By Karoun Demirjian

WASHINGTON — A Marine sergeant who survived a suicide blast in Kabul and an Army medic who tended to those on the scene tearfully told Congress on Wednesday (8) that they sustained physical and mental scars during the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, putting a human dimension on a grim chapter for the Biden administration as Republicans opened an inquiry into what went wrong.

During a six-hour hearing on Capitol Hill, members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee heard the searing accounts and engaged in a bitterly partisan debate about who was to blame for the botched withdrawal — branded a ‘moral injury’ and ‘moral failure’ by Republicans, Democrats and the witnesses who testified — which left 13 US service members and scores of Afghans dead.

“Every inch of my exposed body, except for my face, took a ball bearing,” Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews told lawmakers, crying as he talked about how his body was ripped open by the Aug. 26, 2021, blast at the international airport in Kabul. “The 11 Marines, one sailor and one soldier that were murdered that day have not been answered for.”

Aidan Gunderson, a former Army specialist, described how he tended to injured service members and the bodies of Afghans who had fallen while trying to cling to the landing gear of planes taking off from the airport, and tried to help stranded civilians enter the airport.

“I tried to save the lives of countless Marines. We all tried our best. It was a nightmare,” said Gunderson, his voice breaking.

“I still carry these horrific scenes of Abbey Gate, even the smell. Mothers carrying dead babies, the Taliban mercilessly beating people and civilians begging for their lives,” Gunderson said. “I see the faces of the people we could not save, all those that we left behind.”

Their accounts made for a sombre backdrop to start the House GOP inquiry on Afghanistan, which Republicans have promised would take President Joe Biden to task over the failures of the mass airlift out of Kabul’s airport.

The panel’s first Afghanistan hearing was the culmination of an 18-month effort by its chair, Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, who pursued an investigation of the State Department’s role in the evacuation while in the minority. Although it yielded few revelations, the testimony seemed to back up McCaul’s assertions that the withdrawal was more chaotic and deadly than necessary.

“This was an abdication of the most basic duties of the United States government: to protect Americans and leave no one behind,” said McCaul, who added that “the nation sustained moral injury from what happened.”

Of particular interest to the chair was testimony by Vargas-Andrews, who said he was in a sniper tower at the airport on the day of the blast and had spotted a person in the crowd matching the description of a suspected suicide bomber just hours before the attack. He had warned superiors, he said, but they did not listen or seek his account afterward.

“Plain and simple, we were ignored. Our expertise was disregarded. No one was held accountable for our safety,” Vargas-Andrews said. “It makes me feel like my service is not valued by this country, by the government.”

McCaul was also intrigued by Vargas-Andrews’ account of how State Department officials at the airport shut down operations every night, slowing down the processing of potential evacuees and potentially endangering service members trying to maintain order amid the fracas. He promised to make those allegations a line of inquiry in his panel’s investigation.

The on-the-ground testimony at times put Democrats in a difficult position, as they sought to defer to the experience of witnesses while also defending the Biden administration from Republican attacks.

“It wasn’t President Biden who set an absolute withdrawal date; it was President Trump, and everything unravelled from that,” said Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, D-Va.

At one point, Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., asked why the witnesses had never publicly raised concerns about Afghanistan under the Trump administration.

“Hindsight’s 20/20, and if we’d gotten involved earlier, we might not have too much to criticize later,” she said.

The comment drew a sharp response from one of the witnesses.

“The reality is, we were living our lives,” said retired Lt. Col. David Scott Mann, who formed a group calling itself Task Force Pineapple to help evacuate Americans and Afghans. “We were drawn back into this not of our own volition, but by a set of circumstances that we could not stand for.”

Almost all the witnesses also called on Congress to expand access to the special immigrant visa program to give more Afghans permanent residency. Republicans generally have resisted any move to expand immigration, and advocates have blamed GOP leaders for blocking the effort to help additional Afghan refugees.

Camille Mackler, a lawyer and the executive director of Immigrant ARC, who also testified, implored McCaul, a backer of expanding the special visa program for Afghans, to work to persuade his colleagues to back the move.

“Help us change immigration laws so that we can get them out,” she said.

-New York Times