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- GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger said "the endless war is fired up again" after bombings at the Kabul airport.
- Kinzinger served in both the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars in the US Air Force.
- "This was entirely forseen," Kinzinger said of the attacks, citing a closed-door congressional briefing.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, a member of the House Armed Services Committee and former Lt. Colonel in the US Air Force who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, remarked that "the endless war is fired up again" on MSNBC in response to bombings at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan.
At least two explosions occurred at Kabul's Hamid Karzai Airport on Thursday, causing dozens of fatalities and hundreds of injuries among both US service members and Afghan civilians.
General Kenneth F. McKenzie of the US Central Command confirmed in a Thursday afternoon Pentagon press briefing that 12 service members were killed and 15 were wounded in the attacks, which officials believe were carried out by ISIS-K, an affiliate of the Islamic State.
At the time of Kinzinger's appearance, only injuries and not deaths had been confirmed by the Pentagon. The attacks occurred five days ahead of the Biden administration's August 31 deadline for a full withdrawal.
-Adam Kinzinger (@RepKinzinger) August 26, 2021
"This was entirely forseen," Kinzinger said of the attacks, citing a closed-door briefing administration officials gave to members of Congress earlier this week. "I have never actually personally had an administration lay out that threat in such specificity, so they knew this was coming."
"And the question is for the kind of Rand Paul 'endless war' crowd that have been stoking this fire of endless war...man, we're all tired, you know when your grandma tells you how tired you are and you eventually feel tired, is, you know congratulations, the endless war got fired up again," he said.
Kinzinger continued: "Because if ISIS and Al Qaeda's job was for us to get us out of Afghanistan and then we can all live in our respective corners peacefully, you know there would have not been a suicide attack a couple days prior to the US leaving. So I fear that as terrible as this is, the decision that we make is going to be very much determining the future of terrorism not just in the region but in this world."
Kinzinger said "at the very least," the US should ensure the evacuations of all remaining US citizens and Afghan allies who aided the United States' military efforts in the country.
"I think if we leave today and we stop the evacuations...this is going to the most emboldening thing for the terrorists and the most embarrassing moment for the United States," Kinzinger said, adding he would like to see the US take back the air base in Bagram that US forces abandoned as part of the withdrawal.
In his Thursday briefing, Gen. McKenzie confirmed the mission to finish evacuations until the end of August will continue.