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.”
