U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced Tuesday the launch of a “comprehensive review” into the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. The review will include a special panel led by Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell and will evaluate prior investigations as well as the broader strategic and tactical decisions that contributed to what the memo describes as “one of America’s darkest and deadliest international moments.”
The announcement comes despite the Department of Defense already having conducted an internal review in the aftermath of the withdrawal. This new effort signals a deeper examination into both the conduct and the consequences of the U.S. exit, which saw the rapid collapse of the Afghan government and the return of the Taliban to power.
The withdrawal, ordered by then-President Joe Biden, officially ended nearly two decades of U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan. However, the exit was marred by chaos. On August 26, 2021, a suicide bombing claimed by ISIS-K at Kabul’s international airport killed 13 American service members and scores of Afghan civilians during the final stages of the evacuation.
Biden's handling of the withdrawal, including a widely criticized moment where he appeared to check his watch during a ceremony for the returning remains of fallen soldiers, drew intense scrutiny and backlash from the public and Gold Star families.
An often-overlooked component of the withdrawal timeline is the February 29, 2020, agreement signed in Doha between the Trump administration and the Taliban. That deal stipulated that all U.S. troops would leave Afghanistan by May 1, 2021. However, when Biden took office in January 2021, his administration signaled that it was not necessarily bound by Trump’s agreement and instead opted for a delayed timeline.
On April 14, 2021, President Biden announced that the U.S. would complete its withdrawal by September 11—marking the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The Taliban rejected this new deadline, viewing it as a breach of the original deal, and launched a sweeping offensive beginning on May 1. The campaign culminated in the fall of Kabul on August 15, 2021, before the full evacuation had been completed.
The new Pentagon review will likely revisit these timeline shifts, as well as the intelligence assessments, diplomatic decisions, and evacuation planning that shaped the outcome of the withdrawal.