Rep. Warren Davidson says U.S. Central Command retired Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie’s testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the decision to remove military personnel from Afghanistan before civilians was a “fatal flaw” that led to the chaos that happened in August 2021 was true.

Still, questions remain about why he and former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley did not express their reservations about the plan, the Ohio Republican said on Newsmax‘s “The Count” on Saturday. 

“He called it,” Davidson said. “It was a fatal flaw, and it’s true. The State Department does have operational control over non-combatant evacuations.”

But Warren said he didn’t get to ask McKenzie, and Milley, in particular, during this week’s hearing before his committee, “why they had no problem in expressing their differences of opinion when Donald Trump was president.”

“When Joe Biden was commander in chief [and] when lives were on the line, they basically said ‘Yeah, it’s a bad plan, but we’re going to ahead and execute it.’”

Davidson also questioned Milley about the longtime strategy in Afghanistan, which was an “as much as it takes, as long as it takes” policy. 

Milley testified that “there should be a defined end state” in war, and Davidson told Newsmax that the quote he used had been made about Afghanistan in 2004, but it seems to be U.S. strategy, including with Ukraine.

“The same idea that as much as it takes as long as it takes and Congress votes for this, so who’s really culpable?” Davidson said. “[There is] supposed to be civilian leadership in Congress, and for the longest time, Congress would just passively cut the checks and provide no accountability.”

He acknowledged that it has taken years to have such hearings, but part of that was because “we couldn’t have any accountability when Democrats controlled the House.”

“We’ve had a series of hearings over the last year and a half holding the administration accountable,” he added.

“It took this long to get Milley and McKenzie to come testify.”
Davidson also noted that last year, Tyler Vargas Andrews, the U.S. Marine Corps sniper testified how he and others who had seen two people matching the description of a suspected suicide bomber at Abbey Gate at the Kabul airport were not given permission to fire shots and stop them. 

“That part is on the Department of Defense,” he said.

“You can’t blame the State Department there. The rules of engagement are supposed to be set and maintained by the Department of Defense, and it’s clear that they did not have the authorization worked out as to who was going to be authorized to take the shot, and that led to the bombing at Abbey Gate. That could have been prevented.”

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