Washington, DC — Representative Gregory W. Meeks, Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, today issued a statement on the release of the transcript of General Austin S. Miller’s closed-door interview conducted by the Committee regarding the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Doha Deal negotiated by the Trump administration with the Taliban. This additional transcript comprises the 12th of 17 total transcripts from closed-door transcribed interviews in this investigation made publicly available by Chairman McCaul, at the request of Ranking Member Meeks. 

“I appreciate General Miller’s voluntarily providing the Committee with candid testimony on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, from its inception in the Trump administration to the ending of our 20-year-long war during the Biden administration. Miller’s testimony underscores the central and difficult questions the Biden administration faced in early 2021: was there a military solution to the war in Afghanistan, or had our core national security objectives been met? Was Afghanistan an open-ended war worth sending more Americans to fight with no clear objectives and no end in sight? Tellingly, General Miller’s answer to the question of ‘when does this end’ was, ‘I don’t know.’ (p. 152) 

“We should also dispel the fantasy perpetuated by Republicans that there was some Goldilocks solution in which the United States could maintain a diminished troop presence in Afghanistan without paying a continued terrible cost in American lives. As previous testimonies by State officials and military leaders made abundantly clear, the Taliban would have resumed attacks on American troops had we violated President Trump’s Doha agreement and kept troops in the country indefinitely. General Miller made clear in his testimony, former President Trump’s erratic and arbitrary force reductions after his administration signed the Doha Deal—despite a lack of Taliban compliance—reduced our leverage. President Biden had to make a decision in 2021: all-in or all-out. 

"President Biden was right to honor the commitment he made to the American people to not prolong our forever war any longer. And, as the 2022 killing of Al Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri demonstrated, the United States can continue executing its counterterrorism objectives without boots on the ground in Afghanistan. I look forward to Chairman McCaul working quickly to release the remaining closed-door transcribed interview transcripts, which the American public has a right to see.” 

Key excerpts from General Miller’s testimony can be found here, and the full transcript can be found here. Notable points from General Miller’s testimony include the following: 

• He had concerns about the substance of the Doha Deal from its inception that he “routinely” raised with Trump Administration leadership, and he “saw the agreement in trouble as soon as it was signed” in February 2020 (p. 92-93). Specifically, he was concerned about leaving “Afghan Security Forces alone and unafraid as a result of this agreement,” which had been concluded exclusively between the United States and the Taliban (p. 83-84). 

• He affirmed that within months of the Doha Deal being signed, President Trump continued to order drawdowns of U.S. troops despite the Taliban not meeting the deal’s conditions on the ground. (p. 149-150, 161) 

• He described the Afghan military as a “troubled force… ripped apart by country politics” that “would not be able to sustain themselves” without the U.S. troop presence and contractor support that the Trump Administration committed to remove from the country as part of its Doha Deal with the Taliban. (p. 43-44)  

• While he preferred to maintain some number of U.S. troops on the ground in Afghanistan, General Miller believed the Biden Administration’s review of Afghanistan policy to be “comprehensive and deliberative” (p. 180) and he did not make any recommendation against proceeding with President Biden’s decision to complete the withdrawal (p. 128).  

• He described the impact of President Ghani’s sudden departure from Kabul on August 15, 2021 as “catastrophic” and an “accelerant” to the emergency situation that transpired (p. 209). He agreed that had the State Department called for a non-combatant evacuation prior to this, however, it would have potentially only triggered the catastrophe sooner (p. 211). 

Ranking Member Meeks’ releases for the previous tranches of transcribed interviews can be found here, here, here, here, and here.