Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) on Tuesday decried House Democrats killing an investigation into U.S. military gear abandoned in Afghanistan following President Joe Biden’s deadly evacuation.
“Every single Democrat on the committee voted against this measure,” Mace exclusively told Breitbart News. “I don’t know how you vote against this,” she added about the Democrat members of the House Oversight committee who asserted Mace’s amendment was “out of order” and voted to block the measure. The amendment would have redirected $25 million from the Government Accountability Office to the Department of Defense Inspector General to aid in “tracking and recouping military equipment seized by the Taliban.”
Some of the notable Democrats who blocked the investigation include Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Katie Porter (D-CA), Cori Bush (D-MO), Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Ro Khanna (D-CA), Hank Johnson (D-GA), and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA).
Mace continued, “Thanks to the botched exit from Afghanistan, we effectively gave the Taliban an Air Force, hundreds of thousands of weapons systems, thousands of armored vehicles, thousands of rifles and machine guns, and God knows what else.”
“Today, we have no idea what we left behind and what is now in the hands of the Taliban,” she said.
According to a U.S. official, the U.S. gave Afghan forces an estimated $28 billion in weaponry between 2002 and 2017. But “everything that hasn’t been destroyed is the Taliban’s now.”
The Hill reported between 2003-2009, the United States sent the following military equipment to Afghanistan: 75,898 vehicles 599,690 weapons, 162,643 pieces of communications equipment, 208 aircraft, 6,191 pieces of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance equipment, 7,035 machine guns, 4,702 Humvees, 20,040 hand grenades, 2,520 bombs, 1,394 grenade launchers.
Former President Trump, weighing in on the “absolutely stupid … situation,” told Breitbart News August 26 that Biden’s Afghan evacuation was poorly executed.
“Well, the only thing that surprised me is that everybody knew how absolutely stupid this situation in Afghanistan was, that it should have never ever been this way,” Trump said.
“Because everybody knows. A child would know, you take the military out last. You get everybody out, then you get all the equipment — you take your $83 billion worth of equipment — then you blow up the bases,” Trump continued. “And perhaps you stay at, you take a certain area that you may want to keep like Bagram and keep the base Bagram because it’s next to China and Iran.”
“It costs billions and billions of dollars to build. And maybe you keep that for other reasons. But everybody knows that you take your military out last. And they took the military out first,” Trump said.
In recent days, videos have surfaced showing the Taliban wearing and using U.S. gear that Biden left behind. One video depicts the Taliban parading in an urban setting, driving U.S. vehicles with the Taliban flag waving above the heavy equipment as many onlookers watched the long parade pass.
Biden’s abandonment of equipment coincides with his decision to strand American citizens in Afghanistan. Originally, the White House said 11,000 Americans were in the country at the time of collapse. Yet a Sunday report by the Associated Press indicated Biden had only saved about 6,000 Americans during the rescue mission. Biden said after the evacuation that he had stranded ten percent of the citizens remaining in the country.
However, the State Department said after the evacuation that only between 100 and 200 Americans were trapped behind enemy lines. But Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) told the Associated Press the number is more likely north of 500.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø