Three years on and with pressing questions remaining, not even federal investigators can get the Biden administration’s Pentagon to answer how many people were actually evacuated from Afghanistan during the 2021 withdrawal.
The Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan was a chaotic operation that left 13 servicemembers dead and thousands of Americans initially stranded. Though the State Department estimates that over 125,000 people, including 6,000 American citizens, were evacuated from Afghanistan in withdrawal efforts, the department’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) said in a report on Tuesday it couldn’t substantiate that number because it was unable to acquire the necessary data from the Pentagon. (RELATED: ‘It Hurts Still’: Special Forces Operator Describes Painful Day Fellow Members Died During Botched Afghan Withdrawal)
“State OIG could not confirm the number of individuals evacuated from Afghanistan with the support of the U.S. government in 2021,” the agency said in the report.
The Afghanistan withdrawal raised severe criticisms from both sides of the political aisle against the Biden administration. Multiple after-action reports have found that the administration poorly planned the operation and incorrectly predicted that the Taliban wouldn’t take control of Afghanistan as fast as it did, leaving the military to scramble to try and safely conduct the withdrawal. A State Department after-action report found that there was also confusion as to who at the department was leading efforts during the operation.
Feeling Overlooked By Biden Admin, Family Of American Detained In Afghanistan Plans To Meet With Taliban https://t.co/zPal7JWhjv
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) September 2, 2024
No one inside the Biden administration has been fired or has resigned for their role in the botched withdrawal. President Joe Biden continues to defend his decision to leave, though he has been criticized for not personally addressing the matter more thoroughly.
The State OIG spent months in late 2023 and early 2024 attempting to acquire relevant documentation from the Pentagon to “validate the number of individuals evacuated,” but the Pentagon didn’t respond to inquiries until this May, according to the agency’s report. Pentagon officials told State OIG that “the source data may have been available,” but that data was never provided, “despite repeated attempts to obtain it.”
The State Department was relying on the Pentagon for evacuation statistics during the withdrawal, given that the U.S. military was responsible for on-the-ground efforts, according to the report. The State Department also struggled to verify details about Afghans applying for special visas “partially due to poor recordkeeping on the part of [the Pentagon].”
State OIG recommended that both the State Department and Pentagon improve data collection and cross-agency sharing.
The Pentagon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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