(NewsNation) — The two top military officials who oversaw the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan placed blame for the chaos squarely on the State Department, arguing the order to evacuate the country should have come much sooner.
Former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman retired Gen. Mark Milley and former U.S. Central Command and Department of Defense Commander retired Gen. Kenneth McKenzie testified Tuesday before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
The hearing lasted nearly four hours as lawmakers hoped to get answers about the chaotic withdrawal.
In their testimony, the two generals publicly exposed their clashes with the Biden administration in the war’s final days before the chaos ensued.
According to the generals, the military advised the U.S. to keep at least 2,500 service members in Afghanistan to sustain stability. They were also concerned that the State Department was not moving fast enough to get the evacuation moving.
Biden disapproved of a larger number of troops there; instead, he ordered to keep a smaller force of 650 soldiers who would be limited to securing the U.S. Embassy. The generals said the smaller force was not enough, and the Taliban quickly took over.
The hearing was emotional.
It was attended by several Gold Star families who lost loved ones in the Abbey Gate attack in August 2021 that killed 13 U.S. service members, wounded 45 more and killed more than 170 Afghan civilians.
“We’re hoping for transparency so that we can help this not happen in the future and make casualty-free evacuations if possible,” said Christy Shamblin, the mother-in-law of Sgt. Nicole Gee — who was 23 when she was killed in the suicide attack.
The mother of Marine Cpl. Hunter Lopez, Alicia Lopez, told NewsNation’s Joe Khalil that the families just want the truth.
“We just want the truth, the truth to be said and stuff to be declassified so that people know what happened and that it doesn’t occur again, because there’s bound to have something occur the same if we don’t fix it,” Alicia Lopez said.
The generals addressed the families directly, saying they take full responsibility for what happened. Milley said he is personally committed to getting families answers and the truth.
As for how efforts move forward, the generals said they are working on further identifying their mistakes during action reviews so that they can learn from what happened and implement change.
