Rep. Waltz to Newsmax: Milley, McKenzie Exposed Biden's Lies on US Exit

Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, commander of the U.S. Central Command, exposed, through their sworn testimony, the ''lies'' told by President Joe Biden on the question of leaving a residual force in Afghanistan, and Rep. Michael Waltz told Newsmax that this decision made the United States less safe.

"Biden has said 'look, nobody told me to leave a residual force,' and we know that now to be false," the Florida Republican said Tuesday on "John Bachman Now." "We know that now to be a lie because both two generals have now testified under oath that in fact, they did recommend that we leave a force."

Milley testified on Tuesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee that he advised leaving a residual force of 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, as did McKenzie, who said he also talked to the president about the recommendation by Gen. Scott Miller, the commander of U.S. Forces Afghanistan until July, that a few thousand troops remain.

"I believe we are far less safe now as a result of these actions," said Waltz, adding that he'll have several questions for Milley, McKenzie and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin when they offer their House committee testimony Wednesday.

"If you look at what happened with the withdrawal from Iraq that [Barack] Obama led in 2011, it led to the rise of an ISIS caliphate and attacks across the West and the United States," Waltz said. "When we had to go back to clean up that mess, we had a lot more to work with."

But in Afghanistan, no troops or bases are left, and U.S. allies there are "being hunted down as we speak," he said.

Further, Waltz, who served as a Green Beret in Afghanistan, said he is concerned because al-Qaida has sworn allegiance to the country's Taliban leaders, "and they've got an army's worth of equipment."

Waltz added that if Biden "goes down the road that he really wants to" and recognizes the Taliban as a government and unlocks billions in aid and currency, the United States could be in danger from al-Qaida, which "still intends to hit us."

When asked if that means troops could have to go back to Afghanistan, Waltz said he does not want to wait for homeland attacks to return such as those at the Pulse nightclub or in San Bernardino, or "God forbid, another 9/11."

"We're on the cusp of having al-Qaida 3.0 and far fewer tools to deal with it in terms of bases in the region because we gave them all away," he said..

Waltz added that the Biden administration made a "conscious decision" to leave U.S. citizens behind in Afghanistan, and that is "shameful."

"It is un-American to leave our fellow citizens behind, and it's un-American to let terrorists dictate the terms," Waltz said. "Another thing that I want to drill down hard on was this declaration by the chiefs that we had to get out by Aug. 31.

''I think that's because by that point we were in a possible position that ISIS was going to continue to hit our perimeter with suicide bombers. They should have never been trying to defend Kabul international airport, sitting in the middle of a city of 4 million people in the first place."

The State Department and the White House are still lying about the number of U.S. citizens who remain in Afghanistan, Waltz said.

"It is far more than 100," he said. "What they're doing is playing word games. There are Americans there that, of course, don't want to leave their family members so [Secretary of State Antony] Blinken and Biden are saying, well, they don't really want to leave. You die. It's the worst kind of shameful spin."

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