‘Unconscionable’: Marco Rubio, Rick Scott want answers on abandoned Afghan weapons

Rick Scott and Marco Rubio.

The 20-year American adventure in Afghanistan has come to an ignominious close, and Florida’s U.S. Senators want answers on a lot of things, including what will happen to military equipment.

U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott were among nearly two dozen signatories to a letter from Republican Senators wanting answers from the Defense Department about the weaponry left behind now that the mission is over.

“We write with grave concern regarding the status of U.S. military equipment left behind in Afghanistan as a result of our poorly executed withdrawal from the country. As we watched the images coming out of Afghanistan as the Taliban retook the country, we were horrified to see U.S. equipment — including UH-60 Black Hawks — in the hands of the Taliban,” the letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reads.

“It is unconscionable that high-tech military equipment paid for by U.S. taxpayers has fallen into the hands of the Taliban and their terrorist allies. Securing U.S. assets should have been among the top priorities for the U.S. Department of Defense prior to announcing the withdrawal from Afghanistan,” the letter remarks, setting up a request for various inventories of equipment parceled out to the collapsed husk of the Afghan military.

The Senators want a “full account of military equipment provided to the Afghan Armed Forces in the last year.”

Additionally, they want to know what military equipment is still there, owned by the U.S. or what once were Afghan Armed Forces. And they are especially concerned with what the Taliban may have “seized.”

The Senators also want an “assessment of the likelihood that the Taliban will seek to work with Russia, Pakistan, Iran, or the People’s Republic of China for training, fuel, or infrastructure necessary to utilize the equipment they do not have the capabilities to use on their own; and any efforts by the administration, planned or underway, to recapture or destroy equipment that remains in Afghanistan and is at risk of being used by terrorist entities.”

While Rubio was reluctant to go along with Scott’s call to remove President Biden via the 25th Amendment, what’s clear is that on most elements of the Republican response to the Afghanistan collapse, they align.