Confronted with scenes of anguish after the Afghan military collapsed and Afghan citizens face abandonment, Democratic lawmakers are castigating President Joe Biden for his lead role in orchestrating the tragedy that has unfolded.
“This is a crisis of untold proportions,” Democratic Rep. Jackie Speier of California told NBC News. “This is an intelligence failure.”
Although less than two months ago, President Joe Biden said that the U.S. exit from Afghanistan would not resemble the panic-stricken escape from Saigon in 1975, Democratic Rep. Debbie Dingell of Michigan said it looked to her as though history was repeating itself.
“It does feel like the fall of Saigon today, I’m not going to lie,” she told NBC on Sunday.
“To say that today is anything short of a disaster would be dishonest. Worse, it was avoidable,” Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts said in a statement issued Sunday.
The former Marine who fought in Iraq noted that after months of insisting the Biden administration evacuate those who will be targeted for death by the Taliban for collaborating with America, “my worst fear has become realized: That ultimately this effort would distract from what is truly needed, an immediate evacuation.”
“The fact that, at this hour, we have not even secured the civilian half of Kabul Airport is testament to our moral and operational failure. We need to rectify this immediately. America and our allies must drop the onerous visa requirements where a typo can condemn an ally to torture and death, and the military must continue the evacuation for as long as it takes,” he said.
Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy of Florida told Politico that having worked at the Department of Defense, “I know what a planned drawdown looks like. I know what an orderly departure looks like. I’m disappointed that this is the way in which we are withdrawing.”
Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez of Texas shared his criticism on Twitter.
Subscribe
Gain access to all our Premium contents.More than 100+ articles.
