The top U.S. general in Afghanistan during the U.S. military's 2021 withdrawal reportedly warned Washington repeatedly that security would get "very bad, very fast" after troops departed.
Despite the concern, the Biden administration kept its embassy open with only nominal protection, retired Gen. Austin Scott Miller told lawmakers, the Washington Post reported.
In closed-door testimony last month before the GOP-led House Foreign Affairs Committee, Miller recounted that as his tour was nearing its end in July 2021, he was so troubled by the administration's "lack of understanding of the risk," that he privately warned a Marine Corps commander to prepare for "really adverse conditions" amid the withdrawal, the Washington Post reported.
"I did not foresee a good future for Afghanistan as I was departing," the general said in his testimony, the Post reported.
Miller later added that he wished he had done more to ensure his perspective from Kabul was better known as plans took shape in Washington, the Post reported, citing a transcript it obtained.
Miller, who has shunned the spotlight in Washington since relinquishing command in Afghanistan in July 2021, is among about 20 witnesses to have met with the committee.
The committee chair, Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, is expected to issue a report this summer on the investigation's findings, the Post reported.
In a statement, McCaul said Miller's testimony revealed how the Biden administration's "hasty go-to-zero order" expedited Afghanistan's fall and the violence that marred the Pentagon's race to evacuate as many people as possible, the Post reported.
Biden declared an evacuation one day before the Afghan government collapsed and its leaders fled the country. Amid the crowded chaos, an ISIS-K member detonated a suicide vest at the airport on Aug. 26, 2021, killing 13 U.S. troops and about 170 Afghan civilians.
Miller, whose command assignment began in September 2018, told lawmakers he saw Afghanistan "as being on fire" as early as March 2020, shortly after the Trump administration agreed to remove all U.S. troops by May 2021.
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