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Floor Speech

And what accountability has there been in this time? Who has been relieved of duty? Who has been shown the door? What have we learned?

The answer is there has been no accountability. No one has been relieved of duty. No one has been shown the door.

And now this administration has bumbled to the brink of another foreign policy crisis that they have helped create, having denied Ukraine military aid, lethal aid, when it asked for it last spring; having stuffed dollars in Vladimir Putin's pockets by greenlighting the Nord Stream 2 energy pipeline. And now here they are, on the verge of another foreign policy crisis, and still we have no answers, still we have no accountability.

I will say this, though. We did learn a few interesting details this week about what happened in Afghanistan. And by the way, if you think that Vladimir Putin and the other dictators around this world weren't emboldened by this administration's weakness, by their utter failure in Afghanistan, then you have got another thing coming.

But what have we learned this week about Afghanistan? What have we learned? Actually, a couple of interesting things, a number of interesting things. We learned that, in fact, the White House and the State Department were warned for months on end--months on end--that their failure to evacuate civilians would result in disaster; that the Afghan Government was on the verge of collapse. They were told over and over.

One servicemember who was in Kabul told investigators ``the writing was on the wall. The country and its government were actively collapsing,'' and ``we should not have waited [to start evacuations] until every provincial capital had fallen except for Kabul.''

Yet that is exactly what the administration did. Our top military commander in Kabul tried to get the Ambassador on the ground to see the security threat for what it was but to no avail. As one military official told investigators--we learned this week--``The Embassy needed to position for withdrawal.'' Yet they weren't doing it.

Why weren't they doing it? Why weren't civilians evacuated in a timely manner? Why wasn't the White House prepared? Because the White House wasn't taking it seriously.

According to Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Farrell Sullivan, as late as August 6, ``the National Security Council was not seriously planning for an evacuation.'' Mind you, by this point, our military presence is gone. We have withdrawn militarily from the country. Here we are in August, and the National Security Council--the White House--was not seriously planning for an evacuation.

The State Department hadn't even put a team together that was responsible for informing individuals, including American citizens, that they were eligible for evacuation or started collecting the information they would need to put those Americans on flights to safety.

And it wasn't as if the White House and the State Department didn't know better. Our top military commander on the ground in Afghanistan warned as early as March--as early as March, he has testified--that he said the security situation in Afghanistan was dire and collapse could come quickly; when the United States withdrew, collapse could come quickly. He said it in March. By July, our troops were gone. In August, the administration still hadn't started planning.

Here is what the top commander in Kabul said. He said:

I think we could have been much better prepared to conduct a more orderly [civilian evacuation]--

That is what a NEO is-- if policy makers had paid attention to the indicators of what was happening on the ground, and the time lines associated with the Taliban advance, and the Taliban intent to conduct a military takeover.

That is what we learned this week: that the White House was told over and over and over again and did nothing; in fact--worse than that-- rejected the counsel of military commanders on the ground, saying that the situation was urgent, saying that civilians needed to be evacuated, saying that there needed to be other steps taken, new measures taken. And the White House drug their feet, did nothing.

So what was the consequence of that? Well, we also learned this week that the consequence was a rapid, chaotic rush for the exits once the White House suddenly and belatedly realized they had bumbled into a crisis--once they realized that they had left American civilians with nowhere to go, once they realized that they had a collapse on their hands that they had not planned for, despite being warned repeatedly.

As the CENTCOM found--Central Command found--and we learned this week, ``Commanders at each gate [around the airport] exercised authority to open or close their respective gates, as they deemed appropriate, according to the situation on the ground. . . . However, there was tremendous pressure from the strategic level,'' meaning the Combatant Command, the Joint Staff, and, yes, the White House, ``to continue to process and evacuate civilians to the maximum extent possible, so gate closures were done rarely, locally, and temporarily.''

In other words, it was a rush--a mad rush--to the exits once the administration realized that, in fact, the government was collapsing; realized they hadn't done the preparation they needed to do; realized that hundreds, if not thousands, of American civilians were in grave danger.

And we know the result of that. The result is 13 servicemembers were killed, hundreds of civilians were killed, and hundreds of Americans-- maybe more--were left behind to the enemy.

Now, I said we learned all this this week. You might wonder, well, where did we learn it? I mean, maybe at least we are making some progress. We are getting some accountability. We learned something.

Did we learn it in an oversight hearing before this body? Did we learn it in sworn testimony given in public on the evacuation of Afghanistan? No, no. Oh, no. We learned it from a press report. We learned it because the Washington Post obtained what were previously confidential, unpublished, nonpublic reports from within the military-- from within Central Command in particular--and the Washington Post published them.

In what has become an all-too-typical scenario, we learned nothing from any hearings this body is doing because they aren't doing any in public. What we have learned is entirely from leaked reports, secondhand sources--the public having been shut out, having been denied access.

You know, we had multiple hearings, actually--or briefings--on Afghanistan and the security situations in Ukraine last week. Did that happen in public? No. Was there testimony taken in public? No. Were there questions asked by Senators in public? No.

I am willing to come to this floor as long as it takes and insist on regular order as long as it takes until there is accountability for what this administration has done in Afghanistan and now what it is bumbling towards in Ukraine. We have got to get answers.

Why is it that commanders on the ground warn over and over that disaster is imminent and the White House does nothing? Why is it that the White House and the State Department denied a request for a civilian evacuation? Why is it that we are still here all these months later, and the only answers we can get are from leaked reports in the press? Why has not this body done its job to conduct rigorous and serious oversight hearings in public for the American people to see?

I will come to this floor and insist on regular order, insist that this body do its job and vote on Defense Department nominees until we get accountability, until there are public hearings, and until we can learn what actually happened in Afghanistan and who is responsible.

I will tell you this: I wasn't alive for Vietnam, but I am not willing to participate in the kind of coverup that happened for years in the Vietnam war. I am not willing to kick this oversight responsibility off to some Commission that won't report for years from now most of its findings, probably in a classified annex. And by that point, somebody will say: Oh, well, it is just too late to do anything about it.

The American public was lied to for years on the Vietnam war. It has been lied to for years on Afghanistan. It is time to get answers. So, yes, I will be here insisting on those answers, insisting on oversight, and insisting on accountability until we get it. Until that time, it is not too much to ask the Senate to do its job.

I believe the majority leader said just the other day that the Senate is here to vote; that is what the Senate is here to do. Well, that is an apt phrase, and for once, I agree very much with the Senate majority leader.

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