Multiple chartered planes for hundreds of U.S. citizens and Afghan nationals are still being held up in northern Afghanistan — and the State Department is to blame, conservative radio and TV host Glenn Beck said Tuesday.
Beck railed at the delays for planes chartered by Mercury One and The Nazarene Fund, a charity he founded for evacuations.
"They were on the plane, they were on the tarmac, they were [in] the seats ... [and] ready to go" before State Department officials intervened and deboarded the plane, Beck said, The Blaze reported. "They were told to go back into the airport and hand everything in to the Taliban.
"They were dismissed from the airport while the State Department works this out with the Taliban," he charged, adding many passengers are waiting things out at safe houses.
"This was like the State Department sending up flares, saying [to the Taliban], 'Hey, look over here,'" he said.
Marina LeGree, executive director of Ascend, a non-profit that teaches young Afghan women leadership through mountaineering and other athletics, told NPR several Afghans affiliated with her group also remained stuck. She said among the stranded travelers were members of nongovernmental organizations, journalists, and women at risk.
The State Department has touted its help in getting four U.S. citizens out of Afghanistan in an overland escape — an evacuation that Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, first reported to Newsmax.
But the department also said it discourages chartered airplanes because — with no more of its personnel left on the ground in Afghanistan — it can’t confirm the planes' passenger manifests.
The State Department told Newsmax TV’s "Spicer & Co" host Sean Spicer on Tuesday its hands are tied.
"[W]e do not have personnel on the ground, we do not have air assets in the country, we do not control the airspace — whether over Afghanistan or elsewhere in the region," the department told Spicer.
"Given these constraints, we also do not have a reliable means to confirm the basic details of charter flights, including who may be organizing them, the number of U.S. citizens and other priority groups on-board, the accuracy of the rest of the manifest, and where they plan to land, among many other issues."
"We will hold the Taliban to its pledge to let people freely depart Afghanistan," the statement added. "As with all Taliban commitments, we are focused on deeds not words, but we remind the Taliban that the entire international community is focused on whether they live up to their commitments."
A defiant Beck on Tuesday vowed "as soon as we get the green light, those people will be able to go back on to those planes."
"We have also eight to 10 other planes that are ready to fly out if the State Department will just let us be," he declared.
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Fran Beyer ✉
Fran Beyer is a writer with Newsmax and covers national politics.
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