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3 top Senate Democrats vow to investigate "flawed" U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan

18 August 2021
 Dan Ackermann

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) said Tuesday he would hold hearings into the "flawed" U.S. troop withdrawal of Afghanistan.

Driving the news: Menendez, who blamed both the Biden and Trump administrations for the crisis unfolding in the Taliban-controlled country, is one of three top Democrats who head Senate committees who've vowed to investigate the Afghanistan crisis.

  • Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said in a statement he would ask "tough but necessary questions" about why the U.S. wasn't "better prepared for a worst-case scenario involving such a swift and total collapse of the Afghan government and security forces."
  • Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I) said his panel would launch an investigation into the "failures of intelligence, diplomacy and a lack of imagination as we transitioned military forces from the country."

What he's saying: "The events of recent days have been the culmination of a series of mistakes made by Republican and Democratic administrations over the past 20 years," Menendez said in a statement.

  • "The wholly inadequate agreement the Trump administration made with the Taliban did not get commitments for the Taliban to break ties with Al Qaeda, nor did it account for the day after our withdrawal.
  • "In implementing this flawed plan, I am disappointed that the Biden administration clearly did not accurately assess the implications of a rapid U.S. withdrawal. We are now witnessing the horrifying results of many years of policy and intelligence failures.
"To see [the ousted government's] army dissolve so quickly after billions of dollars in U.S. support is astounding. The American and Afghan people clearly have not been told the truth about the ANDSF’s capacity and deserve answers."

What's next: Menendez said the Senate Foreign Relations Committee would hold a hearing on U.S. policy towards Afghanistan — "including the Trump administration’s flawed negotiations with Taliban, and the Biden administration’s flawed execution of the U.S. withdrawal."

  • The committee plans to seek a "full accounting for these shortcomings" and assess why the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces collapsed so quickly, Menendez said.
  • The committee will also examine the path forward for Afghanistan, focused on the international response to the "looming humanitarian and human rights catastrophe under a Taliban-led regime, the senator added.

For the record: President Biden and former President Trump have blamed each other for the Afghanistan crisis.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.