The State Department refutes the allegations of poor planning for withdrawal as stated in the Afghanistan report led by the Republican Party.

The State Department defended the rushed 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal in a fresh statement following the release of a harsh 350-page report by the House Foreign Affairs Republican committee, which exposed the chaos and inadequate planning that preceded the withdrawal.

The State Department spokesperson stated that Republicans have made partisan statements, selectively presented facts, withheld testimonies from the public, and obscured the truth through speculation.

The Foreign Affairs Chairman Mike McCaul, R-Texas, led a report that challenged Biden's claim that his hands were constrained by the Doha agreement made by Trump with the Taliban to establish a deadline for U.S. withdrawal in the summer of 2021. The report placed a significant amount of blame on the State Department for the lack of planning in evacuating Americans and allies from Afghanistan while there were still troops there to safeguard them.

The State Department has emphasized the importance of learning from the two-decade-long war in Afghanistan and how it ended, as well as the need to make sustainable changes to crisis operations.

"The Department is prepared to collaborate with any Member who shows a genuine commitment to finding legislative and administrative solutions. Nevertheless, we will not remain passive while the Department and its employees are exploited for partisan purposes."

The misunderstanding that the department lacked a noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO) plan to close operations in Afghanistan is one of the most persistent.

The Taliban's takeover of Kabul on Aug. 14 prompted the State Department to initiate a NEO to evacuate U.S. personnel and allies, one day before President Ghani fled the country in a helicopter full of cash.

There were not enough troops present to begin the NEO until Aug. 19.

Despite warnings from military officials, former Afghanistan Ambassador Ross Wilson increased the embassy's presence as the security situation deteriorated, resulting in the report laying blame on him.

Congress broadly supported the U.S.'s intention to keep the embassy in Kabul open after the evacuation.

"After August 2021, U.S. military forces would cease combat operations, and Department personnel would operate from Embassy Kabul to aid Americans and Afghan allies, coordinate diplomatic and development activities, and safeguard U.S. national security interests."

Since August 31, 2021, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul has been closed and has not reopened.

The execution of the NEO before August 15 would have indicated to the Afghan people that the US had lost all faith in the government and would have led to the collapse we were trying to prevent.

Even the most optimistic assessments did not predict the Taliban would take control of Afghanistan so quickly while U.S. forces remained.

The State Department was repeatedly warned about the Taliban takeover but refused to reduce its presence in the region, according to McCaul's investigation.

Since March of that year, the department had been advising Americans residing in Afghanistan to depart.

"The Department issued 19 unique messages to Americans in Afghanistan between March and August, warning them to leave and offering financial assistance for plane tickets."

Nearly 6,000 Americans were left in Kabul as it fell, mainly dual citizens, prompting an unprecedented evacuation effort.

The State Department claims to have evacuated "almost all" Americans from Afghanistan by Aug. 31, according to McCaul, but McCaul argues that the State Department left approximately 1,000 Americans behind.

The department noted that it helped 120,000 Americans, Afghans, and third-country nationals flee the country in the last two weeks of August 2021, and also helped another 500 U.S. citizens evacuate between Aug. 31 and the end of the year.

The SIV program, which provides visas to foreign nationals who aid U.S. missions abroad, had a backlog of 14,000 when President Biden took office in January 2021. Additionally, no SIV applicant interviews had been conducted in Kabul for the previous nine months, from March 2020 to the present.