Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) introduced a bill that looks to create a bipartisan and bicameral committee into President Joe Biden (D) and his administration’s withdrawal of Afghanistan.
The botched evacuation left 13 U.S. military members dead while attempting to get American lives out of the Kabul Airport. The committee, should it come to fruition, would be known as the Joint Select Committee on Afghanistan. Sen. Scott believes that a committee including both chambers would coincide with the precedent created in the aftermath of the Iran-Contra affair.
“President Biden’s misguided and dangerous decisions in his botched withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan led to the United States’ most stunning, unforced and humiliating defeat in decades,” stated Sen. Scott.
He would go on to mention that “due to President Biden’s carelessness and failed leadership, 13 U.S. service members were lost, billions of dollars of U.S. military equipment were left for the Taliban, hundreds of American citizens were stranded behind enemy lines and Afghanistan has been returned to the Taliban and now rests in the hands of the same terrorist-coddling extremists who ruled it on September 11, 2001.”
This is not Scott’s first attempt at creating this bicameral committee. However, now with a Republican majority in the House of Representatives, there is a greater likelihood that the committee comes to be.
“For over a year, I have called for a bipartisan and bicameral investigation into the Biden administration’s failed withdrawal of American forces and my calls have been met with silence. That’s why today, I am reintroducing my bill to establish a bipartisan and bicameral Joint Select Committee on Afghanistan to conduct a full investigation and compile a joint report on the United States’ tragically failed withdrawal from Afghanistan. It’s time to put partisan politics aside and demand accountability,” Scott exclaimed.
Moreover, Sen. Rick Scott is not the only Florida legislator that is pushing the ball forward to investigate the Afghanistan withdrawal.
Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) believes that the Biden administration is lying about the number of Americans that died during the evacuation, which is just one of the reasons for the need of an investigation.
“There’s a lot of things that we need to be looking into to include investigating. Why 40,000 terrorists and Taliban who were released from the Bagram Detention Center resulted in the August 26th tragedy where 13 service members lost their lives and many other Americans; see this is the thing: Biden has continued to cover up the fact that probably around three dozen other blue passport holding Americans died on the other side of that gate, and they utilize the fact that they don’t have to report American deaths abroad, as long as they’re not military service members," said Mills.
The bill has received co-sponsorship from the senators such as Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), Mike Braun (R-IN), Josh Hawley (R-MO) and John Hoeven (R-ND)