Washington, D.C.— U.S. Congressman Andy Barr (KY-06), member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, on Wednesday, August 18, 2021 called for the resignation of President Biden’s entire National Security team after the Administration’s disastrous pullout from Afghanistan. This includes the resignations of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley. Congressman Barr sent a letter to President Biden calling for the resignations and released the following statement:
“As a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who was given access to the same intelligence available to the Biden Administration for the last seven months, I am calling for the immediate resignation of the entire Biden national security team. This includes Secretary of State Blinken, National Security Adviser Sullivan, Secretary of Defense Austin, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Milley.
“This precipitous, unconditional and disorderly retreat from Afghanistan that I and many of my colleagues warned against publicly for months and which ignored multiple damning intelligence assessments is the most disastrous, consequential and embarrassing American foreign policy catastrophe of our lifetime. The Biden Administration completely ignored the obvious risks of an unconditional and abrupt withdrawal and instead prioritized an artificial and politically motivated deadline of September 11, a date certain for withdrawal that I told the Secretary of State in April was less preferable than 364 other possible dates.
“I also specifically, repeatedly and publicly called on the Administration to not abandon Bagram Air Base as part of its withdrawal strategy. Again, they ignored that warning. As a result, Afghanistan has descended into total chaos, with the Taliban taking control before we were able to remove all American citizens, our Afghan allies who risked their lives to fight alongside the United States, and all of our weapons, aircraft, vehicles and equipment from the country. And last weekend, we witnessed the largest jailbreak of suicidal jihadists in world history who are now armed with our own weapons.
“Worst of all, President Biden’s surrender of Afghanistan is a slap in the face to the thousands of brave men and women in uniform who served with valor and gallantry in Afghanistan over the last twenty years. It is especially a slap in the face to the Gold Star families and their loved ones who made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our freedom and whose sacrifice made America a safer place over the last two decades. Now, because of this President’s incompetence and malfeasance, two decades of progress on the global war on terror has been erased, our homeland is less safe than it was on September 10, 2001, and there are already more U.S. boots on the ground in Afghanistan than there were when President Biden took office.”
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