Missouri U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley on Tuesday suggested that Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, cared more about his image among the Washington D.C. press than the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and once again called for his resignation.
“It seems to me that you put a high priority on making sure you were highly favorably portrayed by the D.C. press corps,” Hawley said during a meeting of the Senate Committee on Armed Services. “Fair enough if that’s your priority, but at the same time, we had a rapidly deteriorating, frankly disastrous situation in Afghanistan.”
Several Republicans criticized Milley for agreeing to be interviewed for several books about the final months Trump presidency, when he expressed concern that Trump was mentally unstable.
The book “Peril” by The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward and Robert Costa first reported that Milley asked the military to warn him if Trump ordered the launch of nuclear weapons.
That report sparked Hawley’s first call that Milley should resign.
Milley was not able to directly respond to Hawley because of the committee rules governing testimony.
Hawley’s speech came toward the end of more than five hours of testimony by three of President Joe Biden’s top defense advisers — Milley, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and General Kenneth McKenzie, the commander of U.S. Central Command — about the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Milley said he often agrees to interviews with television stations, newspapers and books because he thinks it’s an important form of government transparency.
Hawley has been calling for Biden’s top foreign policy advisers to resign for several weeks.
Earlier this month, he pledged not to confirm any nominations for the Departments of State or Defense unless several of Biden’s top foreign policy advisers resign. While the procedural move won’t block the nominees, it will slow down the process of filling key posts in both departments.
Democrats have accused Hawley of threatening national security because it would increase the amount of time some national security jobs remained vacant.
Hawley repeated the call on Tuesday.
“General, I think you should resign,” Hawley said. “Secretary Austin, I think you should resign. I think this mission was a catastrophe, I think there’s no other way to say it and there has to be accountability, I respectfully submit that it should begin with you.”
It is unlikely that any of Biden’s top advisers will resign. Earlier in the hearing, Milley dismissed a call from U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas that he should have resigned when Biden didn’t accept his advice to keep around 2,500 troops in Afghanistan instead of withdrawing by September 11, calling it a political act.
“My dad didn’t get a choice to resign at Iwo Jima,” Milley said. “And those kids there at Abbey Gate (where a terrorist attack killed 13 soldiers, including one from Missouri), they don’t get a choice to resign. And I’m not going to turn my back on them. They can’t resign, so I’m not going to resign, there’s no way.”
Still, Milley, Austin and McKenzie faced several hours of questions from both Republicans and Democrats looking for answers to what went wrong as the U.S. backed Afghanistan government quickly fell and the U.S. scrambled to evacuate.
The group testified that their intelligence did not predict the speed with which the Taliban would be able to take over the country, calling it a strategic failure but a logistical success because the U.S. was able to help around 124,000 people get out of the country.
Hawley, who was an enthusiastic supporter of former President Donald Trump’s agreement with the Taliban to withdraw American troops by May 1, has criticized the Biden administration for saying any part of the mission was a success. In his first five minutes of questions, he criticized Austin’s statements about Americans left behind in Afghanistan.
“Please don’t tell me we’re not leaving Americans behind,” Hawley said. “You left them behind, President Biden left them behind and it is a disgrace.”
Earlier in the hearing, Milley said that if the U.S. had left troops in Afghanistan after August 31, it would have increased the danger for American citizens still trying to get out of Afghanistan.
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