U.S. Air Force pararescuemen from the 83rd Expeditionary Rescue Squadron secure the landing area after being lowered from a HH-60 Pave Hawk during a November 2012 mission in Afghanistan. A special panel’s investigation of the chaotic and deadly U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is nearly complete, with the Pentagon saying a final report is expected in the coming months. (Jonathan Snyder/U.S. Air Force)
A special panel’s investigation of the chaotic and deadly U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is nearly complete, with the Pentagon saying a final report is expected in the coming months.
The Afghanistan Withdrawal Special Review Panel has wrapped up interviews with senior military and civilian leaders, according to Defense Department spokesman Sean Parnell, who is chairing the panel.
Last year, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the review into the American evacuation from Afghanistan in August 2021 as the country fell under Taliban control. Thirteen U.S. troops were killed in a suicide bombing during the mayhem.
The panel reviewed more than 9 million documents drawn from multiple agencies as part of the probe, Parnell said. A previous DOD review under former President Joe Biden examined around 3,000 documents and was significantly narrower in scope, the Pentagon said.
Led by former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, that effort “was also over-classified at the highest levels, which effectively kept the most critical and relevant information from public scrutiny,” Parnell said.
The panel is now preparing final findings and recommendations, Parnell said.
“This will be the most thorough, transparent and honest accounting the American people have received of what happened in August 2021,” he said. “Our purpose is to identify failures in decision-making so that we may prevent the United States from ever repeating this tragedy.”
The withdrawal followed a February 2020 deal negotiated during President Donald Trump’s first term, which set a timeline for a U.S. exit. Previous U.S. government reviews have said the agreement limited the Biden administration’s options and contributed to the rapid collapse of Afghan forces while also citing failures by both administrations.
During congressional testimony in 2024, retired Gens. Mark Milley and Kenneth McKenzie blamed delayed decision-making by the State Department for the rushed and violent airlift out of Kabul’s airport as Afghanistan fell to the Taliban.
“The fundamental mistake, fundamental flaw was the timing of the State Department’s call of the (noncombatant evacuation operation),” Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the time. “I think that was too slow and too late.”
“There’s a lot of other mistakes that are made along the way … but I think that was key. I think that was fundamental.”
A separate U.S. Central Command review into the suicide bombing at the Kabul airport that killed 13 U.S. troops and more than 150 Afghans concluded that it couldn’t have been prevented at the tactical level without degrading the mission.
A 2023 State Department report faulted the Biden administration’s crisis management and lack of awareness of the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan.
In some cases, the evacuation was handled by diplomats who had been in the country for only a few days or weeks, that report said.
Senior U.S. officials gave “insufficient senior-level consideration of worst-case scenarios” ahead of the collapse of the Afghan government, according to the report.
