Rep. Mike Waltz: ‘Zero Accountability’ Since Afghanistan Withdrawal One Year Ago; Americans Still Left Behind

Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), a National Guard Green Beret colonel, said there has been “zero accountability” for the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan one year ago, with Americans and permanent legal residents still stuck inside the country.

“Zero accountability, not one official resigned, not one official fired. Zero, zilch. Even the Brits and Danes had a foreign minister and a defense minister resign over how they handled the withdrawal and they were furious with the Biden administration,” Waltz said in an interview with Breitbart News this week.

“Not only is it zero accountability, you’ve got the president of the United States saying it was an outstanding success. And I think that’s what so many veterans find so insulting,” he added.

“The American people saw with their own eyes how poorly this was planned, how poorly it was executed. But I think the people that deserve accountability the most are the families that had their loved ones put in an impossible situation. There have been zero investigations or hearings since from Congress. I think this administration clearly just wants it to go away,” he said.

He said when Republicans take control of the House, they will launch investigations into the Biden administration’s handling of the withdrawal, to include the State and Defense Departments, as well as the intelligence community.

Waltz said there are still Americans and permanent legal residents stuck inside Afghanistan.

“American people are still there. And the reason they’re still there is one, they can’t get out, or two, they can’t get their family members out and don’t want to leave them behind,” he said.

“That doesn’t mean you get to qualify them as not wanting to leave, as Tony Blinken has repeatedly done. I don’t even know how to describe it anymore. It’s just so fundamentally unAmerican to leave fellow Americans behind,” he said.

A recently released Republican House Foreign Affairs Committee report revealed that the Biden administration left more than 800 Americans behind in Afghanistan at the time of the pullout — about eight times more than they admitted were there.

“Anyone who was familiar with the situation knew that there were more than 100 Americans behind enemy lines and in fact, Project Dynamo, one of the heroic veterans’ groups that stood up to do what their government should have been doing just extracted, I believe it was, three or four legal permanent residents yesterday,” Waltz said.

“Literally just landed in the United States with them…so not only were there eight times as many Americans trapped … the President [and] the secretary of state either were misinformed or misled us,” he added.

Meanwhile, the congressman — who served multiple tours in Afghanistan — said things inside the country were getting worse in terms of human rights and terrorism.

“It’s gone from bad to worse over the course of a year. Every single promise the Taliban made — none of which I ever thought they would actually hold — have been broken. Girls can’t go to school, women can’t go to work with a kid, and leave the kid home. Our allies are being hunted down, despite a promise of amnesty from the Taliban.”

He noted that Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri was back living inside Afghanistan when he was killed in a U.S. strike recently, and that intelligence officials are briefing members of Congress that al Qaeda and the Islamic State fully intend to attack the west again and are rebuilding their capability to do so in Afghanistan.

“So now in Afghanistan, we have no bases, no allies, and no government to work with. … So my question of the administration is what is Plan B?” he said.

He criticized the Biden administration for giving up Bagram Air Base, the United States-run military base in Afghanistan shortly before the withdrawal.

“It’s been one strategic mistake after another, but one of the biggest was just giving up the only base in the world that was sandwiched between Iran, Russia and China. In fact, Bagram was closer to the Chinese border than Mexico City is to the Texas border,” he said.

He said China now reportedly has a geophysical and geological survey team at Bagram Air Base in an effort to exploit the trillions of dollars of rare earth minerals in in Afghanistan needed for a modern economy.

In addition, he said the Biden State Department is denouncing resistance fighters in Afghanistan, instead of cultivating ties with them in case terrorists try to hit the United States again and need to be taken out, as was the case in 2001 when al-Qaeda launched multiple attacks against the United States from Afghanistan.

“Shouldn’t we keep those relationships alive with the resistance if we do have to go back? Shouldn’t that be a part of plan B? I think so. I think that’s the only responsible thing to do. But yet we have Biden State Department denouncing them,” he said.

“These are these are people that stood with us for freedom and for liberty as we know it, and that are resisting the Taliban. We have the State Department denouncing them for fighting for their freedom. It’s just — it’s ridiculous. And it’s a slap in the face to anyone who loves liberty and freedom around the world,” he said.

“Their reasoning is that no one should resort to violence, and that we should all be talking peace. That’s just a Pollyannish, ignorant statement. It’s the Taliban that’s resorting to violence, as they are hunting these people down in their homes. Of course, they’re going to resist and should resist,” he said.

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