Ronny Jackson: Someone must be held accountable for Afghan withdrawal
Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas., on the GOP efforts for accountability one year after the botched Afghanistan exit that resulted in the loss of 13 U.S. soldiers
Texas Republican Ronny Jackson vowed Monday that Republicans will seek accountability for the Biden administration's Afghanistan withdrawal, which led to the deaths of 13 American soldiers.
Jackson joined "Fox & Friends" to discuss Republicans' plan to investigate the Biden administration if they regain control of the House in the midterm elections.
"Something like this cannot happen and nobody be held accountable for it," said Jackson.
BIDEN ADMIN WARNED NOT TO WITHHOLD AFTER-ACTION REPORTS ON BOTCHED AFGHANISTAN WITHDRAWAL
A year ago today, the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban swept into the Afghan capital of Kabul following the collapse of the country's elected government. The last member of the U.S. military left 15 days later, capping almost 20 tumultuous years of American involvement in the central Asian country.
Biden, who, it seems, didn't foresee the August collapse of the Afghan government as a result of the American withdrawal, pledged: "We will not conduct a hasty rush to the exit. We’ll do it responsibly, deliberately and safely. And we will do it in full coordination with our allies and partners, who now have more forces in Afghanistan than we do."
Jackson said the Biden administration "does not want the truth to get out there" regarding the withdrawal as a Republican report accuses the White House of knowingly misleading Americans.
"It led to a colossal failure. We've destroyed our reputation abroad. We lost 13 service members in the process. And I think that we have a lot of whistleblowers that have come out that have contributed to this report. I think it's very accurate. I think it's very telling. I think it's only the beginning of what we're going to find out once we get the house back in January, and we really start oversight into this."
Marines assigned to the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit await a flight in Qatar on their way to assist with a drawdown of personnel in Afghanistan. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by 1st Lt. Mark Andries | AP)
Jackson said he and his colleagues have been asking since November for officials to testify before Congress and their efforts have been "completely blocked."
"We will get to the bottom of this, and we will find out what happened to the billions of dollars of weapons that we left behind, all these special immigrant visa applications that were out there. We left these people behind, a lot of them that fled into Iran to keep from being killed by the Taliban," he told Brian Kilmeade, Steve Doocy and Ainsley Earhardt.
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Jackson said the pullout, which created a "national security issue," could have been handled in a more "controlled fashion."
"The Department of Defense requested 2,500 troops, plus 6,000 NATO troops. We should have left them at Bagram. We could have done this in a logical and controlled fashion. No one would have got killed. And we could have turned this over like it was supposed to be done. But it was done for political reasons. That's the problem with all of this."
Fox News' Ben Evansky contributed to this report
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