- He described a moment of turmoil and unpreparedness following the Taliban’s seizure of Kabul.
- Others described experiencing trauma and moral harm in the aftermath.
- Thirteen US soldiers and 170 Afghan civilians were killed in the bombing.
A veteran US Marine seriously injured in Afghanistan has described the pullout in 2021 as a “catastrophe” in testimony before Congress.
Tyler Vargas-Andrews testified during the first of a series of Republican-led hearings on the Biden administration’s handling of the withdrawal.
He described a moment of turmoil and unpreparedness following the Taliban’s seizure of Kabul.
Others described experiencing trauma and moral harm in the aftermath.
On August 26, 2021, Sgt Vargas-Andrews, 25, was one of numerous US military personnel charged with securing Kabul’s airport when two suicide bombers targeted crowds of Afghans fleeing the Taliban during the US retreat.
Thirteen US soldiers and 170 Afghan civilians were killed in the bombing.
Sgt Vargas-Andrews stated that he and another US Marine received intelligence about the attack before it happened and that he saw the suspect in the crowd.
‘Plain and simple’
He stated that he had notified his superiors and requested permission to act, but had not gotten it.
“Plain and simple, we were ignored,” Sgt Vargas-Andrews said.
He described being flung in the air during the blast and opening his eyes to find his colleagues dead or asleep around him in emotional testimony.
“My body was overwhelmed by the trauma of the blast. My abdomen had been ripped open. Every inch of my exposed body took ball bearings and shrapnel,” he said.
Sgt Vargas-Andrews called the withdrawal a “catastrophe”, adding: “There was an inexcusable lack of accountability and negligence.”
“I see the faces of all of those we could not save, those we left behind,” he said.
Several US servicemen and veterans spoke before the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into the disengagement from Afghanistan about the mental health toll that the drawdown has taken on them.
Gutting
Former Lt Col David Scott Mann, who helped to evacuate Afghans at the time, stated that the experience trying to get comrades out had been “gutting”.
He said that calls to the Veteran Affairs hotline increased 81% after the pullout from Afghanistan, and he warned that the US was on the “front end of a mental health tsunami”.
In the aftermath, he added, a friend he had served with committed suicide.
“He just couldn’t find his way out of the darkness of that moral injury,” Lt Col Mann said.
The majority of witnesses, from George W. Bush to Joe Biden, blamed every presidential administration since US forces were initially deployed to Afghanistan.
Witnesses also urged rapid action to assist Afghan allies who are still in limbo in both Afghanistan and the United States.
“America is building a nasty reputation for multi-generational systemic abandonment of our allies where we leave a smoldering human refuse, from the Montagnards of Vietnam to the Kurds in Syria,” Lt Col Mann said.
Conservatives who have long advocated for an investigation blamed the Biden administration.
The withdrawal was a “total collapse of the federal government at every level,” said panel chairman Michael McCaul, a House Republican from Texas.
Democrats spoke out in support of President Biden in response.
Congressman Gregory Meeks from New York said that Mr. Biden had “made the right decision to bring all our troops home”.
“I can’t in good conscience imagine sending more American men and women to fight in Afghanistan.”
Mr. Biden had previously said that he bore “responsibility for fundamentally all that has happened”, but he also blamed former President Donald Trump for overseeing the withdrawal deal with the Taliban.
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