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former president Joe Biden issued a preemptive pardon to Gen. Mark Milley on Monday, ending a presidency marred by a chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
Milley accepted the pardon, saying in a statement that he did not want to spend the rest of his life fighting “retribution.”
But critics of the rollback in Congress say they are not done with it.
“Mark Milley may be pardoned, but we will continue to explore ways to hold him accountable,” said Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind. Veteran from Afghanistan.
Post-withdrawal assessments mostly question why the military withdrew from the region before civilian evacuations were completed.
Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, admitted that the withdrawal, in which 13 US soldiers lost their lives, was a “strategic failure”.
THE ECONOMIC REPRESENTATIVE PUBLISHED A HARSH REPORT ON BIDEN’S WITHDRAWAL FROM AFGHANISTAN
Biden issued a preemptive pardon for Mark Milley. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, file)
During a 2024 Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Milley blamed the State Department for delaying noncombatant evacuation operations (NEOs), or ordering the withdrawal of American civilians working in the country, but praised the military’s actions.
That order didn’t come until mid-August 2021, just two weeks before Biden’s deadline to leave the country.
“I think it was too slow and too late. And that then caused the series of events that resulted in the last few days. There are many other mistakes that [were] made by the way… [but] I think that was the key.”
“The U.S. military is responsible for supporting the State Department in a non-combatant evacuation operation, however, the withdrawal of U.S. forces from a combat zone in connection with an act of war is the responsibility of the Department of Defense, and at the end of the day, we have not left any forces behind,” said Alex Pritsas, former Defense Department counterterrorism official, to Fox News Digital.
Hundreds of people gather near a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport plane on the perimeter of Kabul International Airport, Afghanistan, Monday, Aug. 17, 2021. (AP)
Biden also pardoned Anthony Fauci and members of the Committee on January 6. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Milley said during congressional testimony in June 2021 that the U.S. would not see scenes reminiscent of the fall of Saigon in Vietnam, where U.S. personnel were dropped from rooftops by helicopter.
“I don’t see Saigon in 1975 in Afghanistan. The Taliban are just not the North Vietnamese army.”
Milley’s pardon was part of a group of preemptive pardons that included Anthony Fauci and members of the Jan. 6 Committee.
“My family and I are deeply grateful for the president’s action,” Milley said in response to the pardon.
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He continued: “After 43 years of faithful service in uniform to our nation, protecting and defending the Constitution, I do not want to spend the remaining time that the Lord gives me fighting with those who might unfairly seek retribution for perceived insults. I do not want to expose my family, my friends and those with whom I served through the resulting distraction, expense, and anxiety.”
Jerry Dunleavy, former lead investigator of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s investigation into Afghanistan, told Fox News Digital about the pardon: “Milley misrepresented the obviously accurate comparison between the fall of Saigon and the impending fall of Kabul, the massively inflated size of the Afghan forces, he woefully underestimated the speed and extent of Taliban district control and then pushed the fiction that Afghanistan had fallen in just 11 days.
“After the disaster in which thirteen soldiers were killed at Abbey Gate and the Taliban retook power, Milley then wrongly predicted that Ukraine would fall to the Russians in just three days,” he added, referring to remarks Milley had madeat a closed briefing with representatives.
