During an interview with CBS’ “The Takeout” podcast on Thursday, White House National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby stated that the investigation of the 2021 Kabul airport bombing Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews testified before Congress earlier in March that he wasn’t interviewed as part of was a full investigation.
Kirby stated, [relevant remarks begin around 37:45] “Clearly, those first few days were tragic for everybody to see. I was at the Pentagon. I remember it. … In the first few days, I think nobody was comforted by the scenes of Afghans storming aircraft and falling off them, and it was tragic. And on the 26th of August, we lost thirteen members of our military, mostly Marines, at the Abbey Gate when a suicide bomber exploded himself and his vest and took those thirteen — as well as dozens of innocent Afghans — with him. And then on the 29th of August…the Pentagon, in an effort to act on intelligence we believed was accurate, dropped a bomb on an innocent man and killed him and some of his children, and we’re deeply regretful for that. And we investigated — fully investigated the explosion at Abbey Gate, fully investigated the 29 August airstrike. And we’ve already learned from those events.”
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