Ric Grenell, the former acting director of national intelligence and ambassador to Germany, said on Newsmax Monday he hopes that when Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin testify this week before Congress, they are ready to answer "very specific questions" about the Biden administration's decision to close the Bagram Airfield long before the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan.
"We know already through individuals who have been talking privately and a little bit publicly that they warned that closing Bagram on July 1 would be a disaster for the country," Grenell said on Newsmax's "National Report." "We've heard the White House, [National Security Advisor] Jake Sullivan and others say that they were told by military leaders to close Bagram and it would be fine ... military leaders are saying 'Wait a minute. That's not what we briefed.'"
That means members of Congress must "zero in on this" and determine who is telling the truth and who is not, said Grenell, adding that there "better be" questions about the reasoning behind leaving some Americans behind in Afghanistan.
"The Biden doctrine is 90% is good enough," said Grenell. "Imagine serving in the U.S. military or being a foreign service officer and hearing from your commander-in-chief that getting 90% of the Americans out is good enough. They were very proud of 90%. He said it publicly. Look, you and I can do the math. That means 10% of the people were left behind."
American foreign service officers and others inside the embassy in Kabul were also "completely abandoned," said Grenell. "We've never had a secretary of state who abandoned Americans overseas. You know foreign service officers don't carry guns. They're diplomats, the guns and the people protecting you in these rough places are the military. When you evacuate the military, the State Department better have already been gone."
The former diplomat also commented about Germany's election, where outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union was defeated by the Social Democratic Party, according to preliminary results reported early Monday, reports The New York Times.
The party's candidate, Olaf Scholz, said the party's gain provided them a mandate to form the country's next government.
"The socialists did not get 50% so they're going to have to find some partners," said Grenell. "That could prove difficult. I wouldn't count the Christian Democrats out yet because if some other parties don't want to join with the socialists, they won't get 50% and they'll have to go looking for different coalitions."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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