(Bloomberg) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a new probe into the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal, vowing accountability for what he called the Biden administration’s “disastrous and embarrassing” handling of the events that led to the deaths of 13 US troops.
“We have an obligation to the American people and to the warfighters who fought in Afghanistan to get the truth – and we will,” Hegseth said in a statement. In a separate memorandum, he said the probe would “ensure ACCOUNTABILITY to the American people.”
The probe will be led by Hegseth’s senior adviser Sean Parnell, who served in Afghanistan, along with Stuart Scheller, a Marine lieutenant general who was court-martialed and left the service in 2021 after posting videos that criticized senior officials over the withdrawal.
The new review will add to several completed investigations into the withdrawal and the events that led up to it. Last year, Republican lawmakers led by Representative Michael McCaul of Texas wrapped up a two—year review that accused former President Joe Biden’s administration of lying to Americans and sacrificing the safety of US soldiers during the pullout.
One of the investigators responsible for the McCaul probe’s findings, journalist and author Jerry Dunleavy, will also join Parnell’s new investigation. Hegseth said the group would re-examine previous investigations into the suicide bombing at Abbey Gate in Kabul that killed the Americans and 170 Afghan civilians.
Democrats said the McCaul report omitted key findings and branded it a partisan smear. While accepting some blame for the pullout, Biden administration officials sought to lay most blame on actions Trump took during his first term, including a move to slash the number of US troops and sign a deal with the Taliban while cutting out the Afghan government.
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