US Senator and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said Sunday that President Joe Biden is “devoid of reality” after he failed to accept partial responsibility for the Afghanistan withdrawal.
Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union”, McCaul said in response to a question on Biden’s remarks following the release of the State Department’s report that the US president was unaware of what was happening on the ground and wanted to “sweep Afghanistan under the rug”.
McCaul also said the report was very damaging and “found that we should not have abandoned Bagram where we have over $7 billion of taxpayer weapons left behind that now, by the way, the Taliban are selling to our adversaries like Iran and the Palestinians against Israel. This is a huge foreign policy blunder.”
“It’s a bit bizarre to me that a president would be so devoid of his own foreign policy and he just really wants to sweep Afghanistan under the rug,” McCaul said.
This comes after the US State Department report, released to the House Foreign Affairs Committee late last month, concluded that both the Biden and Trump administrations contributed to the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. Investigators said the State Department’s operation “was hindered by the fact that it was unclear who in the Department had the lead.”
The report found the Biden administration failed to mobilize and position the necessary personnel to conduct a smooth evacuation, citing in part the lack of experienced senior leadership and coordination.
When asked whether he takes accountability that mistakes were made “during the withdrawal and before,” Biden said “no.”
“All the evidence is coming back,” Biden told a reporter. “Do you remember what I said about Afghanistan? I said al-Qaeda would not be there. I said it wouldn’t be there. I said we’d get help from the Taliban. What’s happening now? What’s going on? Read your press. I was right. Thanks.”
Asked by CNN’s anchor Jake Tapper about Biden’s comments, McCaul said: “It is devoid of reality. Jake, it’s a little bit eerie. The president of the United States would have so — be so disillusioned about what is happening on the ground in Afghanistan. The idea that al-Qaeda is gone — his own secretary of defense and Joint Chiefs of Staff — Milley has said al-Qaeda’s on the rise in Afghanistan. [Biden’s] saying they’re gone, he’s saying the Taliban are helping us. What happened right after he withdrew? … You got Haqqani, the Taliban, harboring Zawahiri of al-Qaeda, Bin Laden’s number two guy in Afghanistan right after the fall and now he’s saying ‘I was right, the Taliban is helping us and al-Qaeda is gone.’ I just don’t really understand it.”
