Time for the truth about Abbey Gate

OPINION:

Monday was the third anniversary of the Abbey Gate disaster in Kabul, Afghanistan.

At 5:50 p.m. on Aug. 26, 2021, a suicide bomber killed 183 people and wounded several hundred bystanders. Among the dead were 13 U.S. service members: 11 Marines, one Army psychological operations specialist and one Navy corpsman. The wounded included 18 other American military personnel.

No American service member had been killed in Afghanistan since February 2020. The disaster at Abbey Gate was the largest loss of U.S. military personnel in one event in Afghanistan in 10 years.

Americans should demand that Congress and the Biden administration have the courage to seriously examine what went wrong in the immediate disaster and the long-term failure to win a war we prosecuted for 20 years at great cost in lives, wounded and funding.

First, we must look at the immediate failure to safely and securely evacuate Afghanistan.

Why did the evacuation take place through Kabul International Airport? The airport had too small a perimeter to be safe. Furthermore, it is in Afghanistan’s capital. The potential for terrorists to hide among the refugees was far too great.

A safe and orderly withdrawal could have been executed at Bagram Air Base 30 miles from Kabul. The large base could be defended, and refugees could have been admitted in a safe and orderly fashion. Bagram is only an hour by air from Chinese nuclear sites. The Trump administration intended to keep control of Bagram even if the Taliban controlled the rest of the country.

Congress should insist on reviewing the planning that went into relying on the Kabul airport. Did no one think about the scale of panic and crowd control that would have been involved if the Afghans believed the United States was leaving? Did no one consider how terrorists might hide in the crowd around the airport?

The danger of terrorist aggression was increased when the United States turned Bagram over to the Afghan government on July 2, 2021. The pro-American Afghan government saw that the Americans were leaving and that the Taliban would win. Bagram was lost to the Taliban less than two weeks before the disaster in Kabul. At that time, terrorist prisoners were released, and the potential for a terrorist attack grew overnight.

One of the many tragedies of the Abbey Gate disaster is that it was widely anticipated. The Pentagon warned that a terrorist attack was possible 10 days before.

The governments of the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia all warned that the threat of terrorist attacks had risen.

President Biden himself warned in a statement at the White House on Aug. 22, 2021, that the danger of terrorist attacks increased the longer we stayed in Afghanistan.

Despite the high-level noise, virtually no steps were taken to maintain crowd control or ensure the safety of the Americans risking their lives for their country and our allies.

We should remember and honor those Americans who gave their lives for their country that day:

• Staff Sgt. Darin T. Hoover, 31, of Salt Lake City

• Sgt. Johanny Rosario Pichardo, 25, of Lawrence, Massachusetts

• Sgt. Nicole L. Gee, 23, of Sacramento, California

• Cpl. Hunter Lopez, 22, of Indio, California

• Cpl. Daegan W. Page, 23, of Omaha, Nebraska

• Cpl. Humberto A. Sanchez, 22, of Logansport, Indiana

• Lance Cpl. David L. Espinoza, 20, of Rio Bravo, Texas

• Lance Cpl. Jared M. Schmitz, 20, of St. Charles, Missouri

• Lance Cpl. Rylee J. McCollum, 20, of Jackson, Wyoming

• Lance Cpl. Dylan R. Merola, 20, of Rancho Cucamonga, California

• Lance Cpl. Kareem M. Nikoui, 20, of Norco, California

• Navy Hospitalman Maxton W. Soviak, 22, of Berlin Heights, Ohio

• Army Staff Sgt. Ryan C. Knauss, 23, of Corryton, Tennessee

Our duty to the country and the future, however, should demand that we do more than remember their sacrifices. We owe it to them to have a complete inquiry into why this tragedy happened, who failed, who should have been replaced and what we must do to minimize the danger of this kind of disaster in the future.

This is the kind of commitment this third anniversary of their deaths deserves.

• Newt Gingrich is a former speaker of the House of Representatives, a 2012 Republican presidential candidate and the chairman of Gingrich 360.