US Congress Approves Commission to Probe Afghanistan War
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The commission is to submit a final report in three years, assessing the failures of the US' two-decade-long failures.
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Congress approves a commission to assess the failures of the 20-year war on Afghanistan
The US Congress voted on Wednesday to create a commission whose duty is to assess the failure of the two-decade-long war on Afghanistan, which ended with the Taliban's takeover of the country in September.
The commission is part of the US' $768 billion national defense policy bill which Senate voted on in an 89 vs 10 majority vote, after it passed with overwhelming majority in the House of Representatives last week.
Last week's vote
The defense policy bill, unveiled mere hours before the vote late week, increased the Pentagon's budget by $24 billion above what US President Joe Biden had requested.
In order to pass it, lawmakers had to discard a measure requiring women to register for the draft, a bill to repeal the 2002 law authorizing the invasion of Iraq, and a bill to impose sanctions over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
Lawmakers had rejected Biden's request to keep military spending flat and called to increase it substantially, “One of the major challenges our military faces right now is dealing with the rapid pace of technology, is getting the Pentagon to better and more quickly adopt the innovative technologies that we need to meet our national security threats,” said Representative Adam Smith, Democrat of Washington and the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. “Those threats are very real.”
The Commission
The 16-member Commission on Afghanistan will have its members appointed by both Democrats and Republicans, and has a deadline to produce a preliminary report within one year of its first meetings, followed by a final report within three years.
"The Commission shall conduct a comprehensive assessment of the war in Afghanistan and make recommendations to inform future operations with tactical and strategic lessons learned, including the impact of troop increases and decreases and date-certain deadlines," the legislation said.
