Former President Joe Biden on Monday preemptively pardoned Gen. Mark Milley, capping a presidency marred by Afghanistan’s chaotic 2021 withdrawal.
Milley accepted the pardon and said in a statement that he does not want to spend the rest of his life fighting “retaliation.”
But critics of the withdrawal in Congress say they are not done with him yet.
“Mark Milley may be pardoned, but we will continue to explore ways to hold him accountable,” said Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind. Afghan veteran.
Post-withdrawal assessments largely question why the military withdrew from the region before civilian evacuations were completed.
Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has admitted that the withdrawal, which left 13 American troops dead, was a “strategic failure.”
HOUSE GOP DELIVERS DESTRUCTIVE REPORT ON BIDEN’S WITHDRAWAL FROM AFGHANISTAN
Biden has preemptively pardoned Mark Milley. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, file)
During a 2024 Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Milley blamed the State Department for delaying a noncombatant evacuation operation (NEO), or an order to withdraw U.S. citizens working in the country, but he praised the military’s actions.
That order did not come until mid-August 2021, just two weeks before the deadline Biden had set to leave the country.
“I think that was too slow and too late. And that then set off a series of events that resulted in the last few days. There were a lot more mistakes made along the way… (but) I think that was the key.”
“The U.S. military is responsible for supporting the Department of State in an evacuation operation of non-combatants, but the withdrawal of U.S. forces from a combat zone if it constitutes an act of war is the responsibility of the Department of Defense , and at the time that ultimately we left no residual force,” Alex Pritsas, a former counterterrorism official at the Department of Defense, told Fox News Digital.
Hundreds of people gather near a U.S. Air Force C-17 transport aircraft on the edge of the international airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Monday, August 17, 2021. (AP)
Biden also pardoned Anthony Fauci and members of the January 6 Committee. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Milley said in testimony before Congress in June 2021 that the US would not see scenes reminiscent of the fall of Saigon in Vietnam, where US personnel were airlifted from rooftops.
‘I don’t see Saigon 1975 in Afghanistan. The Taliban are simply not the North Vietnamese army.”
Milley’s pardon was part of a group of preemptive pardons that also included Anthony Fauci and members of the Jan. 6 commission.
“My family and I are deeply grateful for the president’s action today,” Milley said in response to the pardon.
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He continued, “After 43 years of dedicated service in uniform to our nation, protecting and defending the Constitution, I do not want to spend the remaining time the Lord gives me fighting those who might unjustly seek retribution for alleged contempt. I want to help my family, my friends and those with whom I have served through the resulting distraction, expense and anxiety.”
Jerry Dunleavy, former top investigator on the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Afghanistan investigation, told Fox News Digital about the pardon: “Milley wrongly rejected the clearly correct comparison between the fall of Saigon and the impending fall of Kabul, the vastly inflated scale of the Afghan forces. , woefully underestimated the speed and scope of control of the Taliban district, and then promoted the fiction that Afghanistan would fall in just eleven days.
“After a disaster in which 13 troops were killed at Abbey Gate and the Taliban regained power, Milley then incorrectly predicted that Ukraine would fall to the Russians in just three days,” he added, referring to comments Milley made.after a closed-door briefing with lawmakers.
