Washington, DC — Representative Gregory W. Meeks, Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, today issued a statement regarding Chairman McCaul’s release of the interview transcript of Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad’s November 2023 closed-door testimony, conducted as part of the Committee’s investigation into the Afghanistan withdrawal. Ambassador Khalilzad served as the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation from 2018-2021.
“Coming to light nearly six months after he sat for a closed-door interview, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad’s testimony reveals the critical decision-making that set the U.S. withdrawal into motion, namely, the Trump Administration’s negotiations with the Taliban that led to the signing of the Doha Deal in February 2020, which some Trump Administration officials have now labeled a 'surrender agreement.' Khalilzad’s testimony makes clear the former President’s eagerness and intent to leave Afghanistan regardless of whether the Taliban were complying with the terms of the deal, and also provides substantial insight into the planning and completion of the U.S. withdrawal in 2021 by the Biden Administration.
“I appreciate Ambassador Khalilzad’s long record of public service and his voluntary testimony to the Committee, both in this closed-door interview in November 2023 and in an open hearing in February 2024. His insights are invaluable to our efforts to ensure fact-driven, rigorous oversight. I look forward to Chairman McCaul’s release of the remaining closed-door transcripts.”
Key points from Ambassador Khalilzad’s closed-door testimony include the following:
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Notwithstanding President Trump’s stated commitment in his own 2017 South Asia strategy to a conditions-based withdrawal, Khalilzad understood the former President to be “very determined on withdrawal, whether it happened as part of an agreement or it happened without an agreement, that withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan was clear, loud and clear” (p. 57). And he believed the Taliban had already assessed during negotiations with the United States on the Doha withdrawal deal that the U.S. would leave regardless of those negotiations (p. 172-173).
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Ambassador Khalilzad reinforced that former President Trump’s intent to fully withdraw from Afghanistan “was firm and made clear” to him when he took up his duties as lead negotiator for Afghanistan reconciliation in 2018 (p. 51). He described “an episodic sense of crisis” during the former Administration about the length of time it was taking to complete a U.S. withdrawal and that he was “under time pressure” to get it done before the end of President Trump’s term (p. 56-57).
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Ambassador Khalilzad said that the Biden Administration “tried to address a perception that maybe the previous administration had been too tough” in excluding the Afghan government from the Doha Deal negotiations by engaging President Ghani early in 2021 to reach an Afghan peace settlement in conjunction with the U.S. withdrawal. He also reiterated that, with respect to the Ghani government, “nobody thought this thing was going to collapse that quickly.” (p. 151)
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Ambassador Khalilzad described a consensus view inside the U.S. government in 2021 that if the Biden Administration had invalidated or sought to renegotiate the Doha Deal, “we’d be back at war” (p. 179).