During interviews with NBC News and NPR released on Monday, recently-retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley stated that no one has been punished for how the war in Afghanistan ended, but “where people are looking for a pound of flesh. I think they’re looking in the wrong idea here.”
During the interview with NBC, “Nightly News” host Lester Holt asked, “Has anyone been held accountable [for] what went wrong with the Afghanistan withdrawal?”
Milley responded, “If you mean has anyone been specifically punished in some way, no. But, look, Lester, that war didn’t end the way anybody wanted it to end. And I can tell you, with 100% certainty, that thousands of people, from privates, to generals, to people in the interagency, did their very best that they could under the circumstances to make sure that we executed the president’s orders. Wars don’t end because of events in the last ten or fifteen days, any war is the cumulative effect of many, many decisions along the way. This was a 20-year war. There were decisions made over 20 years that landed us where we did.”
While speaking with NPR’s “All Things Considered,” Milley responded to a question [relevant remarks begin around 5:20] on what responsibility he takes by stating, “I think that, as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the endgame, I certainly have responsibility for the advice that I gave. And I stand by the advice I gave.”
He continued, “But in terms of responsibility — and a lot of people are asking this question, and rightly so — but if people are looking for responsibility and accountability as if someone out there is somehow negligent or culpably negligent or somehow is intentionally trying to do things for which they should be punished in some way, I’m not so sure I sign up to all of that. Because these — I know people all along the way, going back from 2001, all the way to today. And people may or may not have made correct decisions, but it wasn’t because they were incompetent. It wasn’t because they were people who were negligent in some manner, shape, or form. These were people out there — every single one of them, throughout all 20 years — trying to do the right thing at every turn. But I think that people are — where people are looking for a pound of flesh. I think they’re looking in the wrong idea here.”
He concluded, “I think you have a war. It cost a tremendous amount of lives. But what I want every veteran out there that’s listening right now, every single one of them — and there’s almost a million of us that served in uniform, over 800,000 served in uniform in Afghanistan. Every single one, from private to general, served with honor, with courage, with skill, and they should hold their head high. Our mission was to defend the United States of America against attack from Afghanistan. We did that for 20 consecutive years.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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