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An admiral for the U.S. Navy claimed “high-profile” requests, including one from first lady Jill Biden, caused disruption to overall Afghanistan evacuation efforts last year.
Rear Adm. Peter Vasely, who serves as a special assistant to the Director of the Navy Staff, said incessant calls for help during the efforts to get Americans out of the now-Taliban-controlled country caused a “distraction” and “created competition for already stressed resources.”
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden board Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Thursday, July 1, 2021.
(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Vasley’s remarks, stemming from a late September interview, came in a story by the Washington Post, which obtained a 2,000-page report from the probe of the 17-day operation out of Kabul.
“That’s accurate,” Vasley said when asked in sworn testimony for the report whether Pope Francis and First Lady Jill Biden intervened in evacuation efforts to request help on behalf of others.
BIDEN ADMIN’S AFGHANISTAN WITHDRAWAL FAILURES DETAILED IN REPORT
“I was being contacted by representatives from the Holy See to assist the Italian military contingent … in getting through groups … of special interest to the Vatican,” he said. “That is just one of many examples.”
“I cannot stress enough how these high-profile requests ate up bandwidth and created competition for already stressed resources,” Vasley added.
President Joe Biden looks down alongside First Lady Jill Biden as they attend the dignified transfer of the remains of a fallen service member, one of the 13 members of the US military killed in Afghanistan.
(Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
Vasley, overwhelmed with phone calls, text messages and emails at the time at the U.S. operations center at Kabul’s international airport, told investigators he established a “coordination cell” to help handle the high volume of communication from Washington and elsewhere.
“But you had everyone from the White House down with a new flavor of the day for prioritization,” Vasely told investigators for the report.
That declassified report, which featured dozens of interviews with military officials, was rejected by President Biden during an interview with NBC News released Thursday night.
Asked by anchor Lester Holt about the report and whether the accusations in the report “ring true” to him, Biden said, “No. That’s not what I was told.”
“I just want to clarify, are you rejecting the conclusions, or the accounts that are in this Army report,” Holt asked.
“Yes, I am,” Biden responded.
“They are not true,” Holt pressed.
“I am rejecting them,” Biden said.
A USMC Marine assists a woman and child during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan.
(Department of Defense)
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Biden has faced immense criticism for his rocky withdrawal from Afghanistan, which resulted in 13 American service members losing their lives during the evacuation effort after a bomb exploded near an airport checkpoint they were manning in Kabul.
The Pentagon concluded last week that the August 2021 suicide bombing in Kabul during evacuation efforts near the U.S. embassy was “not preventable.”
