Military brass dodge blowback, consequences from Afghanistan withdrawal debacle

Britain’s foreign secretary faced a severe demotion. The Dutch defense minister resigned.

But in Washington, six weeks after the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan sparked a rapid Taliban takeover, there have been no firings or high-level resignations, nor have any key figures faced true accountability for a series of deadly mistakes that raised serious questions about America’s foreign policy competence.

Top Defense Department officials appeared before Congress for a second time Wednesday in what essentially amounted to two straight days of political theater, with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley and other military officials batting down calls for their resignations and seeking to downplay obvious disagreements with President Biden over whether to leave troops in Afghanistan. 

So far, the fallout from the disastrous exit has amounted to little more than responsibility-dodging by some officials and stunning assertions from others that the U.S.-led pullout was actually in many ways a success.

That lack of accountability sparked anger in some military quarters, with a host of retired officers calling for top officials to resign and at least one Marine Corps battalion commander issuing a fiery condemnation of the Afghan withdrawal that ultimately led to his dismissal.

While some lawmakers have called on Secretary of State Antony Blinken and even Mr. Biden himself to resign, most of the outrage has centered on Mr. Austin and Gen. Milley. Both men have made clear during two days of congressional testimony that they advised the president to scrap his arbitrary withdrawal timeline and adopt a conditions-based approach that would have kept at least 2,500 U.S. personnel in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future.

But some lawmakers argue they should have resigned in protest when the president brushed aside that advice. Other critics say they should step down for failing to have in place a better plan to evacuate American diplomats, Afghan translators, and other non-military personnel in the event the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban took control of Kabul. Such a scenario became reality on Aug. 15 and the U.S. military spent the next two weeks dependent on the Taliban for security at the overwhelmed Kabul airport. Thirteen American service members were killed during an Aug. 26 terrorist attack at that facility.

Top Pentagon officials have stressed that no one anticipated such a rapid collapse of the Afghan government and the subsequent chaos. Outraged members of Congress say that’s no excuse and called on both Gen. Milley and Mr. Austin to step down.

“General, I think you should resign. Secretary Austin, I think you should resign. I think this mission was a catastrophe. I think there is no other way to say it and there has to be accountability,” Sen. Josh Hawley, Missouri Republican, said at Tuesday’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. “I respectfully submit it should begin with you. “

Political appointees at the Pentagon have in the past argued that leading military officers should resign when faced with orders they don’t support. In 2018, for example, then-Defense Secretary James Mattis stepped down after former President Trump ordered an abrupt withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Syria.

Current Pentagon spokesman John Kirby, then a commentator for CNN, praised the decision.

“Secretary of Defense James Mattis submitted his resignation on Thursday. It was an honorable thing to do. But it wasn’t much of a choice. He did exactly what military tradition demands when one can’t ethically or morally support the boss anymore,” Mr. Kirby wrote in December 2018. “It’s a wonder, quite frankly, that it took this long. It’s arguably one of the worst kept secrets in town that Mattis has not been aligned with Trump on many policy issues.”

 

’Not going to resign’

It’s clear there was a similar deep disagreement between the top military brass and Mr. Biden over the Afghanistan decision. Gen. Milley and Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie, the head of U.S. Central Command, have said repeatedly this week that they advised against the withdrawal.

Critics believe the officers should have followed Mr. Kirby’s advice and stepped aside.

“Gen. Milley, I can only conclude that your advice about staying in Afghanistan was rejected. … I understand that you’re the principal military advisor, that you advise, you don’t decide. The president decides. But if all this is true, Gen. Milley, why haven’t you resigned?” asked Sen. Tom Cotton, Arkansas Republican.

Gen. Milley offered a fiery response.

“It would be an incredible act of political defiance for a commissioned officer to just resign because my advice was not taken,” he said. “This country does not want generals figuring out what orders we are going to accept and do or not. That’s not our job.”

“I’m not going to resign,” he said. “There’s no way. If the orders are illegal, we’re in a different place. But if the orders are legal from civilian authority, I intend to carry them out.”

Gen. Milley, Gen. McKenzie and other military officials also suffered intense criticism for an Aug. 29 drone strike in Kabul that supposedly targeted an ISIS-K suicide bomber driving a car filled with explosives to the Kabul airport. The strike actually killed an aid worker, along with nine others, including seven children.

The incident raised serious questions about the Biden administration’s insistence it can conduct “over-the-horizon” strikes against terrorist targets in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, similar waves of outrage in other nations have led to high-profile resignations or reassignments.

On Sept. 17, Dutch Defense Minister Ank Bijleveld quit her post after parliament passed a motion to censure her over the Afghan withdrawal. In Britain, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab was reassigned and effectively demoted to a position in the U.K.’s Justice Department. Mr. Raab faced intense criticism for his handling of the British exit from Afghanistan.

In the U.S., at least one officer was removed from his position after publicly calling for Pentagon leaders to take responsibility for the botched withdrawal.

“People are upset because their senior leaders let them down and none of them are raising their hands and accepting accountability or saying, ‘We messed this up,’” Marine Corps Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller said in an emotional Facebook video on Aug. 28, specifically questioning the U.S. decision to give up the Bagram Air Base north of Kabul before the evacuation was complete.

“I’m not saying we’ve got to be in Afghanistan forever,” he said. “But I am saying: Did any of you throw your rank on the table and say, ‘Hey, it’s a bad idea to evacuate Bagram airfield, a strategic air base, before we evacuate everyone?’ Did anyone do that? And when you didn’t think to do that, did anyone raise their hand and say, ‘We completely messed this up?’”

He was relieved of his post shortly after the video was released. Lt. Col. Scheller reportedly is awaiting a military court proceeding to determine if he will face formal charges for his comments.

Pentagon officials deny that it made sense to hold on to Bagram.

“Retaining Bagram would have required putting as many as 5,000 U.S. troops in harm’s way just to operate and defend it, and it would have contributed little to the mission,” Mr. Austin told lawmakers this week. “The distance from Kabul also rendered Bagram of little value during the evacuation.”