HouseH.Res. 1497119th Congress
Commemorating the 13 United States servicemembers killed at Abbey Gate during and as a result of President Biden's disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal.
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[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 1497 Introduced in House (IH)]
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119th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. RES. 1497
Commemorating the 13 United States servicemembers killed at Abbey Gate
during and as a result of President Biden's disastrous Afghanistan
withdrawal.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
August 27, 2026
Mr. Van Epps (for himself, Mrs. Wagner, Mr. Webster of Florida, Ms.
Boebert, Mr. McCaul, Mr. Huizenga, Mr. Burchett, Mr. Fine, Mr. Barrett,
Mr. Moore of Alabama, Mrs. Kim, Mr. Stauber, Mr. Miller of Ohio, Mr.
Weber of Texas, Mr. Calvert, Ms. Tenney, Mr. Pfluger, Mr. Jackson of
Texas, Mrs. Luna, Mr. Mills, Mr. Steube, Mr. Fry, Mr. Dunn of Florida,
Mr. Owens, Mr. Clyde, Mrs. Harshbarger, Mr. Smith of Nebraska, Mr.
Barr, Mr. Palmer, Mr. McGuire, Mr. Smith of New Jersey, Mr. Alford, Mr.
Baird, and Mr. Williams of Texas) submitted the following resolution;
which was referred to the Committee on Armed Services, and in addition
to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, for a period to be subsequently
determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such
provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned
_______________________________________________________________________
RESOLUTION
Commemorating the 13 United States servicemembers killed at Abbey Gate
during and as a result of President Biden's disastrous Afghanistan
withdrawal.
Whereas 5 years ago the Biden administration's chaotic and disastrous withdrawal
from Afghanistan--
(1) undid 20 years of American sacrifice in a span of weeks;
(2) surrendered the country to the same Taliban regime the United
States toppled after September 11th;
(3) handed terrorists a safe haven and $7,000,000,000 in American-
funded weapons and equipment;
(4) stranded Americans and allies behind enemy lines;
(5) emboldened adversaries of the United States around the globe; and
(6) cost the lives of 13 United States servicemembers killed at Abbey
Gate on August 26, 2021;
Whereas the Biden administration was so determined to withdraw from Afghanistan
regardless of conditions on the ground that it ignored the Taliban's
violations of the Doha Agreement, the warnings of security officers and
diplomats at the United States Embassy in Kabul, and the objections of
the Afghan Government and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
allies;
Whereas State Department Spokesperson Ned Price admitted in a transcribed
interview with the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of
Representatives that Taliban compliance was ``immaterial'' to the
decision;
Whereas the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Commander of United
States Central Command, and the Commander of NATO's Resolute Support
Mission each recommended retaining approximately 2,500 United States
troops, the intelligence community warned of rapid collapse, the Special
Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) warned Congress
in March 2021 that, absent United States military and contractor
support, the Afghan Government ``would probably face collapse'', and the
British Chief of the Defence Staff warned that ``withdrawal under these
circumstances would be perceived as a strategic victory for the
Taliban'', yet President Biden ignored them all and fixed a withdrawal
date of September 11, 2021, for the sake of symbolic headlines;
Whereas the United States abandoned Bagram Air Base in the middle of the night
without telling the base's Afghan commander, who learned of the
departure only hours later, after looters had stormed the gates, thereby
surrendering a fortified airfield with two runways, including one nearly
12,000 feet long, giving up a strategic position within reach of China's
Lop Nur nuclear testing grounds, and forcing the entire evacuation
through the insecure, single-runway Hamid Karzai International Airport
(HKIA);
Whereas the abandonment of Bagram left the United States-built Parwan detention
facility to the Taliban, who on August 15, 2021, freed thousands of
prisoners, including Abdul Rahman al-Logari, the ISIS-K terrorist who
carried out the Abbey Gate bombing 11 days later;
Whereas the forced withdrawal of United States and international contractors
gutted the Afghan military, a 2021 CENTCOM assessment cited by SIGAR
concluded the Afghan Air Force could not be sustained as combat
effective without contractor support, and, according to SIGAR's July
2021 quarterly report, the Taliban tripled the districts under its
control from 73 in April 2021 to 221 by July 2021, even as the
withdrawal proceeded;
Whereas the investigation by the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of
Representatives found that Department of State officials, fearing bad
optics, refused to plan for a noncombatant evacuation operation until
August 6, 2021, days before Kabul fell, did not order one until the
Taliban entered Kabul on August 15, and refused to close the United
States Embassy in Kabul even as security collapsed, resulting in the
loss of sensitive materials to the Taliban;
Whereas the Biden administration drew United States forces down to a skeleton
presence of roughly 650 troops before evacuating American personnel,
leaving the civilian side of HKIA to be overrun amid the Taliban's
seizure of Kabul and forcing a suspension of evacuation flights until
thousands of United States reinforcements could be rushed back in, while
the Taliban ringed the airport with checkpoints where Americans and
Afghan allies were detained, refused entry, and assaulted;
Whereas the Biden administration issued no guidance on who could be evacuated,
forcing young servicemembers and foreign service officers to decide who
lived and who was left behind, and the investigation of the Committee on
Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives found that alternative
``lily pad'' staging locations were not secured until August 19 and that
the Department of Transportation waited 5 days after Kabul fell to
permit foreign civil aircraft to fly evacuation missions;
Whereas an internal Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) audit found that ``the
need to immediately evacuate Afghans overtook the normal processes
required to determine whether individuals attempting to enter the United
States pose a threat to national security'';
Whereas a September 2022 Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector
General report found that vetting data was ``inaccurate, incomplete, or
missing'', including 11,110 records listing a birthday of January 1, and
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) guidance was nevertheless to admit
or parole evacuees even with improper identification documents;
Whereas Afghan men were admitted accompanied by young girls alleged to be
victims of forced marriage, the sexual abuse of children by powerful men
in Afghanistan is extensively documented and was rarely prosecuted, and
the United States has no access to the former Afghan Government's
criminal records, meaning tens of thousands of Afghan men entered the
country without United States officials having any means of knowing
whether they were predators;
Whereas Russ Travers, the National Security Council's Deputy Homeland Security
Advisor during the withdrawal, admitted, ``From my perspective, it was a
slow-moving train wreck. We were going to fail; the question was how
badly we were going to fail.'';
Whereas Abbey Gate, a main inroad to HKIA that was assessed as the gate at
highest risk of attack, was never properly reinforced, as the Biden
administration relied on the Taliban's haphazard and insincere security
efforts and withheld authority for United States forces to strike ISIS-K
cells for fear of upsetting the Taliban;
Whereas, at 5:36 p.m. on August 26, 2021, an ISIS-K terrorist detonated a
suicide bomb at Abbey Gate, killing 13 United States servicemembers and
approximately 170 Afghan civilians and wounding scores more, in the
deadliest day for the United States military in Afghanistan since August
2011;
Whereas President Biden never publicly spoke the names of the 13 fallen, with
Gold Star families describing his conduct at Dover Air Force Base as
scripted and hollow, recounting that he spoke of his own son rather than
their children, and never contacted them afterward, and photographs
confirm he checked his watch multiple times during the dignified
transfer as the flag-draped remains of the fallen were carried past him;
Whereas the withdrawal turned Afghanistan back into a safe haven for al-Qaida
and ISIS-K;
Whereas former FBI Director Christopher Wray testified that the loss of a United
States presence crippled the ability of the United States to collect
intelligence and monitor threats to the homeland;
Whereas under President Biden's open border, CBP data show 382 individuals on
the terrorist watchlist were apprehended crossing between ports of entry
from fiscal year 2021, through fiscal year 2024, alongside nearly
2,000,000 known gotaways;
Whereas the Taliban carried out reprisal killings of Afghans who served with the
United States;
Whereas the United Nations has documented the Taliban's institutionalized
oppression of women, which the United Nations Special Rapporteur called
``the most extreme and systematic assault on gender equality in the
world today'';
Whereas the investigations conducted under President Biden were inadequate, no
official was ever held accountable, and until the day he left office,
President Biden defended the withdrawal and never admitted it was a
mistake, a refusal Gold Star families have described as tantamount to
betrayal;
Whereas the 13 servicemembers killed at Abbey Gate, 1 sailor, 1 soldier, and 11
Marines, deserve lasting recognition, accountability from those
responsible, and a commitment that such failures will never be repeated,
and their names are--
(1) Petty Officer Third Class Maxton W. Soviak, United States Navy;
(2) Staff Sergeant Ryan C. Knauss, United States Army;
(3) Staff Sergeant Darin T. Hoover, United States Marine Corps;
(4) Sergeant Johanny Rosario Pichardo, United States Marine Corps;
(5) Sergeant Nicole L. Gee, United States Marine Corps;
(6) Corporal Hunter Lopez, United States Marine Corps;
(7) Corporal Daegan W. Page, United States Marine Corps;
(8) Corporal Humberto A. Sanchez, United States Marine Corps;
(9) Lance Corporal David L. Espinoza, United States Marine Corps;
(10) Lance Corporal Jared M. Schmitz, United States Marine Corps;
(11) Lance Corporal Rylee J. McCollum, United States Marine Corps;
(12) Lance Corporal Dylan R. Merola, United States Marine Corps; and
(13) Lance Corporal Kareem M. Nikoui, United States Marine Corps; and
Whereas President Biden and those in his administration who orchestrated the
disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal have yet to take accountability for
ignoring reality and repeated warnings, a failure whose price was paid
by the Gold Star families of those killed at Abbey Gate, by Americans
harmed by unvetted Afghan evacuees, by the Afghan people suffering under
Taliban rule, by the allies and Americans left behind, and by the NATO
partners they abandoned: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
(1) solemnly commemorates the fifth anniversary of the loss
of 13 brave servicemembers at the Abbey Gate bombing;
(2) condemns the Biden-Harris administration's dereliction
of duty to steward American lives and property during the
withdrawal from Afghanistan; and
(3) denounces the historically damaging decision of the
Biden-Harris administration to put at risk Americans and
noncombatant civilians through the cavalier forfeiture of
materiel and military property to the Taliban.
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