Republicans probe humiliating US retreat from Afghanistan in 2021

Republicans have launched an investigation into the humiliating US withdrawal from Afghanistan by the Biden administration in 2021 after 20 years of war and occupation of the impoverished country.

Michael McCaul, the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said on Friday he had written to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken requesting an array of records, from intelligence assessments to communications with the Taliban, who are now ruling the country. 

"It is absurd and disgraceful that the Biden administration has repeatedly denied our longstanding oversight requests and continues to withhold information related to the withdrawal," said McCaul, a longstanding opposition member on the panel who became its chairman after the House flipped to Republican control at the start of the year.

"In the event of continued noncompliance, the committee will use the authorities available to it to enforce these requests as necessary, including through a compulsory process."

The US invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, despite the fact that no Afghan national was involved in the attacks. Hundreds of thousands of Afghans died in the US war of aggression on the country.

American forces had occupied the country for about two decades on the pretext of fighting against the Taliban. But as the US forces left Afghanistan, the Taliban stormed into the capital Kabul in August 2021, weakened by continued foreign occupation.

Republicans seemed to be more concerned about 13 American troops who were killed on August 26, 2021 in a bombing outside Kabul's airport as the capital fell, rather than the two-decade-long occupation of the country. 

The chaotic US military retreat from Afghanistan preceded a sharp drop in President Joe Biden's approval ratings, nine months after he was declared the winner of the disputed November 2020 presidential election, which former President Donald Trump said was rigged in favor of Biden. 

ME