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From the SitRoom to the E-Ring, the inside scoop on defense, national security and foreign policy. | | | | | |  | | By Alexander Ward and Quint Forgey | | 
On Monday, an Air Force aircrew prepared to receive soldiers to board a U.S. aircraft to evacuate Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul. | Senior Airman Taylor Crul/U.S. Air Force via AP | With help from Connor O’Brien Welcome to National Security Daily, your guide to the global events roiling Washington and keeping the administration up at night. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Alex | Email Quint Anger is growing in Congress after the U.S. military fully withdrew from Afghanistan while leaving behind 100-200 Americans who wanted to be evacuated. “Hundreds of Americans and thousands of our Afghan allies have been left behind enemy lines. This is not a mission accomplished, this is a complete disgrace,” Rep. MIKE GALLAGHER (R-Wis.), who authored a bill that would’ve compelled U.S. forces to stay in Afghanistan until every willing evacuee got out, said in a statement Monday evening. “America’s last flight left Afghanistan, even though we still don’t know the total number of Americans trapped behind enemy lines — it’s unforgivable,” added Sen. STEVE DAINES (R-Mont.). It’s not just Republicans: Many Democratic lawmakers privately expressed frustration to NatSec Daily that President JOE BIDEN and his team didn’t evacuate every U.S. citizen who wanted out before ending the military mission. But, despite many attempts by NatSec Daily to get them on the record, none wanted to be seen as bashing the president over a broken promise. Recall this moment from the president’s interview two weeks ago with ABC News’ GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: STEPHANOPOULOS: [A]re you committed to making sure that the troops stay until every American who wants to be out— BIDEN: Yes. STEPHANOPOULOS: — is out? BIDEN: Yes. A U.S. defense official provided NatSec Daily with the final evacuation numbers:
— U.S. citizens: 6,040
— Non-U.S. citizens: 73,320
— Non-U.S. NATO citizens: 1,885
— SIV applicants: 705
— Third-country nationals: 3,335
— Afghan nationals: 31,760 The question lawmakers are asking themselves is: What to do now? Republicans have already put forward legislation to force Biden to change course, and Democrats are considering some serious measures of their own. Some are waiting to see if the administration’s case that it has diplomatic leverage over the Taliban bears out in the coming weeks. But right now, there’s just widespread, genuine hurt on Capitol Hill and the people they represent. PAUL RIECKHOFF, a prominent member of the U.S. veterans community, told NatSec Daily that leaving those Americans behind is “awful” and “a shameful disgrace.” But don’t expect Biden to concede any ground on this. His team repeats that they got nearly 100 percent of all U.S. evacuees out, and he personally insists his top military advisers recommended the United States withdraw by his Aug. 31 deadline, which Gen. FRANK MCKENZIE, the U.S. Central Command chief, appeared to confirm at a news briefing Monday. “I think if we’d stayed another 10 days, we wouldn’t have gotten everybody out that we wanted to get out, and there still would have been people who would have been disappointed with that,” he said. “It's a tough situation.” BIDEN: ENDING AFGHANISTAN WAR ABOUT "ENDING AN ERA ... TO REMAKE OTHER COUNTRIES": Biden delivered a fiery address Tuesday afternoon defending his Afghanistan withdrawal decision. "The war in Afghanistan is now over," he said, saying it wasn't in America's national interest to keep fighting in that country to build up that nation. "It's about ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries." "I refuse to open another decade of war in Afghanistan," he said, at times raising his voice and at other moments employing his trademark empathetic tone. However, Biden seemed to point the finger at others for the troubled departure. It was former President DONALD TRUMP 's fault for making a deal with the Taliban in the first place. The Americans who wanted to leave but didn't make it to the airport share some of the burden. It was the Afghan government that let corruption run rampant and abandoned the country as the Taliban walked into Kabul. And by authorizing the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from the country by Aug. 31, even with 100 to 200 Americans left, Biden said he was just following the unanimous recommendation of his military and civilian advisers. The buck stopped short of here, in a sense. That said, he made sure to note the decision to end the war was his, and his alone, and he stands by it. Biden is sticking to his guns, as he has throughout the entire withdrawal process. Look for backlash from Congress, mostly from Republicans but also some in his own party. Buckle up, it's going to get ugly. | | | GOP PONDERS IMPEACHMENT OVER AFGHANISTAN: Conservative lawmakers are pressuring House Minority Leader KEVIN MCCARTHY to seek Biden's impeachment for the Afghanistan withdrawal, as the Republican rank-and-file are getting heat from their own constituents to oust the commander in chief. “It’s a grassroots pressure — we’re feeling it,” Rep. BARRY MOORE (R-Ala.), a House Freedom Caucus member, told our own OLIVIA BEAVERS. “I think even some of the Democrats are feeling it.” There’s no path for impeachment right now, especially since Democrats have a (slim) majority in both chambers. But that doesn’t mean Republicans will sit idly by. “[T]he constituent pressure could persuade more reluctant members of McCarthy’s conference to back an escalation in the party’s messaging against Biden,” Beavers wrote. “McCarthy, who endorsed former President Donald Trump’s call to pull troops from Afghanistan, already has promised ‘a day of reckoning’ that includes investigations and hearings on Biden’s handling of the U.S. pullout if Republicans win the majority.” U.N. ADOPTS RESOLUTION AIMED AT TALIBAN: The United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution Monday pressuring the Taliban to allow Afghans and foreign nationals to leave Afghanistan, let humanitarian assistance flow into the country, support human rights, and counter terrorism, per The Associated Press’ JENNIFER PELTZ. The resolution — covered in Monday’s edition of NatSec Daily — was sponsored by the United States, the United Kingdom and France, and it won approval from 13 of the Security Council’s 15 member countries. China and Russia, however, abstained from the vote and criticized the American military withdrawal. Chinese deputy ambassador GENG SHUANG accused the United States and its allies of creating a “huge catastrophe … while shifting the blame and responsibility to Afghans’ neighboring countries and the Security Council.” Russian ambassador VASSILY NEBENZIA also spoke out against the resolution. SCENES FROM A WITHDRAWAL: Take a moment to sit with this brilliant dispatch by The New York Times’ THOMAS GIBBONS-NEFF, in which he steps back from the political fray to put the historic Afghanistan pullout in perspective. “Afghanistan has once more completed a cycle that has repeatedly defined the past 40 years of violence and upheaval: For the fifth time since the Soviet invasion in 1979, one order has collapsed and another has risen. What has followed each of those times has been a descent into vengeance, score-settling and, eventually, another cycle of disorder and war,” he wrote. “It is up to the Taliban, now, to decide whether they will perpetuate the cycle of vengeance, as they did upon seizing power from a group of feuding warlords in 1996, or will truly embrace the new path that their leaders have promised in recent days: one of acceptance and reconciliation.” IT’S TUESDAY: Thanks for tuning in to NatSec Daily. This space is reserved for the top U.S. and foreign officials, the lawmakers, the lobbyists, the experts and the people like you who care about how the natsec sausage gets made. Aim your tips and comments at award@politico.com and qforgey@politico.com, and follow us on Twitter at @alexbward and @QuintForgey. While you’re at it, follow the rest of POLITICO’s national security team: @nahaltoosi, @woodruffbets, @politicoryan, @PhelimKine, @BryanDBender, @laraseligman, @connorobrienNH, @paulmccleary, @leehudson, @AndrewDesiderio and @JonnyCustodio. | | | | INTRODUCING OTTAWA PLAYBOOK : Join the growing community of Politicos — from lawmakers and leaders to pollsters, staffers, strategists and lobbyists — working to shape Canada’s future. Every day, our reporting team pulls back the curtain to shed light on what’s really driving the agenda on Parliament Hill, the true players who are shaping politics and policy across Canada, and the impact it all has on the world. Don’t miss out on your daily look inside Canadian politics and power. Subscribe to Ottawa Playbook today. | | | | | | | | AMERICAN-BRITISH BLAME GAME AFTER KABUL BLAST: Afghanistan-related tensions between the United States and the United Kingdom have ramped up since Monday, when our own LARA SELIGMAN reported that American commanders wanted to close the Abbey Gate at Kabul’s international airport ahead of the ISIS-K bombings last week, but kept it open longer to allow Britain to continue evacuating personnel based at the nearby Baron Hotel. Now, U.K. Foreign Secretary DOMINIC RAAB is pushing back against the suggestion that British demands contributed to the terrorist attack, per POLITICO Europe’s ANNABELLE DICKSON and ALEX WICKHAM. “We certainly did take precautionary steps to limit and mitigate the risk [at Abbey Gate]. And one of those was removing the civilian staff in the Baron Hotel inside the airport. But that didn’t need or necessitate keeping the gate open,” Raab said Tuesday. U.K. Prime Minister BORIS JOHNSON ’s spokesperson later told reporters it was “simply not true to suggest we pushed to keep the gate open.” THE U.S.-ISRAELI “PLAN B” FOR IRAN: Israeli Defense Minister BENNY GANTZ said Washington and Jerusalem are developing a “Plan B” should diplomacy with Iran fail and Tehran move closer to obtaining a nuclear weapon. “We are working with them in order to establish a Plan B and to demonstrate that if there is no deal, other activities will begin, as President Biden said,” Gantz told reporters. He didn’t explain what that new plan is, but he did say: “We are allocating resources in order to strengthen our ability to act against challenges in the region, chief among them Iran.” Earlier this month, U.S. special envoy for Iran ROBERT MALLEY told NatSec Daily that America and its allies were preparing contingencies if the nuclear talks don’t pan out. One such scenario is that Washington and Tehran sign a wholly separate deal, complete with different parameters than the current accord. Another is a suite of punitive responses in coordination with European allies, though Malley didn’t specifically detail what those would be. STATE’S ANGER OVER ANTISEMITIC BLOGGER: The State Department’s workforce is irate that the diplomatic agency still has an antisemitic blogger on its payroll. “A group of more than 70 State Department officials sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken voicing alarm about ‘an openly antisemitic department employee who continues to have a home in our midst,’ calling for his removal,” according to a copy of the letter obtained by Foreign Policy’s ROBBIE GRAMER. “FRITZ BERGGREN, a U.S. foreign service officer, maintains a website, bloodandfaith.com, where he writes online posts and publishes video and audio files assailing Jews, the LGBTQ community, and calling for the creation of Christian nation-states,” Gramer wrote. Our own NAHAL TOOSI first uncovered Berggren’s postings in February. In July, someone carved a swastika into a department elevator. | | | TURKEY’S ANTI-SUBMARINE DRONE: The Turkish firm Ares Shipyard has created an unmanned anti-submarine drone that it hopes to mass produce later this year. “Ares said the ULAQ DSH/ASW successfully passed laser-guided firing tests and will first enter service with Turkey’s military before the company seeks export contracts. The firm identified Oman, Qatar, and African and South American countries as potential customers,” per C4ISRNet’s BURAK EGE BEKDIL. Turkey, a NATO ally, has become something of a drone-making powerhouse with a growing customer base. Its armed, unmanned systems have been used recently in Syria, Libya and the latest Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict. | | | FLIGHTAWARE FINAL SALE: Collins Aerospace, a unit of Raytheon, is set to acquire the FlightAware flight-tracking service, per Bloomberg News’ RYAN BEENE . “The deal will add the world’s largest flight tracking and data platform to the aerospace heavyweight’s portfolio of aircraft systems. It advances Collins’ push to expand its offerings amid rising demand for data-based services and analytics in commercial aerospace,” Beene wrote. No financial terms have been disclosed, and the move requires regulatory approval. | | | FIRST IN NATSEC DAILY — BIG BUCKS FOR BALTIC STATES: In NDAA news, Reps. RUBEN GALLEGO (D-Ariz.) and DON BACON (R-Neb.) announced that the HASC’s defense bill includes the first-ever authorization of the Baltic Security Initiative. The provision would direct $175 million “toward ensuring the security of the Baltic nations of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, which are critical to the security of the NATO alliance.” “The Baltic Security Initiative is a crucial part of keeping [Russian President VLADIMIR] PUTIN in check,” Gallego said in a statement, “and NDAA authorization of this program sends a message to the Kremlin that we are standing strong with our Baltic and NATO allies.” “Our security initiative needs to be included in this year’s NDAA so that we can continue deterring Russian aggression, bolster air and naval defense capabilities, and expand special forces operations in the Baltic region,” Bacon added. The two lawmakers are the co-chairs of the House Baltic Caucus. DRAFT DEBATE HITS THE HOUSE: A swath of conservative and religious advocacy groups are renewing their opposition to requiring women to register for a military draft. The groups — led by Concerned Women for America and the American Principles Project — urged lawmakers to reject the change in an open letter ahead of the House Armed Services Committee’s debate on its marquee defense bill Wednesday. “Imposition of Selective Service obligations, including a possible future draft of our daughters, sisters, and nieces, would not only hurt women, it would compromise our military’s essential function during a time of catastrophic national emergency,” the letter, obtained by POLITICO, argued. HASC could consider an amendment during tomorrow’s markup of the National Defense Authorization Act that would expand the Selective Service System to include women after the Senate endorsed the change. The House doing the same would basically assure the change becomes law. The Senate Armed Services Committee adopted a proposal, offered by SASC Chair JACK REED (D-R.I.), to expand registration for the Selective Service System to include women as part of its version of the NDAA. Though the move rankled some conservatives, including SASC member JOSH HAWLEY (R-Mo.), the change received bipartisan support, and the bill cleared the committee with a blowout vote. MORNING DEFENSE NDAA CONTEST: So how long will Wednesday’s markup last? Last year’s session gaveled out at 11:47 p.m., by far the fastest markup in recent memory. Can HASC make it another early finish this year, or are lawmakers in for a long day? Our colleagues at Morning Defense want to hear from you! Send your best guess to cobrien@politico.com before 1 p.m. Wednesday and subscribe to the newsletter here. Whoever comes closest gets a shoutout in Thursday’s edition and 12 months of congressional bragging rights. VP OVERSEES PASSAGE OF EVACUEE BILL: Vice President KAMALA HARRIS made a rare recess appearance to preside over the Senate on Tuesday as the chamber passed a bill to boost repatriation funding to aid the more than 5,000 Americans who were evacuated from Afghanistan, per our own ANDREW DESIDERIO . The legislation cleared the House last week and now heads to Biden’s desk, though the administration may seek more funds to repatriate so many people. It’s extremely rare for the vice president to preside over a pro forma session of the Senate, a twice-weekly procedural event that prevents presidents from making recess appointments. Sen. BEN CARDIN (D-Md.) said he was scheduled to preside over the session Tuesday, but another senator needed to be present to ask for unanimous passage of the repatriation bill. According to Cardin, “we couldn’t find another senator, so [Harris] volunteered.” FOUR DEMS TO DEPART FOR MIDEAST: Four Senate Democrats — CHRIS MURPHY (D-Conn.), RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-Conn.), CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-Md.), and JON OSSOFF (D-Ga.) — are traveling to Israel and the West Bank “to discuss regional security and democracy,” per an announcement from the lawmakers’ offices. Afterward, Murphy and Ossoff will head on to Tunisia and Greece, while Blumenthal and Van Hollen head home. “New leadership and simmering crises dot the landscape of the Mediterranean right now,” the senators said in a joint statement. “We look forward to speaking directly with key actors in the region, especially the new Israeli government and Palestinian leadership. This trip will also give us the chance to discuss the path forward to protect democracy in Tunisia and address the economic and political crisis in Lebanon. America must be a force for good in the Middle East and North Africa, and we look forward to a productive trip.” The codel comes after Israeli Prime Minister NAFTALI BENNETT met with Biden at the White House last Friday. | | | POTUS TURNS FROM KABUL TO KYIV: Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal will loom large over his meeting Wednesday with Ukrainian President VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY at the White House, per Foreign Policy’s VLADISLAV DAVIDZON , who reported that officials in Kyiv worry the United States “may be stripping away secondary peripheral national commitments to allies to minimize friction with Russia while concentrating instead on its rivalry with a rising China.” But beyond the Zelenskyy summitt, “[t]he natural question the withdrawal’s unsentimental calculus creates for allies heavily dependent on U.S. security is whether Afghanistan is unique or if commitments to similarly embattled allies may also be abandoned,” Davidzon wrote. That’s a frustrating problem to have for a foreign policy-focused president who campaigned on strengthening America’s partnerships abroad. | | | — FBI Director CHRISTOPHER WRAY has named four new special agents in charge at the Washington Field Office: MICHAEL GLASHEEN as SAC of the Counterterrorism Division, JEFFREY CANNON as SAC of the Mission Services Division, WAYNE JACOBS as SAC of the Criminal/Cyber Division and ANTHONY RIEDLINGER as SAC of the Counterintelligence Division. Also, STACEY MOY, formerly SAC of the Counterintelligence Division, has transitioned to SAC of the Intelligence and Incident Response Division. | | | | Be a Policy Pro. POLITICO Pro has a free policy resource center filled with our best practices on building relationships with state and federal representatives, demonstrating ROI, and influencing policy through digital storytelling. Read our free guides today . | | | | | | | | — LYNNE O’DONNELL, Foreign Policy: “AHMAD MASSOUD: ‘Peace Does Not Mean to Surrender’” — ANONYMOUS, Newsweek: “I’m One of the Afghan Contractors America Left Behind. Please Don’t Forget Us” — MICHAEL KOFMAN, AARON STEIN, and YUN SUN, War on the Rocks: “After Withdrawal: How China, Turkey, and Russia Will Respond to the Taliban” | | | — Biden welcomes Zelenskyy to the White House: The meeting “will affirm the United States’ unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression in the Donbas and Crimea, our close cooperation on energy security, and our backing for President Zelenskyy’s efforts to tackle corruption and implement a reform agenda based on our shared democratic values,” according to the White House. — Defense Secretary LLOYD AUSTIN and Gen. MARK MILLEY deliver remarks, 1 p.m.: The secretary and Joint Chiefs chair will speak about “the end of the military mission in Afghanistan,” according to the Pentagon. — The Center for Global Development, 7 a.m.: “The Future of EU-Africa Relations” — The Finnish Institute of International Affairs, 7 a.m.: “Reviving Transatlantic Trade Relations: A New Agenda for EU-US Cooperation” — The Royal United Services Institute, 7:45 a.m.: “The 9/11 Attacks from a Historical Perspective” — The Atlantic Council, 9 a.m.: “#GermanyVotes – One month to go: The 2021 German elections and their implications” — House Armed Services Committee, 10 a.m.: “ Full Committee Markup of H.R. 4350 — National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022” — The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 11:30 a.m.: “Maritime Security Dialogue: An Update on the Marine Corps with Commandant Gen. DAVID H. BERGER” — House Homeland Security Committee, 12 p.m.: “Subcommittee Hearing: Stakeholder Perspectives on the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act of 2021” Have a natsec-centric event coming up? Transitioning to a new defense-adjacent or foreign policy-focused gig? Shoot us an email at award@politico.com or qforgey@politico.com to be featured in the next edition of the newsletter. | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |  |
