Washington, DC — Representative Gregory W. Meeks, Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, today issued a statement regarding Chairman McCaul’s release of three additional transcripts of closed-door interviews conducted as part of the Committee’s oversight regarding the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. The three closed-door interview transcripts released today contain important testimony from top State Department leadership deployed to Kabul for the August 2021 non-combatant evacuation operation: Ambassador John Bass, his deputy James DeHart, and consular lead Jayne Howell. Their testimony reaffirms what several witnesses told the Committee: that State Department officials on the ground worked around the clock, with clear guidance and preparation for their mission and the flexibility and entrepreneurialism to respond to a dynamic, challenging situation.   

Key excerpts from their testimony can be found here (Bass), here (DeHart), and here (Howell), and full transcripts are available here (Bass), here (DeHart), and here (Howell). 

“I welcome the release of three additional transcripts from closed-door interviews in Chairman McCaul’s investigation into the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and I expect him to keep his commitment to release all remaining transcripts from such closed-door interviews in a timely fashion. Their testimony reaffirms what the State Department has already identified in its Afghanistan After-Action Review—namely, that State Department officials on the ground during the NEO worked ably and around the clock, with clear guidance and preparation for their mission and the flexibility and entrepreneurialism to respond to a dynamic, challenging situation. 

“Contrary to claims that State Department officials underperformed, Howell testified that within an hour of landing, she ‘worked three shifts before [she] took a break’ (p. 58) and that the team on the ground was ‘deeply collaborative’ and undertook ‘10,000 small incremental acts of entrepreneurship, that totaled 122,000 people’ evacuated (p. 137).  

“Bass confirmed that he worked 20-hour days for over 12 days and that during his 37-year government career, he had ‘never seen elements of the U.S. Government work together with such singular purpose and focus and lack of concern for who’s getting credit or who’s doing what… people were relentless in problem-solving and in supporting each other and in trying to do the very best we could with the time we had available to us’ (pp. 140-141). 

“Debunking claims that the Biden Administration lacked a plan and executed a chaotic withdrawal, DeHart noted that ‘when I arrived on the ground, the -- the situation was -- was very chaotic. I would distinguish that from our response to the situation, which I don’t think was chaotic’ (p. 23). He noted that State personnel were ‘actively, proactively formulating plans’ on the ground to ‘get people through’ and seize ‘targets of opportunity’ in a dynamic situation (p. 40). Howell described an ‘extremely kinetic’ and ‘sad’ situation outside the airport but, regarding work inside the gates to get people on planes, asserted that ‘there was a plan. It was organized. It was happening.’ (p. 31). Howell further noted that producing additional written plans would not have been an effective use of time, as personnel needed to be responding to real-time developments on the ground (p. 46). 

“Undercutting claims that the Administration should have reversed or delayed the withdrawal, DeHart described the possibility of an ‘outbreak of armed conflict with the Taliban if they thought that we were delaying our departure’ and that ‘it would have been a humanitarian disaster’ for the thousands of Afghan civilians caught in the crossfire of renewed conflict (p. 53). 

“I am grateful to these three witnesses for their service in Afghanistan and their voluntary, comprehensive testimony to the Committee.”   

The three transcripts released today, together with the two released earlier this week, make up only five of the 16 total closed-door transcribed interviews conducted to date on the Afghanistan withdrawal since June 2023. 

You can find Ranking Member Meeks’ statement regarding the first tranche of released transcripts, as well as key excerpts of those transcripts, here. 

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