During Wednesday's House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, several survivors of the Afghanistan withdrawal and the Kabul airport attack shined new light on the Biden administration's decisions.
Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, a Marine sniper who served in Afghanistan during the American withdrawal, recounted the ordeal, telling members about the moment he and a friend were hit with a "flash and massive wave of pressure" after a suicide bomb detonated at Kabul airport on Aug. 26, 2021.
Vargas-Andrews shared how, despite intelligence about a potential suicide bomber, he and fellow Marines were never given permission to take out an individual who matched the description of a suicide bomber.
"Plain and simple, we were ignored. Our expertise was disregarded, no one was held accountable for our safety," Vargas-Andrews said.
Save Our Allies co-founder Tim Kennedy argued the "preventable" deaths in Afghanistan were the result of putting political ambitions over decisions from "warfighters on the ground."
"Unfortunately, the authorities and authorizations that should have been available for our service members to do their jobs, we're not. The Department of State were the ones that were running this NEO operation, this noncombatant evacuation operation. And the Department of State should never run a military operation," Kennedy said on "Fox & Friends" Thursday.
"It never goes well at any time that you have a politician trying to dictate what warfighters are going to do on the ground. This is going to be the byproduct. We're going to see young men and women die, and we're going to continue to lose wars."
Kennedy, an Army veteran and former UFC fighter who co-founded Save Our Allies, went to Afghanistan to help rescue Americans and get allies out after the decision to withdraw was announced in August 2021. After initiating the withdrawal of U.S. troops, the Taliban quickly swarmed in to reclaim the region.
"The men and women that were on the ground, the service members there that were [there], acts of heroism everywhere that you look at these service members, the 82nd, the Marines on the ground doing things that are indescribable and seen things that we would never wish upon our worst enemy," Kennedy said having witnessed much during his time helping the withdrawal.
"It's unforgivable the lack of tools and resources that we gave them for this evacuation. And chaotic and catastrophic can't even begin to describe what it looked like on the ground."
As the House investigates the Biden administration over the withdrawal, Vargas-Andrews' testimony included other failures stemming from leadership, including slow processing speed by State Department personnel.
"The troops on the ground had to tirelessly work to control the crowds, day and night. The Department of State staff at HKIA (Hamid Karzai International Airport) would completely shut down processing Afghans every evening and into the morning, leaving ground forces with a nightmare," he said. "State was not prepared to be in HKIA."
Kennedy argued, "it's absolutely the fault of the government and Department of State for things like this happening and for us to continue to lose these wars." He said the problems arose from State personnel, not military commanders, being in charge of the situation.
"It was absolutely preventable," he said.
Kennedy shared how "unfortunate" it is that the nation lost 13 servicemen and women who cannot share their stories.
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"The guilt, the remorse of having to deal with losing Americans on the ground that day because of failed policy and because we took the authorities and the authorizations away from ground force commanders," Kennedy said. "When are we going to learn that this is not how we fight, this is not how we win wars. This is how we continue to lose them. This is far from over."
Fox News' Michael Lee contributed to this report.
