On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “America Reports,” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) called for the dissent cable on the withdrawal from Afghanistan to be made public and argued that the document doesn’t need to be classified, but it does show that American embassy employees predicted “exactly” what would happen.
McCaul said, “[W]hat I found extraordinary when I read this dissent cable — and it is classified — was the 23 employees at the embassy are heroes, they called it exactly as it was. State of mind at the time, before the collapse, exactly what happened, massive deterioration, the fall of the Afghan Army, and the need to get people out of there in advance. The problem, John, there wasn’t a plan. If you don’t have a plan, you plan to fail. And that’s exactly what happened when they put the Taliban in charge of our evacuation.”
He added, “I would hope State could declassify this document, because the American people need to see what has happened and what were they thinking at the time that the bombing occurred and the warnings that were in place, transparency is important here and I want to hold them accountable.”
Co-host John Roberts then asked, “[S]hould the public, should the electorate out there get a chance to see this so that they can make up their minds about who to vote for?”
McCaul answered, “I believe they should, and the level of classification is confidential. It’s very, very low.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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