Nevada lawmakers working to get people out of Afghanistan

WASHINGTON — As pressure mounts on the Biden administration to complete the evacuation in Afghanistan, Nevada lawmakers worked Tuesday to secure the extraction of Americans, and allies, from the chaos before an Aug. 31 deadline for U.S. withdrawal.

The Nevada congressional delegation fielded calls and requests from families and military service members to find and evacuate loved ones, translators and contractors from Afghanistan, where crowds at the airport have become an obstacle for a quick evacuation.

A translator, who is a U.S. citizen, and his wife and three children, who are not citizens, were safely evacuated following a telephone call last Friday to the Reno office of Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev.

Amodei said another person has been located in Afghanistan and is in contact with the State Department. That person is in the process of being evacuated from the war-torn country.

“It’s the Wild West out there,” Amodei told the Review-Journal in describing the situation.

The U.S. military has stepped up flights and evacuated more than 20,000 people on Monday, the largest number to date, as the Biden administration seeks to meet the deadline under threat of military consequences by Taliban leaders if troops remain past that date.

President Joe Biden, following talks with Group of Seven leaders, said the United States was on pace to complete the evacuation by August 31, and negotiations with the Taliban continue.

There have been 70,700 people evacuated by aircraft since Aug. 14, the president claimed in televised remarks from the White House.

“The sooner we can finish, the better,” said Biden, who acknowledged, “It’s a tenuous situation.”

Still, Biden ordered the Pentagon and State Department to draw up contingency plans, just in case more time is need.

Extension urged

Some G-7 leaders have publicly pushed Biden to move the deadline back as military and personnel from other countries evacuate and struggle to accept the number of Afghans refugees fleeing the country.

Republicans stepped up their criticism of what they called a haphazard withdrawal, the apparent miscalculation of the speed of the Taliban takeover of major cities and the collapse of the Afghan government.

“It’s obvious that people in the administration were ignoring information, or not getting information,” Amodei said of the Biden administration’s frenzied evacuation and withdrawal. “Look, we’ve been there for 20 years.”

Amodei said there “is a little blame for the previous administration, too” for negotiating a withdrawal with a specific deadline.

The Trump administration negotiated the withdrawal and a cease-fire last year, with a stated plan for U.S. military withdrawal by May 1 of this year, a deadline that Biden extended to August.

Amodei said he was not arguing against ending U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan, but instead said he was critical of the Biden administration and agencies for the planning and execution.

“How embarrassing to be run out of a third-world country by a bunch of thugs,” he said. “It’s phenomenally embarrassing.”

Administration officials have pushed back against the criticism and GOP messaging, saying the ongoing success of the evacuation is a tribute to the nation’s military and diplomats who have carried out a withdrawal that has been in the making since last year.

But Republican and Democratic lawmakers have questioned whether the evacuation can be completed by next week, even with the president’s decision to use commercial aircraft to expedite the process.

Rep. Susie Lee, D-Nev., said she and other lawmakers received a classified briefing Tuesday from Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

“Based on what I heard during that briefing, I have grave concerns about meeting the August 31 deadline,” Lee said.

She said extending our military presence comes with risks, “but I believe that the administration should strongly consider extending the deadline.”

“Despite the tragic miscalculations, we have made tremendous progress when it comes to evacuation efforts. We absolutely must do everything we can to evacuate all Americans and our allies,” Lee said.

Other Nevada Democrats have pledged to hold the Biden administration accountable for a safe and effective evacuation of Americans, Afghan refugees and translators and other workers who helped U.S. efforts.

Helping people get out

Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto and Jacky Rosen are working on cases involving Americans still in Afghanistan, and have urged the State Department to include Afghan applicants for Special Immigrant Visas, and their families, in the ongoing withdrawal, aides said.

Rosen took to Twitter on Tuesday: “If you, or a Nevadan you know, are currently at risk in Afghanistan, please contact my office.”

Reps. Dina Titus, Steven Horsford, Lee and Amodei, were also assisting constituents trying to locate and evacuate people from the region.

The terrorist group al-Qaida was given safe haven in Afghanistan by Taliban leaders in the years before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The Taliban’s strict religious regime denied education to young girls and women, in addition to other human rights abuses.

Rosen and other Nevada lawmakers have emphasized the need to extract women leaders in Afghanistan likely to be endangered by the takeover of the Taliban.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee plans a hearing when Congress returns to question Blinken and Austin. Titus is on the committee that will review the Biden administration plan and execution of the withdrawal.

Meanwhile, Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak has welcomed Afghan refugees and those with Special Immigrant visas. He said last week that that state was ready to “play its part with the resettlement effort.”

Biden said the number of people allowed into the U.S. under refugee status would increase over the number allowed into the country under the tightened immigration policies of the Trump administration.

Amodei said he expects Biden to declare victory, regardless if the goal posts are moved past Aug. 31.

But what was arguably Biden’s greatest strength — foreign policy — has turned to a weakness, Amodei said, calling the Afghanistan withdrawal “the biggest embarrassment in foreign policy in our time.”

Contact Gary Martin at gmartin@reviewjournal.com. Follow @garymartindc on Twitter.