Rep. Michael Waltz, R-Fla., told Newsmax on Friday that the GOP-led House will continue to hold the Biden administration accountable for the failed withdrawal from Afghanistan and the suicide bombing that killed 13 U.S. service members at Kabul's airport in 2021.
Saturday will mark the second anniversary of the bombing outside of Abbey Gate at Hamid Karzai International Airport where 13 service members were killed while working to evacuate American citizens and at-risk Afghans.
Waltz appeared on "Wake Up America" and reminded co-hosts Rob Finnerty and Alison Maloni that Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews testified in March that he and two other service members spotted the suicide bomber from a tower at the airport's gate but they weren't given the OK by higher-ups to shoot him.
"Our investigation in the House has uncovered that the sniper at Abbey Gate had the suicide bomber in his sights and was denied permission," said Waltz, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Oversight & Accountability Subcommittee.
"We're now going to call his commanding officer in, and we've also uncovered the fact that all of the diplomats in Kabul warned [Secretary of State] Antony Blinken and warned the president what was going to happen, the chaos, and debacle that would ensue. And yet those senior diplomats were ignored."
Waltz served 27 years in the Army and National Guard and is the first Green Beret elected to Congress. He said it was "disgusting" that a U.S. sniper had the suicide bomber in his sights and was not given permission to fire.
"That's absolutely right. He had him in his sights. He was repeatedly denied permission," Waltz told Finnerty and Maloni. "The next thing we know, the suicide bomber set off his vest and that sniper lived, but he now is missing both legs and an arm and lost his battle buddy next to them. It's just disgusting and heartbreaking, and damn it, we're going to get accountability one way or another."
Finnerty also asked Waltz how is it that nobody has been held accountable for the U.S. retaliatory drone strike that killed 10 innocent people, including seven children, days after the airport bombing.
"It happens when you essentially have all the way from the top, the commander in chief, says bury it, move on," Waltz said. "That sniper, by the way, wasn't interviewed in the investigation afterwards at all.
"I hear from my former Green Berets and colleagues in the Pentagon now [that] Afghanistan is not even to be mentioned. It's like it never happened."
Waltz added that what angers him the most is the not the past, but what could happen in the future.
"ISIS, al Qaida, terrorism didn't get the memo [President Joe] Biden wanted the war to be done," he said. "They're coming after us again, and you're going to have future soldiers, future special operators, that are going to have to deal with the mess that Biden's left behind."
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Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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