*Event date: 2026-04-17*
The Pentagon said Thursday that a review panel examining the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan has completed a key phase of interviews with senior military and civilian officials and is now moving into the next stage of analysis. In a statement, Sean Parnell, the panel’s chairman, said the effort was established by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth at the direction of President Donald Trump. The panel is conducting what Parnell described as a comprehensive after-action review of the withdrawal and the decision-making processes that shaped it.
According to the Pentagon, the panel interviewed officials involved in planning and carrying out the operation, including former Marine Corps Commandant Gen. David Berger, former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, and former U.S. Central Command chief Gen. Kenneth McKenzie. The review also included more than a dozen other senior figures. Parnell said the interviews are part of a broader effort to understand failures in decision-making and accountability surrounding the withdrawal, which ended America’s longest war and prompted intense criticism of the planning and execution.
The panel also reviewed more than nine million documents from multiple U.S. government agencies, covering operational planning, intelligence assessments, interagency communications and post-withdrawal evaluations, the Pentagon said. Parnell said the scope of this review is significantly broader than a previous assessment under former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, which examined about 3,000 documents. He said the earlier effort was “significantly narrower in scope and over-classified at the highest levels, limiting public access to critical information.”
Parnell said the purpose of the review is to identify failures so that the United States can avoid repeating what he called a tragedy. “It is our duty to ensure that the greatest military on Earth is accountable to the American people,” he said. “Our work continues.” The panel is now integrating interview findings with documentary evidence and preparing conclusions and recommendations for a final report expected to be submitted to Pentagon leadership, Congress and the public in the coming months.
The withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 was negotiated under the 2020 Doha Agreement during Trump’s first administration and carried out under former President Joe Biden. It was followed by the rapid collapse of the Western-backed government, with the Taliban returning to power within days. The operation has been criticized for poor planning, intelligence assessments, coordination between civilian and military leadership and the handling of evacuation efforts as chaotic scenes unfolded at Kabul International Airport.
The evacuation also turned deadly on August 26, 2021, when a suicide bombing at Abbey Gate, claimed by ISIS-K, killed 13 U.S. service members and about 170 Afghans trying to flee the country. Thousands of Afghans who worked with U.S. and NATO forces were left behind and continue to face security risks under Taliban rule. The Trump administration paused processing of Afghan refugee and visa applications in late 2025 on what it called a “long-term” basis, citing security concerns, while Trump has repeatedly called the 2021 withdrawal one of the “most embarrassing moments in U.S. history.”
