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WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Thursday, U.S. Congressman Mike Waltz (FL-6) questioned former U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad on the failure of the Biden Administration to uphold the Doha Agreement during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing.

Watch the full exchange here.

“Many years of this painful episode in our history but that I would say to our Gold Star Families that are here and to every veteran who sacrificed, we kept America safe for over two decades and we cannot lose sight of that,” said Waltz. “That we did not have another 9/11, we did not have additional tax on our homeland despite many issues in this war that we should absolutely learn from.”

Waltz continued, “We have heard continuously both in the media and from colleagues on the other side of the aisle and from President Biden that he was stuck with the Doha Agreement. That his hands were tied, that the Trump admin tied his hands, he had no choice.”

Pointing to a graphic of Biden’s reversals of Trump’s policies, Waltz said, “I just want to point out, Mr. Chair, the policies that the Biden Administration completely walked away from on day one. Everything from the construction of the border wall, our membership in the World Health Organization, the Biden Administration completely walked away from Trump’s maximum pressure campaign, tried to get us back into a disastrous Iran nuclear deal, rejoined Paris Climate Accord, ended Remain in Mexico, cancelled a Keystone Pipeline, sixteen billion in investment. And I could go on. All of these things were reversed on the first of the month, but yet we are supposed to believe that somehow, he was handcuffed to this deal.”

“Ambassador, let’s go back to January of 2021. President Trump is still in office. His advisors go in and tell him Mr. President, the Taliban have not lived up to the half-dozen conditions that were in the deal, minus one, partially, not attacking troops but in terms of entering negotiations with the Afghan government and other conditions, the Taliban did not live up to the deal.” Waltz asked, “What did President Trump do, Mr. Ambassador, as a result of that advice? He had a stated goal of getting all U.S. troops out but now he is told that he didn’t live up to the deal, what did President Trump do?”

“It would be speculation, of course,” said Ambassador Khalilzad.

Waltz replied, “It is not speculation that by January 19^th, 2021, we still had Bagram Air Base.”

“Yes, we did,” said Ambassador Khalilzad.

“Is that the only air base in the world that is sandwiched between China, Russia, Iran and is a key platform for counterterrorism? Did we still have Bagram air base?” Waltz asked.

“We did,” affirmed Ambassador Khalilzad.

“Did we still have twenty-five hundred U.S. special operators and intelligence professionals?” asked Waltz.

“We did,” affirmed Ambassador Khalilzad.

“Did we still have five to seven thousand NATO troops?” asked Waltz.

“We did,” affirmed Ambassador Khalilzad.

“Did we still have over ten-thousand contractors that were keeping the Afghan Air Force flying?” asked Waltz.

“We did,” affirmed Ambassador Khalilzad.

“And all of our intelligence assets and plus, the most important thing, the message to the Afghan people and government that we stand with you,” said Waltz. “So, let’s fast forward to just a few months later. Did President Biden reject your advice for conditionality moving forward on the Doha Agreement?”

Ambassador Khalilzad replied, “We decided not to make a withdrawal of the final two thousand five hundred conditional on a political agreement or moving a force, a counter-terrorism force, behind.”

“He said to the world, we are pulling out. He was asked are there were conditions, he said unconditionally we are out regardless of the consequences, correct?” asked Waltz.

“I would have to say that he thought if he stayed that he would have to go back to war, likely to go back to war with the Taliban,” replied Ambassador Khalilzad.

Waltz continued, “But this is the misnomer, the false choice. We could take an approach like we did in say Columbia for forty years. Where we had trainers, we had assets, we had support, but we did not put American troops in harms ways. There was a little middle ground between unconditional full withdrawal and going back to any surge of war, correct?”

“Correct,” affirmed Ambassador Khalilzad.

“But those options were not considered,” said Waltz. “We have had the senior leader of al-Qaeda Zawahiri as a guest of the Taliban. We now have reports of eight al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. We have reports from the UN of tens of thousands of fighters, foreign fighters, flowing into Afghanistan. Plus, the ongoing threat of ISIS. Is the American homeland today safer than it was three years ago?”

Ambassador Khalilzad replied, “Well, I would respectfully ask you to ask the intelligence community to look at the data that the UN reports. I wouldn’t rely on the UN reports.”

“Does al-Qaeda and ISIS still have the intent to attack the United States and the West if given the opportunity to do so?” asked Waltz.

“No doubt,” confirmed Ambassador Khalilzad.

“Just for the record that is a yes,” said Waltz.

Ambassador Khalilzad continued, “But I also want to say that our intelligence community from what I read, unclassified versions as we cannot discuss classified material here, believe that in the next year or two al-Qaeda does not have the ability to attack the United States from Afghanistan.”

“The Commander of Central Command testified a year ago that ISIS will have reconstituted their capability to attack the West within six months, and that was a year ago, from Afghanistan,” said Waltz. “I am on the intelligence committee, and I would like to state for the record… relying on terrorist like the Taliban and al-Qaeda to take out terrorists is a fool’s errand and dangerous, very dangerous.”