Tyler Vargas-Andrews, a former Marine sergeant who lost an arm and a leg in a suicide bombing at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport, tries to hold back tears as he tells his story during a hearing before the commission of Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives on the American evacuation from Afghanistan, Wednesday, March 8, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Soldados en activo y retirados testificaron el miércoles sober el caótico retiro de Estados Unidos de Afganistán, describiendo con angustioso detalle la massacre y las muertes que vieron en el lugar, y le rogaron al Congreso ayudar a los aliados que se quedaron in the country.

Former Marine Corps Sergeant Tyler Vargas-Andrews testified before Congress about the stench of human flesh under a huge column of smoke as the screams of children, women and men filled the space around Kabul airport following two suicide bombings against crowds of Afghans.

“I see the faces of everyone we couldn’t save, those we left behind,” said Vargas-Andrews, who wore a prosthetic arm and the scars from his own injuries sustained during the offensive. “In my opinion, the withdrawal was a disaster. And there was an inexcusable lack of accountability.

The first hearing of an inquiry that long-promised House Republicans revealed open wounds at the end of America’s longest war in August 2021. Witnesses said they saw mothers carrying the bodies of their dead babies and the Taliban brutally shooting and beating civilians.

It was the first in what is expected to be a series of Republican-led hearings to examine how the federal government handled the withdrawal. Taliban forces captured the capital, Kabul, much faster than US intelligence predicted when the US military withdrew. The fall of Kabul turned the West’s withdrawal into a beating, with Kabul airport becoming the center of a desperate air evacuation led by US forces temporarily deployed for the mission.

Most witnesses argued before Congress that the fall of Kabul was an American failure and that the fault lies with the governments of every president, from George W. Bush to Joe Biden. The testimony did not focus on the withdrawal decision, but on what witnesses said was a desperate attempt to rescue American citizens and Afghan allies without much planning or inadequate federal support.

“The United States is earning a bad reputation for systematic neglect of our allies across generations, in which we have left smoldering human residue from the mountain people of Vietnam to the Kurds of Syria,” retired Lt. Col. Scott Mann said. in his testimony. before the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

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Associated Press writer Tara Copp contributed to this report.

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