Witnesses who spoke to the committee about the surprise withdrawal plan included
Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, former national security advisor to the vice president Keith Kellogg, and several other senior officials in the Trump administration.
Milley said he was shocked when he saw the withdrawal orders, signed by Trump on Veterans Day 2020, just four days after Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election.
“It is odd. It is nonstandard,” Milley said in his recorded testimony. “It is potentially dangerous. I personally thought it was militarily not feasible nor wise.”
Kellogg, a retired Army lieutenant general, said after seeing the order he told senior staff the idea was “a tremendous disservice to the nation” and implementing it would be “catastrophic.”
At the time, about 8,000 troops were still stationed in Afghanistan, helping train government security forces and conduct counter-terrorism operations. Fewer than 1,000 U.S. troops were in Somalia on similar missions.
Journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa referenced the surprise memo in
their book “Peril” on the Trump presidency, released last month.