A day before a congressional medal ceremony honoring their children, parents of some of the 13 U.S. troops killed in the August 2021 attack on the Kabul, Afghanistan, airport criticized Vice President Kamala Harris and the White House for not doing enough to prevent the bombing.
The comments also came on the eve of the first and possibly only presidential debate in 2024, which will see Harris take on former President Donald Trump. The remarks were made at a news conference called by House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) to discuss the release of a Republican report on the attack that is critical of the White House, the State Department and the National Security Council.
“So many lies and cover-ups by this administration. I speak to Americans: We have been in a downward spiral since the Biden-Harris administration took office,” said Paula Knauss Selph, the mother of Staff Sgt. Ryan Christian Knauss, who died in the attack amid evacuations as the U.S. pulled out of its war in Afghanistan.
“President Trump is certainly not perfect. But he is a far better choice in my opinion than the mess that Biden and Harris have created since Kabul and onward,” she said.
Coral Briseno, the mother of Marine Cpl. Humbert A. Sanchez, blamed the Biden administration for the deaths of her son and others in the Aug. 26, 2021, attack.
“If you read the report, you’re going to get your conclusion. The last person in the room that now wants to be our president is not the right person to be this,” she said.
“We are going to have more Gold Star families. We are going to have more Marines and soldiers dead because of this administration.”
The families of the military service members who died in the suicide bombing at the airport’s Abbey Gate have taken on a higher public profile recently, with an appearance at the Republican National Convention in July and in connection with the filming of an appearance by Trump at a memorial ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery that was later used in a TikTok campaign video.
But Cheryl Jules, aunt of Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee, said, “Everybody that says we’re being played, we’re pawns, all these other things, none of us ever asked to be put in this position. This is just where we’re at.”
“Our kids were killed, and we want answers,” she said.
McCaul said the release of the 353-page report, the product of three years’ worth of hearings, interviews and document requests and written by the Foreign Affairs Committee’s Republicans, was not political, even though it came out a day before the Trump-Harris debate.
“The timing was not by design nor was it political,” McCaul said. “What was political was the obstruction that took place between my investigation and the State Department that continued to obstruct our requests.”
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, defended the administration in a series of social media posts.
“We must honor all 2,461 American servicemembers we lost in Afghanistan ― including the 13 killed in the ISIS-K Abbey Gate terrorist attack — with an honest investigation; this GOP report, regrettably, is just political theater,” Meeks said.
Meeks said Trump began precipitously drawing down U.S. troop numbers near the end of his term, even as the Taliban, the Islamic militants who control Afghanistan now, failed to uphold their end of a deal negotiated in Doha, Qatar. He also said Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s decision to flee Kabul led to the surprisingly quick fall of the Afghan government.
Meeks’ defense echoes the assessment in May 2022 by the independent Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).
“SIGAR found that the single most important factor in the [Afghanistan military’s] collapse in August 2021 was the U.S. decision to withdraw military forces and contractors from Afghanistan through signing the U.S.-Taliban agreement in February 2020 under the Trump administration, followed by President Biden’s withdrawal announcement in April 2021,” the SIGAR report said.
McCaul’s report was critical of both the State Department and Secretary of State Antony Blinken as well as the National Security Council, saying they did not listen to warnings and were being driven by politics in their decision-making.
McCaul said he still wanted Blinken to testify in response to the report after sending him a subpoena last week. Blinken has testified before McCaul’s committee on Afghanistan before, and the State Department has said alternative dates to McCaul’s Sept. 19 proposal have been offered.
“This is a disgrace, and I will hold him in contempt if that’s what it takes to bring him before the American people, because they deserve the answers,” McCaul said.
Democrats say Blinken has been targeted because he would be an easier political target than Pentagon officials. Among the report’s recommendations is that several current or former Pentagon officials, including Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, should testify about their roles.
McCaul said he was able to have Pentagon officials answer a list of written questions but he wanted more.
“Do I think that’s sufficient? No, that’s why this will continue,” he said.