WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, following the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, Senator Rick Scott, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is calling for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to immediately launch a bipartisan and bicameral investigation into President Biden’s complete failure to successfully withdrawal American forces from Afghanistan.

Senator Rick Scott said, “As the United States faces its most stunning, unforced and humiliating defeat in decades, President Biden’s abject failure to execute a strategic withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan has placed it back in the hands of the same terrorist-coddling extremists who ruled it on September 11, 2001 and created a power vacuum ripe for manipulation by the world’s most dangerous actors. Joe Biden’s carelessness has made the world a more dangerous place. His failures have endangered America and our allies. Today, I’m calling for Leader Schumer and Speaker Pelosi to immediately launch a bipartisan and bicameral investigation into the Biden administration’s failed withdrawal of American forces. They must put partisan politics aside and demand accountability from the Biden administration. This failure is unacceptable, especially following 20 years of war that has taken the lives of more than 2,300 American service members and wounded more than 20,000. The American people deserve answers.”

Senator Scott expects the investigation launched by Leader Schumer and Speaker Pelosi to produce detailed explanations and all relevant and supporting intelligence and data to the following questions:

• Why was the withdrawal timeline expedited from the September 11 date set by President Biden earlier this year?
• What advice did our military leaders provide to President Biden and his national security team?
• What did the Biden administration do proactively to prepare for a successful withdrawal?
• Over the past two months, President Biden and members of his administration repeatedly said that the Taliban would not take over Afghanistan with the speed it did this month. What intelligence informed these statements and assurances made to the American people? 
• Did any members of the intelligence community (IC), U.S. military as well as NATO partners supporting the mission, warn that the tragedy unfolding now could happen?
• Did any members of the IC, U.S. military as well as NATO partners supporting the mission, advise steps to be taken that were rejected?
• Did the Pentagon and the IC warn that the administration’s lack of U.S. air power in Afghanistan would risk a safe and orderly withdrawal?
• Whose advice did the president heed to maintain the timeline and the status of forces on the ground before Thursday, August 12?

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