The Biden administration's assertion this week that the chaotic military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 was the fault of the Trump administration is a "complete lie," Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., told Newsmax on Friday.
An outline from the White House regarding reviews of the decision-making process of the withdrawal by the Pentagon and State Department sought to assign blame to Trump's administration.
The chaotic withdrawal in August 2021 led to a suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul that killed 13 U.S. servicemembers and more than 100 Afghans. The U.S. reportedly left behind more than $7 billion worth of military equipment.
"It's just a complete lie," Burchett told "Rob Schmitt Tonight" with guest host Sebastian Gorka. "The last person to officially die in Afghanistan was a constituent of mine, Staff Sgt. Ryan Knauss. The sniper who had the [suicide] bomber in his sights more than once was told by the State Department, by the Biden administration, not to take the man out.
"They are lying. They have those 13 brave servicemembers' blood on their hands. This is an incompetent White House, and they're trying to place the blame on Donald Trump, who hasn't been in the White House in over [two years]. And yet they continue to blame him for this."
Burchett, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was asked why no one in the Biden administration, such as Mark Milley, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin or National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, have been held accountable for what transpired during the withdrawal.
"What happened to the buck stops here?" Burchett said. "This is an inept White House that's just going down the drain, and nobody's buying it.
"Those 13 brave people that passed away, that died, that were murdered actually in that conflict, they could have been home with their families."
Burchett made a comparison to the billions of dollars of military equipment left on the ground in Afghanistan to the billions requested during the Trump administration to build a wall along the U.S. southern border with Mexico.
"You remember during the Trump administration, they tried to build the wall along Mexico, and they said that $4 billion would bankrupt us?" Burchett said. "And the money that we left on the ground [in Afghanistan] is just unbelievable.
"We'll see all those armaments again, but they'll be fighting Americans with American tax dollars once again on both sides. That is exactly what will happen and that is what we're seeing right now."
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