4 Jul 2023252
5:18
The Biden administration released a State Department review of its botched Afghanistan withdrawal the Friday before the July Fourth holiday weekend, in what Republicans say was an attempt to bury its release.
The administration also omitted about 60 pages in the version that was released.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) blasted the late release, saying he had called for the administration back in April to release an unclassified version of the review — which was completed in March 2022:
On April 25, I called upon the State Department to declassify its After-Action Review on Afghanistan within 60 days. The department failed to fulfill that request, instead choosing to release only a small portion of that document – 24 of 87 pages that were already unclassified – and completely omitted the narrative which forms the bulk of the report. There is no reason not to produce a declassified version of the full report, as much of it is marked ‘Sensitive but Unclassified’ or ‘Unclassified.’ This is another blatant attempt to hide the Biden administration’s culpability in the chaotic and deadly evacuation from Afghanistan.
Another Republican, House Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee Chairman Mike Waltz, tweeted: “Shameful the Biden Administration would release a damning report on Afghanistan the Friday afternoon of a holiday weekend. Typical DC swamp tactic.”
“Like other Afghanistan-related documents, much of this report remains unnecessarily classified to avoid future embarrassment, transparency, and accountability,” added Waltz, a Green Beret Army National Guard colonel who served in Afghanistan.