more candid and share more information now that they’re no longer in uniform.
“We owe them answers,” Milley said about the Gold Star families in his opening statement, promising to help them understand what happened. “I will honor that commitment to get you the answers to get you to the truth.”
When McKenzie and Milley still held those roles, they testified before Congress about the chaotic withdrawal about a month after troops pulled out. They revealed then that they had recommended to President Joe Biden that the U.S. keep 2,500 troops in Afghanistan even after the Aug. 31, 2021 withdrawal deadline that was set.
Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, has been critical of the Biden administration’s execution of the military pullout and has been seeking certain documents from that period, and afterward, that could shed light on intelligence and the communication among U.S. officials in the run-up to the withdrawal in Aug. 2021.
Earlier this month, McCaul postponed a planned markup to hold Secretary of State Antony Blinken in contempt of Congress for failing to turn over relevant documents. The chairman said Blinken agreed to provide the records.
“I had a good conversation with the secretary last night and he agreed to produce the documents,” McCaul said. “In the spirit of good faith negotiations, I’ve postponed the markup — with the understanding that these documents will be produced. I’ve been told we will start to get them this morning. Our teams are working to facilitate that. These documents will provide crucial information for our investigation. I take the secretary at his word that we will get all these documents. But if the situation changes, I will have to revisit all our options to ensuring they are produced.”
The documents were from internal interviews the State Department conducted for its after-action review of the Afghanistan withdrawal. McCaul subpoenaed them in July 2023 after first requesting them in January 2023.
McCaul had also previously threatened to hold Blinken in contempt over the State Department not sharing a 2021 diplomatic cable in which 23 U.S. diplomats warned of Kabul’s potential collapse post-withdrawal. Ultimately, the State Department allowed McCaul to view the dissent cable and its response.
In April 2023, the White House released a report that evaluated the withdrawal in which the administration largely blamed former President Donald Trump’s administration for what unfolded as the U.S. left Afghanistan. Trump, meanwhile, often chastises Biden for his handling of the withdrawal.
