A Pentagon panel investigating the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan says it has recovered previously undisclosed classified documents hidden in safes, raising new questions about decisions made during the chaotic final days of the 20-year war.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
Pentagon investigators reviewing the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan have uncovered classified documents that officials say were concealed in safes despite being directly relevant to the events surrounding the evacuation, according to the chairman of a special Defense Department review panel.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced the discovery Wednesday as the Afghanistan Withdrawal Special Review Panel continues examining the decisions that preceded the collapse of the U.S.-backed Afghan government, the Taliban’s rapid takeover and the deadly evacuation from Kabul.
“The deeper we look, the more there is to look at,” Parnell said in a video posted to social media. “We are finding things that we did not expect.”
Parnell said investigators recovered records that should have been made available during earlier examinations of the withdrawal but instead had been kept out of view.
The panel had “recovered highly relevant classified documents — material that should have been disclosed — stashed and hidden away in safes where they would not be found,” Parnell said.
He suggested the contents could prove significant to the investigation.
“And after the team reviewed these documents, it became clear why someone tried to hide them,” Parnell added.
Pentagon officials have not publicly described what information is contained in the newly discovered records, who placed them in the safes or when investigators located them.
Parnell also did not identify any individual suspected of deliberately concealing the material.
The discovery comes as the Trump administration conducts a new examination of one of the most controversial episodes of former President Joe Biden’s presidency.
U.S. forces completed their withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 after nearly two decades of American military involvement in the country. As the departure accelerated, Taliban forces rapidly captured territory and ultimately seized Kabul, prompting a hurried evacuation of Americans, Afghan allies and others through Kabul International Airport.
The final days became particularly deadly on Aug. 26, 2021, when an ISIS-K suicide bomber attacked Abbey Gate at the airport.
Thirteen U.S. service members were killed along with numerous Afghan civilians while American forces were conducting evacuation operations.
Wednesday’s announcement concerning the classified documents came hours before War Secretary Pete Hegseth was scheduled to take part in a Pentagon ceremony recognizing service members who operated at Kabul International Airport during that period.
The ceremony was expected to upgrade valor awards for some of the troops involved in the evacuation.
Parnell announced in April that certain military decorations awarded for service at the Kabul airport would be upgraded to “more accurately reflect the extreme risk” faced by personnel there.
He also said the Biden administration had “inappropriately downgraded” honors that previously had been recommended for some service members.
The Trump administration has characterized the final phase of the Afghanistan withdrawal as “one of the most shameful and heartbreaking moments in our nation’s collective memory.”
Republicans have repeatedly argued that the Biden administration failed to adequately plan for the withdrawal and unnecessarily exposed U.S. troops, American citizens and Afghan partners to danger as Taliban forces advanced.
Biden and Democratic allies defended the decision to leave Afghanistan as necessary to end America’s two-decade military presence and prevent the war from continuing indefinitely.
The competing accounts have fueled congressional investigations, military reviews and years of political debate over whether intelligence warnings were properly considered and whether alternative decisions could have prevented some of the chaos at Kabul airport.
The Trump administration subsequently established the Afghanistan Withdrawal Special Review Panel to conduct another examination of the withdrawal, including decisions made by senior officials and the assignment of responsibility for failures during the evacuation.
Parnell said the review is intended in part to provide answers to the military personnel who carried out the mission under dangerous conditions.
“They are owed the full picture of how and why those decisions were made, and we’re going to give it to them,” he said.
The newly discovered classified records could become an important part of that effort, although Pentagon officials have not yet provided enough information to determine whether the documents materially alter the established account of the withdrawal.
Their contents also remain classified, preventing an independent assessment of Parnell’s assertion that the records help explain why someone allegedly sought to keep them hidden.
Separate scrutiny has focused on the intelligence available before the Abbey Gate attack.
House Republicans have accused officials from the Biden administration of disregarding intelligence that might have provided warning before the ISIS-K bombing. Military officials have disputed those allegations.
The disagreement remains one of several unresolved issues surrounding the evacuation and the deaths of the 13 American service members.
Parnell did not provide a timetable Wednesday for releasing additional findings from the Pentagon review or indicate when the public may learn more about the documents recovered from the safes.
For now, the Pentagon’s announcement adds another line of inquiry to the investigation: why classified material considered highly relevant to the withdrawal was not previously disclosed, who was responsible for placing it out of reach and what the records reveal about the decisions that culminated in the U.S. departure from Afghanistan.
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