{"id":1986913,"date":"2023-07-31T14:48:02","date_gmt":"2023-07-31T18:48:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gop-pushes-for-public-release-of-classified-info-related-to-afghan-withdrawal\/"},"modified":"2023-07-31T14:51:36","modified_gmt":"2023-07-31T18:51:36","slug":"gop-pushes-for-public-release-of-classified-info-related-to-afghan-withdrawal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gop-pushes-for-public-release-of-classified-info-related-to-afghan-withdrawal\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP urges public release of classified info on Afghan withdrawal."},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fgop-pushes-for-public-release-of-classified-info-related-to-afghan-withdrawal%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1986913&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div>\n<blockquote>\n<h2>Dissent cable believed to show Biden knew Afghan withdrawal \u200cwould end in disaster<\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n<figure><figcaption>\n<p>      A U.S. military helicopter\u200d flies above\u2063 the U.S. embassy in Kabul on Aug. 15, \u20632021 \/ Getty Images<br \/>\n    <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<h3>Congressional Republicans Push for Disclosure of Classified Intelligence<\/h3>\n<p>Congressional\u2064 Republicans are spearheading legislation that would force the State Department to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gop-pushes-for-public-release-of-classified-info-related-to-afghan-withdrawal\/\" title=\"GOP urges public release of classified info on Afghan withdrawal.\">publicly disclose classified intelligence<\/a>\u2064 that is\u2063 believed to show the Biden administration knew in \u2062advance that its withdrawal from Afghanistan would end in\u2063 disaster.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Darrell\u200d Issa (R., Calif.), a member of the House\u200d Foreign Affairs Committee, filed\u2062 <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/ISSA_080_xml.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">legislation<\/a> late last week that would require the State Department to declassify a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/republicans-introduce-articles-of-impeachment-to-remove-antony-blinken-from-office-over-afghanistan\/\" title=\"Republicans Introduce Articles Of Impeachment To Remove Antony Blinken From Office Over Afghanistan\">dissent cable<\/a> believed to show Biden administration officials were aware the Taliban would\u2062 quickly reassume\u200c control of the country once American forces departed. The document is seen as \u2064pivotal to Congress\u2019s investigation into the Afghanistan debacle, and Issa\u2019s legislation marks an unprecedented \u200ceffort \u2063to move\u2063 it \u2064into the public domain.<\/p>\n<p>The dissent cable\u2014authored \u2062by\u2064 a group of \u2064State Department diplomats prior to the September \u200d2021 departure of American forces\u2014became an albatross for the Biden administration earlier this \u2063year when House\u2063 Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Michael McCaul (R., Texas)\u2064 <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/biden-administration\/tony-blinken-could-become-first-secretary-of-state-held-in-contempt-of-congress\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">threatened<\/a> to hold Secretary of State Antony Blinken in contempt if he did not provide\u200d lawmakers with access to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/report-biden-administration-may-bury-review-of-afghan-withdrawal-fiasco-until-after-the-midterms\/\" title=\"REPORT: Biden Administration May Bury Review Of Afghan Withdrawal Fiasco Until After The Midterms\">highly classified document<\/a>. The State \u2063Department <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/biden-administration\/under-threat-of-criminal-contempt-blinken-will-share-portion-of-classified-afghan-docs\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">caved<\/a> to McCaul\u2019s request\u2063 in May, but the\u2064 document has been\u200b kept from public view,\u200d even as Republican lawmakers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/policy\/defense-national-security\/embarrassing-kabul-dissent-cable-made-public-gop\">say<\/a> it is the smoking \u200dgun that\u2062 proves the \u2064Biden administration knew its withdrawal would not be successful.<\/p>\n<p>Issa\u2019s legislation\u2063 is a rare attempt by Congress to force the declassification of sensitive intelligence related to a national \u2064security disaster.\u2063 It is also certain to\u200b renew debate over the administration\u2019s claims that\u2063 it was prepared for the Taliban\u2019s resurgence in \u200cAfghanistan. Senior congressional <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gop-moves-to-block-cash-to-iran-through-defense-authorization-bill\/\" title=\"GOP Moves To Block Cash to Iran Through Defense Authorization Bill\u00a0\">sources working<\/a> on the matter told the <em>Washington Free Beacon<\/em> that the measure is tailored to ratchet up pressure on the Biden administration to come clean about internal warnings leading up to the 2021 withdrawal.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Afghanistan dissent cable \u200cobliterates the administration&#8217;s\u2063 big lie on Afghanistan: what happened could not have been foretold, nobody could have seen this coming, \u200bnothing could have been done to prevent \u2062it. And yet we know \u200cthe dissent cable was \u200breceived \u2064and we know it wasn&#8217;t followed,&#8221;\u200d Issa told the <em>Free\u2064 Beacon<\/em>. \u200d&#8221;That\u2019s why the Biden administration\u2062 has kept\u200d it hidden from public view.\u2062 That\u2019s \u200cwhy we won\u2019t stop until it is shown to the American people.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The legislation, a copy of which was obtained by\u2063 the <em>Free Beacon<\/em>, is co-sponsored by Reps.\u200c Michael Waltz (R., Fla.), Brian Mast (R.,\u2063 Fla.), \u2062and Cory Mills (R., Fla.). McCaul is also said to \u2063be \u200csupportive, sources said, indicating the bill will quickly move through the committee \u2062and \u200dto a full \u200bvote in the Republican-controlled House.<\/p>\n<p>Passage in\u200d the Democrat-controlled\u2063 Senate\u200d could prove difficult, but sources working on the bill said the debate will increase pressure on the \u200dBiden administration to either release \u200dthe\u2062 dissent cable \u2062or provide\u2064 a public accounting of its contents.<\/p>\n<p>If passed, the bill gives the State Department\u200b 60 days to release a &#8220;complete&#8221; and \u2064&#8221;unredacted&#8221; copy of the dissent \u200ccable, which was authored around July 2021, when the Biden administration was preparing \u2062for its September\u200d withdrawal deadline. The names of those who authored the cable may be redacted under the legislation in order to protect \u2063those who \u2063may have objected to the State\u2064 Department\u2019s \u2063plan.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The American\u200c people deserve to understand the events and decision-making which resulted in the chaotic withdrawal of United States personnel from Afghanistan,&#8221; the bill states.<\/p>\n<p>Current and\u200b former U.S. military officials <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/national-security\/biden-admin-ignored-warnings-about-withdrawing-troops-from-afghanistan-military-leaders-say\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">disclosed<\/a> last week\u2062 that in early July \u20622021\u2014around the time the cable was authored\u2014the Biden administration decided \u200cto abandon \u200bBagram Air Base and use the smaller, less secure \u200cKabul airport as the base of its evacuation effort.<\/p>\n<p>This decision was made against the advice of Command Sergeant Major Jacob Smith, who oversaw operations at \u2063Bagram during that time and told the administration \u2064the Kabul airport\u2062 was not equipped\u2063 to handle a mass exodus of Americans. Bagram, on\u2063 the other hand, \u200cSmith said, &#8220;had a completely secured airfield that would require a massive military \u200boffensive to overrun or breach.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This information, Issa said in his comments to the \u200c <em>Free Beacon<\/em>, is fueling efforts to make\u200c the dissent cable public.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our American personnel on the ground in Afghanistan,&#8221; he said, &#8220;saw what was happening, \u200dreported it, warned the Biden administration, and were ignored.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>McCaul also claimed during a\u2064 hearing last week that\u2062 the\u200b dissent cable shows the\u200c White House &#8220;didn\u2019t \u2064have \u200ca plan\u200c of action.&#8221; The \u200bcable &#8220;predicted exactly\u2062 what was going to \u200bhappen if \u200dwe didn\u2019t \u2063act fast,&#8221; McCaul said.<\/p>\n<p>The State Department did not \u200crespond \u2064to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>was aware that the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan would result in a catastrophic outcome. This dissent cable, if made public, could reveal crucial information about President Biden&#8217;s knowledge and decision-making regarding the situation in Afghanistan. Congressional Republicans are determined to shed light on the administration&#8217;s actions and hold them accountable for the consequences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":117,"featured_media":1986915,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[544],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1986913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-free-beacon"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1986913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/117"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1986913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1986913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1986915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1986913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1986913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1986913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}