Kellogg: Not convinced Biden 'has the will' to go after terrorists
Gen. Keith Kellogg, co-chair of Center for American Security, presses the president on taking accountability for action in Afghanistan.
Three retired military leaders – including two generals – have called for the resignations of President Biden's top military and diplomatic officials, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and national security advisor Jake Sullivan, in the wake of the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal.
"I think it’s a leadership failure in the White House, as well as in the State Department, as well as in the DOD," Lt. Gen. (Ret.) William "Jerry" Boykin told Fox News in an interview Wednesday. "I think we need to recognize it as such. I think the president has been a miserable failure on this."
Boykin said he would ask Milley, Austin, Blinken, and Sullivan to "do the right thing and submit your resignations, preserve whatever is left of your reputation. Do the right thing and step down."
"I think it’s very fair to ask for accountability for senior leaders, and that includes the military leaders as well as the national security advisor and the secretary of state. Somebody needs to be held accountable," Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Keith Kellogg, a Fox News contributor and former acting national security adviser to President Trump, told Fox News on Tuesday.
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"I think it’s up to them to resign. If not, I think the president should remove them. It would help the American people if he changed out his national security team because we don’t know what ground truth is," Kellogg added.
He noted that on Monday Biden said it was "the unanimous recommendation of the Joint Chiefs and of all of our commanders on the ground to end our airlift mission as planned."
"If it was unanimous, that means all of them are accountable for the action. If they all thought it was a good idea and it’s a bad idea, then maybe they should all leave," Kellogg said.
Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, a retired U.S. Navy rear admiral, told Fox News that he has been "deeply disappointed in the leadership at the Department of Defense, leadership that is in large part responsible for the crisis we have watched unfold in Afghanistan."
"I am a firm believer that those in charge who are given the authority to make decisions should also accept responsibility for their actions when things don’t go as planned," he added.
Jackson called for Milley and Austin to resign, considering their leadership roles in the military, but he also called for Blinken and Sullivan to resign, too.
"They all had a role in this failure," he said. "Everyone who was a yes-man for Biden and played a part in this incompetence needs to take responsibility and resign."
Jackson described himself as "thoroughly disgusted by the Biden Administration’s attempt to spin what has been an unmitigated disaster as a win. Joe Biden is patting himself on the back and declaring victory as terrorists are parading around in U.S. military equipment and American citizens are trapped behind enemy lines. This administration is a disgrace."
Similarly, Boykin condemned Biden for rejecting the "longstanding ethos" of the military – a commitment never to leave a man behind.
"What’s really troublesome and almost frightening to know is that we have a commander in chief who does not see the imperative of bringing the Americans home," Boykin told Fox News in an interview Wednesday. "That’s a longstanding ethos, not just of the military, but of America."
"That is meaningless to him," Boykin charged.
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He noted that Biden "actually stood up and said, ‘We’ll be there until we get all Americans out,’ and then he changed that."
On Tuesday in a speech on the withdrawal, the president noted that "about 100 to 200 Americans remain in Afghanistan with some intention to leave. … The bottom line: Ninety percent of Americans in Afghanistan who wanted to leave were able to leave."
"People are left behind literally as hostages to the Taliban," Boykin said, bitterly.
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Boykin served as the Delta Force operations officer for the Iran hostage rescue attempt on April 24-25, 1980. He previously called that failed mission "the greatest disappointment of my professional career because we didn't bring home 53 Americans." Yet Boykin said Biden's Afghanistan withdrawal is even worse than that devastating failure.
"That was a devastating thing for those of us who were part of it. We carried a heavy burden for a long time and still do, but this is so far beyond that in terms of an absolute and total failure," the retired general said.
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