Politico | Afghanistan: Pentagon scolds Meijer, Moulton for Kabul airport visit
- The Pentagon said Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin was angered by the secret visit congressmen Peter Meijer and Seth Moulton made to Afghanistan
- ‘They certainly took time away from what we had been planning to do that day,’ said Defence Department press secretary John Kirby
This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Quint Forgey on politico.com on August 25, 2021.
The Pentagon’s top spokesman on Wednesday publicly reprimanded a pair of congressional lawmakers for travelling to the international airport in Kabul – saying the unauthorised excursion required a “pull-off” of US military resources amid the urgent evacuation mission out of the Afghan capital.
Defence Department press secretary John Kirby also suggested during a news briefing at the Pentagon that Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin was personally angered by the secret visit congressmen Peter Meijer and Seth Moulton made to Hamid Karzai International Airport on Tuesday.
“We were not aware of this visit, and we are obviously not encouraging VIP visits to a very tense, dangerous and dynamic situation at that airport and inside Kabul, generally,” Kirby told reporters. “And the secretary, I think, would have appreciated the opportunity to have had a conversation before the visit took place.”
“To say that there wasn’t a need to flex and to alter the day’s flow – including the need to have protection for these members of Congress – that wouldn’t be a genuine thing for me to assert,” Kirby said. “I mean, there was certainly a pull-off of the kinds of missions we were trying to do to be able to accommodate that visit.”
Meijer and Moulton “certainly took time away from what we had been planning to do that day,” Kirby added, although he was unable to say with certainty whether the lawmakers also occupied seats on departing US military aircraft that could have been filled with evacuees.
“I honestly don’t know what the seat capacity was on that aircraft,” Kirby said. “But they are out of the country now.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy avoided direct criticism of the congressmen on Wednesday, noting that both Meijer and Moulton are veterans who were irritated by the inadequate level of transparency they were receiving from the administration about the situation on the ground. Still, he advised other members of Congress not to follow their lead.
“I don’t think it was right that they went, but I understand their frustration of why they would want to go, by the lack of answers they were getting,” McCarthy told reporters. “So yes, they made a decision to try to do something on their own.”
Olivia Beavers contributed to this report.
