Though Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, criticized the Trump administration’s agreement with the Taliban as “wholly inadequate,” he also didn’t spare Biden.
“I am disappointed that the Biden administration clearly did not accurately assess the implications of a rapid U.S. withdrawal,” Menendez said.
Rep. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.), a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee, issued a blistering rebuke of the U.S. withdrawal under Biden, calling it a “catastrophe.”
“At minimum, the Biden administration owed our Afghan allies of 20 years a real plan,” Langevin wrote.
Other Democrats stopped short of criticizing Biden directly but broke with his handling of the exit strategy.
Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), a close Biden ally, said that while the U.S. military shouldn’t have stayed “indefinitely,” the drawdown “should have been carefully planned to prevent violence and instability, and to ensure that the hard-fought progress gained over the past two decades—particularly when it comes to Afghan women and girls—would not be lost.”
