President Biden has been criticized for trying to appoint a State Department official who failed to protect US allies in Afghanistan to be Middle East ambassador.
Biden, 81, announced on January 25 that he was nominating Tracey Ann Jacobson, 59, to be the next US ambassador to Iraq, with the Senate expected to consider her appointment later this month.
As the Taliban close in on Kabul and US troops prepare to withdraw in August 2021, Jacobson — a former envoy to Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kosovo — has been tasked with overseeing what Biden called a “government-wide effort to process, transport, and resettle.” Afghan Special Immigrant Visa applicants and other Afghan allies” who have aided Western troops during the 20-year conflict with Islamic fundamentalists.
However, more than two years after the last American troops left Afghanistan, thousands of those same allies are still stranded in the Taliban-ruled country – under constant threat of exposure and execution.
Tracey Ann Jacobson was given the difficult task of overseeing efforts to relocate and relocate US allies. Tracey Jacobson / Linkedin
Former Marine Chad Robichaux, who helped lead one of the largest civilian evacuation efforts from Afghanistan and founded the Mighty Oaks Foundation to support veterans, said Jacobson is among those who “still have blood on their hands” from the botched withdrawal.
“Jacobson failed to ensure that 150,000 of our wartime allies got contractually promised SIVs (Special Immigrant Visas) [and] left [them] behind after 20 years of service in America, only to be persecuted and hunted to be killed by the Taliban,” he said.
“The White House nominating Tracey Jacobson as the new ambassador to Iraq is the latest in an increasingly embarrassing list for America, a slap in the face to our veterans and allies, and further undermines our national security,” added Robichaux, credited with helping save some 17,000 people by Taliban reconquest.
A Marine is seen fist-bumping an evacuee child during a troop withdrawal at Hamid Karzai International Airport. US MARINE CORPS/AFP via Getty Im
Lt. Retired Marine Colonel Stuart Scheller, who was relieved of his duties in August 2021 after calling for a failed withdrawal from Afghanistan, wants Jacobson to admit the State Department has failed.
“If he cannot admit under oath that the State Department failed to respond to the Afghan evacuation, then he is unfit to represent the American people,” Scheller said.
Since toppling the US-backed civilian government in Afghanistan, the Taliban are feared to have hunted, tortured and killed several American allies, according to House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas).
A combined team helps a child during evacuation. via REUTERS
“Tracey Jacobson failed American veterans and our Afghan allies when she and the Biden administration abandoned hundreds of thousands of our Afghan allies,” McCaul said in a statement Thursday. “If he is allowed to become the next US Ambassador to Iraq, the Democratic US Senate will tell the American people – and the world – that there is no such thing as accountability or justice in the Biden administration.”
Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.), who sits on both the House Armed Services Committee and the Foreign Affairs Committee, also blasted Jacobson’s nomination.”
“Jacobson failed to secure promised visas for thousands of allies, leaving them vulnerable to persecution by the Taliban,” he said. “With regional instability and Iraq’s potential to see an escalation of Iranian military strikes, and further political discourse, I fear that under his leadership, and this administration, we will see the same outcome as Afghanistan. “
Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also condemned Jacobson’s nomination.
“Tracey Jacobson played a key role in one of the most inexcusable failures, the neglect of vetted Afghans who have risked their lives for our safety, and it will undoubtedly damage and harm her candidacy,” he told The Free Press.
President Biden has asserted that the seeds for the Afghanistan withdrawal were planted by Donald Trump. AP
The chaotic withdrawal was exacerbated by the death of 13 American soldiers in a suicide attack at Kabul’s international airport, as thousands of Afghans tried in vain to get seats on flights out of the country.
“I’m the president of the United States, and the problem stops with me,” Biden said at the time. “I am deeply saddened by the facts we are facing now, but I do not regret my decision.”
Last February, a report issued by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) denounced the withdrawal as “sudden and uncoordinated,” leaving the impression that the US was “simply handing over Afghanistan to a Taliban government-in-waiting.”
Marines provide assistance during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul in August 2021. AP
A 2022 report by the House Foreign Affairs Committee found that more than 1,000 Americans were also stranded in Afghanistan at the time of the withdrawal.
The White House and State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
