Mariannette Miller-Meeks: Biden should resign over handling of Afghan evacuation

Iowa Republican U.S. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks called on President Joe Biden to resign in the aftermath of a terrorist attack near Kabul, Afghanistan, airport.

“Joe Biden’s withdrawal of Afghanistan has been a failure and has ended with needless deaths and injuries,“ Miller-Meeks, a U.S. Army veteran and member of the House Homeland Security Committee, tweeted late Thursday. ”Joe Biden should resign as Commander-In-Chief!“

Miller-Meeks added that National Security adviser Jake Sullivan, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken also should “hand in their resignations.”

“I'm very saddened and pray for those who lost their lives within our military,” Miller-Meeks told the Quad-City Times in an interview Thursday night. “We were actually trying to help a family out that was involved in that blast, and waiting to hear if one of those individuals is still living. They were seriously injured.”

Miller-Meeks on Friday introduced legislation that would prohibit the distribution of federal funds to Afghanistan until all Americans and U.S. allies have been safely evacuated from the country.

“We have an obligation to work around the clock to bring home all American soldiers and citizens from Afghanistan,” Miller-Meeks said in a statement. “We also have a moral obligation to help Afghans who assisted American operations during our 20 years there.”

“It'’s heartbreaking. It’s tragic and it’s a travesty,” Miller-Meeks said of the situation in Afghanistan.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., on Thursday called for bringing the House lawmakers back from recess to vote on legislation that would prohibit withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan until all remaining Americans are evacuated, The Hill reported.

Miller-Meeks argued Afghanistan was relatively stable with 2,500 troops and the Taliban pushed to periphery in the rural areas.

“We had the ability to do airstrikes” and provide air cover from Bagram Air Base, “and we were preventing other terrorist organizations from once again getting a foothold in Afghanistan to use it as a terrorist base,” Miller-Meeks said.

“We absolutely have a counterterrorist mission in Afghanistan. The president could have explained that to people. … We're now in a position where (the Taliban) have Humvees, military weapons, infrared goggles, Black Hawk helicopters.

“We have equipment that was left there that now they have in their hands so it's going to be much more difficult now to secure the safety and extraction of Americans and our military and Afghan partners than it would have been had this operation been planned and conducted appropriately.”