Mills

Michael Hughes
AOPNEWS
August 25, 2023

U.S. Congressman Cory Mills, a Republican, introduced articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to mark the second anniversary of the 2021 Abbey Gate attack at Kabul airport that left almost 200 dead, including thirteen American troops.

Mills, an Army veteran, is the only member of Congress involved in rescuing people from Afghanistan during the withdrawal. As a candidate he was part of the first successful ground evacuation since the U.S. left Kabul, Congressman Ronny Jackson said in a statement in September of 2021.

“High-level officials in this administration blatantly ignored intel that Americans and our allied partners in Kabul would be left behind in harm’s way unless the U.S. corrected course in our withdrawal. As a result, nearly 200 people, including 13 American servicemembers, were murdered at Abbey Gate in Kabul, Afghanistan two years ago,” Mills said in a tweet on Friday. “Because of this clear dereliction of duty, today I am introducing articles of impeachment for Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.”

Mills, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, where impeachment articles originate, said time to stop holding committee hearings and take real action to address the Biden administration’s “complete failure.”

“Tomorrow marks two years to the day that we lost 13 of our brave servicemembers. The fact that it has been two entire years without any member of this administration being held accountable is unfathomable. That changes today,” Mills said in the message and attached images of the signed articles of impeachment, which appeared to be five pages long.

According to the document posted by Mills, the U.S. Constitution gives the House sole power of impeachment to remove from office officials including for “high crimes and misdemeanors,” which he said Austin is guilty of for intentional abandonment of Americans in Afghanistan.

Despite having eight months to exit the war-torn Central Asian country, Austin failed to adequately prepare for such a withdrawal, the document said. Decisions Austin made during “catastrophic events” in July and August of 2021 resulted in leaving 9,000 Americans behind.

The document alleges that not only were 13 U.S. servicemembers killed in a suicide bombing attack, but “uncounted” American civilians were “targeted and murdered” by the Taliban.

The articles accuse the Biden administration of prematurely and in secret abandoning Bagram air base and its prison facilities, which enabled the IS-K terrorist responsible for the bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA) to escape.

“The strategic disadvantages of HKIA as a headquarters for the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, as compared to Bagram Air Base, were blatantly apparent, and Secretary Austin’s decision to evacuate the base in preference for HKIA caused cascading failures in the withdrawal that represent a gross neglect for his constitutional duties to the national security of the United States,” the document stated.

Austin also failed his duties by not providing reasonable safety for the servicemembers “entrusted to his leadership,” according to the articles of impeachment.

The resolution submitted by Mills also said that despite the Taliban failing to uphold the Doha agreement, Austin had the option of delaying the troop withdrawal and adjusting logistics. Instead, the document accuses Austin of imposing an “arbitrary” withdrawal deadline despite substantial evidence and intelligence showing the U.S. lacked the capabilities to effectively abide the timeline.

The articles of impeachment originating in the House are akin to an indictment, which requires only a simple majority to pass. The articles are then sent to the Senate, where a trial takes place. The Constitution requires a two-thirds vote of the U.S. Senate to convict and remove the official. The articles have a shot of passing the House, where Republicans have a slim majority. Although the Senate is split 50-50, the Democratic Party holds a majority by virtue of Vice President Kamala Harris representing the tie-breaking vote.

However accurate in its depiction, the Republicans have held numerous hearings on the withdrawal in what appears to be a political ploy to undermine President Joe Biden ahead of the election.

Biden, for his part, upon taking office froze the withdrawal process that was initiated by his predecessor for about three months. The exit at the time was ahead of the schedule agreed to with the Taliban. The Biden administration went ahead with Trump’s plan anyway, but the delay obviously helped lead to the debacle – an embarrassing U.S. exit that many believe was much worse than the U.S. evacuation amid the fall of Saigon in the 1970s.

The State Department’s after action review of the situation underscores how unprepared the Biden administration really was about the advance of the Taliban and prospect of Kabul falling within a matter of days. According to the report, the U.S. up until almost the time Kabul fell, still believed the Afghan government and its forces could hold the city for weeks, if not months.