Utah Representative Burgess Owens is among a group of House Freshman Republicans that have denounced President Biden’s handling of withdrawal from Afghanistan. The letter shared in part: “As you oversee the final withdrawal from Afghanistan, we call on your administration to urgently prioritize the evacuation of American citizens, security of the airfield, and the evacuation of loyal Afghans who served alongside U.S. forces. We must safely and expeditiously get Americans and our Afghan partners out of harm’s way. Leaving Afghan allies behind would almost certainly seal their fate and would have harmful and lasting repercussions for our nation that cannot be overlooked…As members of Congress, we also need to understand how and why your administration had such a poor grasp of the situation on the ground in Afghanistan.” The letter also stated that Americans and veterans that served in Afghanistan “deserve to have a full accounting of the diplomatic, defense, and intelligence failures that led to the crisis we are witnessing.”
