Hegseth announces Pentagon will conduct 'complete review' of Afghanistan withdrawal

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday said the Pentagon will conduct a "complete review" of the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was completed under former President Joe Biden.

Biden ordered U.S. forces out of the Middle Eastern country in August 2021, as the Taliban took over. The withdrawal resulted in the deaths of 13 United States service members, when a bomb went off outside of the Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport. 

Hegseth and President Donald Trump promised accountability for the withdrawal ahead of the first full Cabinet meeting of the new administration, with Trump stating that Hegseth should fire all the generals involved in the evacuation.

“I’m not going to tell this man what to do, but I will say that if I had his place I’d fire every single one of them,” Trump said, referring to Hegseth.

Hegseth did not promise to fire the generals and other people involved in the exit, but said that he would order a review.

“We’re doing a complete review of every single aspect of what happened with the botched withdrawal of Afghanistan and plan to have full accountability,” Hegseth said. “We’re taking a very different view, obviously, than the previous administration, and there will be full accountability.”

Hegseth did not provide additional details about the review, including who was leading the review, the parameters of the review, or if investigators had a deadline for their report, per the Washington Examiner.

The comments come after the Biden administration predominantly touted the success in evacuating U.S. forces from Afghanistan, after 20 years of occupation. But Republicans have largely slammed the operation, with House Republicans last year stating that the administration was more concerned about optics than the dangers of the evacuations.

“The evidence proves President Biden’s decision to withdraw all U.S. troops was not based on the security situation, the Doha Agreement, or the advice of his senior national security advisors or our allies," the report read. "Rather, it was premised on his longstanding and unyielding opinion that the United States should no longer be in Afghanistan." 

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just the News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.