The promotion of a three-star general who was part of the 2021 edition US withdrawal from Afghanistan was suspended by Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, three sources familiar with the matter confirmed to CBS News on Saturday.
Lieutenant General Christopher Donahue was to be promoted to the four-star rank and take command of the United States Army in Europe. However, he was not included in a batch of nearly 1,000 promotions that were submitted this week to the Senate Armed Services Committee, despite receiving a recommendation from the Pentagon.
Mullin suspended the promotion. The intention is to allow the new Republican-controlled Congress and President-elect Donald Trump to weigh in on the promotion given Donahue’s involvement in the Afghanistan withdrawal, two sources familiar with the matter told CBS News.
Behind the scenes, efforts are underway by the military and other allies to convince Congress to move forward and lift the hold, which appears to be politically motivated, sources said. .
ALLISON JOYCE/AFP via Getty Images
During the countrysideTrump has often mentioned his surprise that no officers were fired by President Biden because of the chaotic withdrawal.
Military officers execute American policy but do not create it. It was the Trump administration which, in February 2020, negotiated the deal with the Taliban to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan, but it was Mr Biden who decided to execute this withdrawal despite the Taliban breaking the terms of this American agreement.
Donahue was the last American soldier to leave Afghanistan in 2021. The United States evacuated about 125,000 people, including 6,000 Americans, during its withdrawal, during which dozens of Afghans and 13 American service members been killed. in a suicide attack in front of Hamid Karzai Airport in Kabul.
The United States underestimated how quickly the Taliban would seize Kabul, and the well-documented U.S. failures in logistics and planning have been the subject of multiple internal investigations at the Pentagon, State Department and in Congress.
A detailed report from the State Department released last year found that “insufficient planning”, communication failures and a failure to grasp the “scale and scope of the operation” contributed to the chaotic operation.
CBS News reached out to Mullin’s office but did not receive a response. It is unclear whether Trump is aware of this influence.
contributed to this report.
Marguerite Brennan
