'Chaotic nightmare': Gold Star families seek answers two years after the US left Afghanistan
WASHINGTON – With the country marking the second anniversary of the United States' withdrawal from Afghanistan, Gold Star families whose loved ones were killed in action are calling on the nation's elected officials for transparency about the past and action in the future.
Republicans have heavily criticized President Joe Biden for the U.S.’ messy withdrawal from Afghanistan. At a roundtable hosted the GOP-led House Foreign Affairs Committee in August, Gold Star families of the Afghanistan withdrawal pleaded for Biden and his administration to provide answers behind how their loved ones died.
“This was an orchestrated nightmare. From my perch, that's what I see. The withdrawal from Afghanistan, a chaotic nightmare, purposely orchestrated,” Kelly Barnett, mother of Marine Staff Sgt. Darin “Taylor” Hoover, said at the roundtable. “I don't want to hear excuses.”
Hoover, along with 12 other service members, were killed in a suicide bombing at Abbey Gate outside Kabul’s airport.
“If we don't demand this administration to tell us the truth, if we don't get out of our comfort zone and overcome my grief to fight for our kids and their battle brothers and sisters, no one is going to do it,” Coral Briseno, mother of Marine Cpl. Humberto Sanchez, another service member killed in the attack, said. “We need this administration to apologize for the awful decisions that lead to the death of our kids.”
Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, on Sunday urged the White House to provide more information for the families who lost service members after the second anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“I would ask that (the White House) gives these families answers,” McCaul said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “In a way, they have more power than I do. It’s easy for them to say no to me. It’s very hard for them to say no to these families.”
The White House released a report in April that largely laid the blame for the chaotic withdrawal on former President Donald Trump. It said Biden was “severely constrained” by Trump’s foreign policy decisions when it came to dealing with the Taliban, which seized control of Afghanistan in 2021.
However, the report also acknowledged that U.S. troops should have been withdrawn faster and that the administration underestimated the speed at which the Taliban would take over Afghanistan.
On the 2nd anniversary of the Abbey Gate bombing, Biden said in a statement that he and first lady Jill Biden would “remember and mourn these 13 brave American service members and the more than 100 innocent Afghan civilians who were killed in the horrific terrorist attack at Abbey Gate.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken defended the withdrawal on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday and said that the administration is continuing to “draw the lessons that we need to draw from it.”
“At the same time, the president made a very difficult but very important decision to end America’s longest war, 20 years. And we want to make sure, and as a result of what the president did, we can make sure that we’re not going to have another generation going to Afghanistan to fight and die there as we had 20 years,” Blinken said.
“Of course, we will look very hard at everything, every aspect of the decisions that we made to make sure that we get it right every time going forward and that everyone who was involved, feels that appropriate justice has been done to the sacrifice of their loved ones,” Blinken continued.