Washington: Two members of the US Congress have revealed that they violated the official order to travel to Kabul during Airlift Chaotic who had seen the United States and the Allies tried to evacuate tens of thousands of people escaped from the Taliban.
Revelation by members of the Democratic Congress Seth Moulton and his Republic of Peter Meijer encouraged an angry statement from the democratic leader of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday.
“Today with @repmeijer, I visited Kabul airport to supervise the evacuation,” Moulton said.
The two men were Iraq’s war veterans.
“We made this visit in secret to reducing the risk and had an impact on the mission and we insisted on leaving a plane that was not full, in the designated chair for the crew so we did not ride the chair from others,” Moulton continued on Twitter late on Tuesday.
More than 80,000 people have been evacuated since August 14, the day before the Taliban controlled Kabul and seized power in Afghanistan.
But the large crowd remains outside Kabul airport, with other countless people hiding in the city and elsewhere in the country still hoping to escape the threat of retaliation and repression under the new regime of Islamists.
Time was almost exhausted to save the rest, with the August 31 deadline set by US President Joe Biden towering, and the Taliban said they would refuse to extend it.
The two representatives flew to the Middle East himself and then traveled by military aircraft from the US-allied country to Kabul, all without coordinating with US diplomats or military commands, American media reported.
The purpose of this operation was to encourage Biden to extend the date of Cutoff evacuation on August 31, according to the two men.
“After talking to the commander on the ground and see the situation here, it was clear that we started the evacuation so late, that whatever we did, we would not get everyone on time, even on September 11,” Moulton tweeted.
Biden said Tuesday during a press conference that the United States would meet the deadline of August 31 but emphasized that the cutoff would depend on cooperation from the Taliban.
The United States exerted fresh troops to help evacuate.
But 6,000 plus contingents, as well as hundreds of US officials, 600 Afghan troops and equipment, must be flown.
Apart from the terrible scene at Kabul Airport, the Taliban has put aside the extension to the deadline next Tuesday to attract foreign troops, describing it as “red line.” On the same day Meijer and Moulton’s journey, Democratic speaker from Nancy Pelosi’s house reminded the body of the Congress in a statement that “the Department of Defense and the State has requested that members do not travel to Afghanistan and the region during this time.” Such trips “do not need to transfer the resources needed from a safe and fast American priority mission and quickly evacuate at the risk of Afghanistan,” he said, without naming two representatives in the statement.
“This is one of the most responsible things I’ve ever heard of a parliamentary member,” one diplomat, spoke with anonymous requirements, told The Washington Post of the Trip.