Pentagon investigators reviewing the chaotic 2021 US withdrawal from Afghanistan have uncovered classified documents that were allegedly concealed inside safes rather than turned over for scrutiny, officials revealed Wednesday, raising new questions about what information may have been withheld about the disastrous final days of the war.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell, who heads a special panel examining the August 2021 withdrawal under President Joe Biden, said investigators discovered material that should previously have been disclosed but was instead kept out of sight.
“The deeper we look, the more there is to look at,” Parnell said in a video posted on social media. “We are finding things that we did not expect.”
According to Parnell, investigators had “recovered highly relevant classified documents — material that should have been disclosed — stashed and hidden away in safes where they would not be found.”
“And after the team reviewed these documents, it became clear why someone tried to hide them,” he added.
Parnell did not reveal the contents of the newly discovered documents, nor did he identify who investigators believe was responsible for concealing them.
The disclosure came just hours before War Secretary Pete Hegseth was set to take part in a Pentagon ceremony upgrading valor awards for American service members who served at Kabul International Airport during the frantic final stage of the US departure from Afghanistan.
Thirteen American service members were killed on Aug. 26, 2021, when an ISIS-K suicide bomber struck Abbey Gate at the Kabul airport as US forces oversaw the massive evacuation operation. The bombing occurred as the Taliban rapidly swept across Afghanistan and regained control of the country amid the American military withdrawal.
Republicans have repeatedly placed responsibility for the chaotic evacuation on Biden and senior members of his administration, arguing that poor planning needlessly exposed US troops and civilians to danger. Biden and his Democratic allies have defended the withdrawal as a necessary step to finally end America’s 20-year military involvement in Afghanistan.
The Trump administration has described the disastrous closing days of the Afghanistan withdrawal as “one of the most shameful and heartbreaking moments in our nation’s collective memory.”
Pentagon officials subsequently created the Afghanistan Withdrawal Special Review Panel to conduct a fresh examination of the decisions that led to the withdrawal, identify what went wrong during the evacuation and determine who should be held responsible for those failures.
In April, Parnell announced that valor awards issued to troops who served at the Kabul airport would be upgraded to “more accurately reflect the extreme risk” they encountered during the evacuation. He accused the Biden administration of having “inappropriately downgraded” honors that had originally been recommended for some of the service members.
Parnell said Wednesday that the Americans who served in Afghanistan are entitled to a complete accounting of how critical decisions surrounding the withdrawal were reached.
“They are owed the full picture of how and why those decisions were made, and we’re going to give it to them,” he said.
The Pentagon spokesman did not provide a timetable for when additional conclusions or evidence from the ongoing review will be made public.
Republicans in the House have separately alleged that Biden administration officials failed to properly heed intelligence before the deadly Abbey Gate suicide bombing. Military officials have challenged those accusations.
{Matzav.com}
