Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton says the conditions inside the Kabul airport are harrowing and ‘crazy,’ and says he saw U.S. military members break down over their efforts during his secret trip that drew the ire of party leaders.
Moulton is speaking about what he saw on the ground during a stealthy trip to get a look at the evacuation – which the Pentagon and White House immediately blasted as an imprudent strain on precious resources.
Moulton, who did four tours in Iraq with support from the local population and who has been an advocate for doing more for Afghans seeking special visas, says it gave him a close-up look at the desperation and squalor on the ground.
‘I’ve never seen more people cry, just salty Marines, seasoned State Department veterans just break down in tears, talking about their work, and hugging me, and saying thank you for coming,’ the Iraq War vet told New York Magazine in an account of what he saw and how he got there.
Rep. Seth Moulton (left), then a Marine Captain, stands alongside both American and Iraqi soldiers in Iraq. Lt. Col Ehab Hashem Moshen is in the center of the second row. Moulton has spoken about the value added by local translators and others
His mini ‘codel,’ taken along with GOP Rep. Peter Meijer, gave Moulton a first-hand look at conditions, after having spent months trying to call attention to the plight of Afghans who assisted U.S. forces.
He said evacuees were cramped ‘in 120-degree heat literally sheltering under aircraft wings, which is not safe, by the way.’
‘They’re in hangars, some of them are just on the tarmac, and it’s crazy,’ he told the publication.
‘We understood as one only can from being on the ground in Kabul that we were never going to finish this in time, even if we extended to September 11th,’ he said of what he saw – in a trip that preceded Thursday’s deadly bomb attack the U.S. assessed was carried out by ISIS-K.
He had harsh words for how the Biden Administration handled the situation.
‘The thing that everybody needs to understand, even if you completely agree with the Biden administration’s decision to withdraw, the way they have handled this has been a total f****** disaster,’ he said. He said it will be ‘measured in bodies, because a lot of people are dying because they can’t get out.”
‘As crazy as this sounds, we need a positive relationship with the Taliban to have any hope of getting out the thousands of people we’ll leave behind down the road,’ he said.
He defended his trip has having ‘had the lightest footprint of any codel in history’ – without providing precise details on how exactly he pulled it off.
‘Our goal was to be as efficient as possible at finding the truth and saving a few lives,’ he said of he and Meijer, who also served in Iraq.
Moulton and his former Iraqi translator Mohammed Harba
Moulton tweeted out an ‘indescribable’ image of what he saw on his trip, which was criticized by military brass and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
Hundreds of people, some holding documents, gather near an evacuation control checkpoint on the perimeter of the Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, Aug. 27, 2021
People are crowded before Thursday’s attack, along a canal near the Abbey Gate at Kabul’s airport, Afghanistan August 26, 2021 in this still grab obtained by REUTERS from a video
Moulton did four tours in Iraq before he was elected to Congress
Moulton says he was an Iraq War critic, but went so no one else would have to go in his place. He is pictured during one of his four tours there. He spent about 15 hours on Tuesday at the airport in the capital city of Kabul, the epicenter of America’s messy withdrawal from the nearly 20-year war there.
A Taliban fighter stands guard at the site of the suicide bomb, which killed scores of people including 13 US troops, at Kabul airport
U.S soldiers from the XVIII Airborne Corps in position guarding the at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug 27, 2021
U.S soldiers from the XVIII Airborne Corps in position guarding the at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug 27, 2021
A US Air Force aircraft takes off from the military airport in Kabul on August 27, 2021, as the Pentagon said the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from Afghanistan still faces more possible attacks
The two lawmakers flew to the United Arab Emirates commercially before finding passage on military flights into Kabul. He says they used vacant space inside a crew cabin aboard the C-17 aircraft.
‘Look, man, when you’ve been in the Middle East as long as I have, it’s not that hard to find a friend who can get you on a flight,’ was all he would allow.
Moulton has long been pushing efforts for the government to focus on evacuating Afghans who assisted U.S. forces. He recalls the assistance he got from translators and others while serving in Iraq.
He claims his requests to form an official congressional ‘CODEL’ were denied, although the House Armed Services Committee says he never made a formal request.
‘They’re in hangars, some of them are just on the tarmac, and it’s crazy,’ Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) said of the conditions of evacuees in Kabul
‘Peter and I had been talking for a while about going to Kabul because all our official requests had been denied … which I had made many over months, not just recently,’ he told New York.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy both slammed the trip as diverting attention from the evacuation, with some staffers blasting it as an ego trip.
‘Any member that I have heard that might go, I explain to them that I don’t think they should,’ McCarthy said during a briefing. ‘I think it creates a greater risk. You’ve got enough Americans over there to be held hostage. They would make a point out of member of Congress.’
Pelosi said during her own remarks on the matter: ‘This is deadly serious. We do not want members to go.’
‘You need the approval of your committee chair in order to do that. And we have put out the word to committee chairs there ain’t going to be no planes or this or that for people going to the region,’ she continued.
According to his website, Moulton joined the Marines months before the Sept. 11th attacks. ‘As the leader of an infantry platoon, he was among the first Americans to reach Baghdad in 2003,’ it says. ‘He served four tours in Iraq, a war he disagreed with and spoke out against—but he was proud to go, so no one had to go in his place.’
Earlier, Moulton, who put together an ill-fated 2020 presidential campaign, defended his actions in an interview with the the Boston Globe.
‘I don’t care one bit about anonymous quotes from Washington when I’m saving the lives of our allies,’ Moulton told the paper in a phone interview from Doha, Qatar on Wednesday.
‘I got several not just families but groups through the gates,’ Moulton said of his time in Kabul. ‘It’s amazing that people think this is about politics when it’s about innocent lives and saving people who have given everything to us from torture and death.’
‘Every single person that we can get through the gates who is one of our allies, that is the difference between freedom and death,’ he added.
He reiterated: ‘The scoldings mean nothing when we’re saving a few lives.’
Despite the conditions described by Moulton, and the threats exposed by Thursday’s suicide bombing, desperate Afghans trying to flee Kabul have returned to airport as the final hours of evacuation tick down.
Flights resumed with new urgency on Friday, a day after a suicide bomber killed at least 170 people, including 13 U.S. service personnel. The Pentagon today confirmed there was just one suicide attack, correcting an earlier statement which said a second bomber struck the Baron Hotel.
Thousands of men, women and children are still trying to flee the Taliban, but their hopes are fading fast as the US and its allies are packing up their rescue operations ahead of the Tuesday deadline.
Washington said on Thursday that more than 100,000 people had been safely evacuated from Kabul, but that as many as 1,000 U.S. citizens are still struggling to leave.
The Pentagon said today around 5,400 people are inside the airport awaiting evacuation and that the U.S. would continue rescue efforts right up ‘until the last moment.’
‘Biden faces a day of reckoning’: GOP leader Kevin McCarthy piles into president over Afghan debacle as Rep. Meijer urges Congress to take back war powers and Rep. Cawthorn calls for the 25th Amendment
- GOP lawmakers have been calling for Biden to leave office since the Kabul blasts
- An Islamic State suicide attack killed at least 170 people there on Thursday
- House Minority Leader McCarthy hinted at the possibility of impeachment proceedings after all Americans were evacuated from Afghanistan
- Rep. Meijer, a veteran, mourned the loss of 13 US service members including 10 Marines on Thursday and blamed Biden’s ‘reckless’ handling of the crisis
- Biden promised retribution for the attacks but has yet to move his August 31 deadline for a full withdrawal from the Taliban-controlled country
- Rep. Cawthorn appealed to Kamala Harris to ‘find the courage’ to push Biden out
- WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGES
By Elizabeth Elkind, Politics Reporter for DailyMail.com
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy warned President Joe Biden that he faces ‘a day of reckoning’ over the Afghanistan crisis on Friday and appeared to hint at possible impeachment proceedings after Americans were evacuated from the Taliban-controlled country.
‘Look, I’m extremely frustrated with this president,’ McCarthy said in a press conference.
He said a president needs to have ‘the faith, the trust, and the confidence’ of Americans – which he said Biden lost on Thursday after a devastating attack on Kabul airport slaughtered at least 170 people and 13 US troops.
A suicide attack by ISIS-K near the Abbey Gate checkpoint of Hamid Karzai International Airport killed and injured hundreds and took the lives of 10 US Marines.
‘There will be a day of reckoning, and we have a constitutional right,’ the Republican lawmaker threatened.
But for now, McCarthy said the main focus should be evacuating Americans still stranded in Afghanistan.
McCarthy seemed to hint at future Republican-backed impeachment motions in a Thursday press conference
‘When that day passes, we can take up anything that – to hold accountable for the actions that have been taken, the lies that have been given, the mis-decisions that put Americans in harm’s way, and the decision to leave Americans behind,’ he said.
‘That choice and that answer should never be given by the president of the United States.’
He also criticized Biden over his August 31 deadline for a full withdrawal – a decision that came despite pleas from fellow heads of state and lawmakers here at home.
‘Why would President Biden pick the Taliban over our allies ands over Americans?’ he questioned.
Republican Rep. Peter Meijer also heckled Biden’s handling of the chaos in Afghanistan late Thursday night, and urged Congress to reclaim its war powers authority to prevent future crises.
After the deadly blasts at Kabul airport Meijer posted on Twitter grieving the loss of 13 US service members in the ‘horrific attack’ on Kabul airport Thursday.
Rep. Peter Meijer, a veteran, sent condolences to the families of service members killed in the deadly Kabul airport blasts Thursday and blamed Biden’s ‘reckless withdrawal’
Afghans lie on beds at a hospital after they were wounded in the deadly attacks outside the airport in Kabul
The dead body of an Afghan is laid on the ground at a hospital in Kabul on August 27, the day after the explosions
The day after the explosions Taliban forces remain blocking the roads around the airport
He said his ‘heart is absolutely broken’ for the families of the fallen troops and their fellow troops.
‘On Tuesday I saw Marines bravely managing chaos at Abbey Gate. Today, the grave risk they took to save countless lives was made terribly clear,’ Meijer wrote on Twitter, referencing a widely criticized trip he and Rep. Seth Moulton took to the airport amid the evacuation effort.
‘This was a position they should not have been in, but President Biden’s reckless withdrawal gave them no other choice.’
‘Congress needs to reclaim its authority over war powers to ensure such a catastrophe never happens again.’
The Constitutional duty to formally declare war belongs to Congress, but measures passed under the George W. Bush administration expanded the president’s authority to conduct military operations abroad.
Meijer, a veteran, penned an op-ed with two other lawmakers in May also calling for Congress to repeal the authorizations for use of military force.
Freshman Rep. Madison Cawthorn, a vocal critic of the Biden administration, went a step further and asked Vice President Kamala Harris to take on the ‘grim remedy’ of invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Biden from office.
Rep. Peter Meijer (left) and Rep. Madison Cawthorn (right) are just two of the lawmakers criticizing Biden for the chaos in Afghanistan
A letter from GOP Rep. Madison Cawthorn to Vice President Kamala Harris asks her to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove President Biden from power
Biden vowed retribution against those responsible for carrying out the Kabul airport attacks in a speech on Thursday
‘As the person that works closest with the President, you are also the one who best knows the differences between the perception the West Wing wants to project and the ugly reality,’ he wrote Wednesday. ‘I have become increasingly convinced of what you already know, President Biden is no longer capable of discharging the duties of his office.’
Under Biden’s watch Cawthorn said the US has seen ‘an undefended border,’ ‘rising inflation’ and ‘American honor being lost in a craven retreat from the Taliban.’
‘The crises that I mentioned above requires a President that is operating at the peak of his cognitive powers. It seems obvious now that this is no longer the case,’ he wrote.
On those grounds, he asked Harris to ‘find the courage’ to initiate the process of booting Biden from office.
Harris, who only recently returned to the US after a diplomatic tour in Southeast Asia, released a statement Thursday night honoring the victims of the deadly Kabul attack.
‘Doug and I grieve for the Americans we lost, we pray for the Americans injured in the attack, and our hearts go out to their loved ones. We also grieve for the Afghan civilians killed and injured,’ the vice president said.
Rep. Brian Mast also questioned Biden’s mental capabilities in a CNN interview on Thursday night.
Rep. Brian Mast said Biden’s promise for revenge is ‘as hollow as his head’ in a Thursday CNN interview
U.S. soldiers with the 82nd Airborne Division escort evacuees to buses for onward movement during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 25
U.S Sky Dragon soldiers help Afghan evacuees at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, on August 24
Asked about Biden’s promise to hold the Kabul airport attackers responsible, the lawmaker said ‘his words are as hollow as his heart and his head.’
Mast said he was filled with ‘rage’ at the president for his handling of the crisis.
Biden on his part vowed retribution to those responsible in a speech on Thursday.
‘To those who carried out this attack, as well as anyone who wishes America harm, know this: We will not forgive. We will not forget,’ he said.
‘We will hunt you down and make you pay. I will defend our interests and our people with every measure at my command.’
But American voters’ confidence that Biden can stick by his duty in the face of his looming withdrawal deadline is slipping.
The president’s approval rating is at an all-time low of 47.2 percent on Friday, according to data aggregator FiveThirtyEight.
A majority of respondents to YouGov poll conducted this week ‘strongly disapprove’ of Biden’s handling of Afghanistan.
In line with GOP lawmakers, 77 percent of Republicans expressed strong disapproval – less than 10 percent view it favorably at all.