In June 2021, the Bundeswehr will withdraw from Afghanistan after almost 20 years. Now the evacuation mission is to be processed – also with a view to future missions.
According to SPD politician Ralf Stegner, the Bundestag should set up a committee of inquiry before the summer break to investigate the evacuation of local workers from Afghanistan last year.
“There was an agreement with the opposition,” Stegner told the editorial network Germany. According to the report, he is to head the committee. “The plan is to make the appointment decision in the next week of meetings at the end of June.” After that, some organizational preparations had to be made before work could really begin after the parliamentary summer break in autumn.
Inquiry commission for processing
The government and opposition factions had also agreed on the establishment of a commission of inquiry, Stegner said. She is supposed to deal with the entire, almost 20-year-long Afghanistan mission of the Bundeswehr – as well as the question of what will follow from this for other foreign missions. “The committee of inquiry will deal with the question of who contributed to the fact that the evacuation operation went awry,” said Stegner. The aim of the commission of inquiry is to draw conclusions for future operations.
After almost 20 years in Afghanistan
The Bundeswehr withdrew from Afghanistan at the end of June 2021 after almost 20 years and took part in an evacuation mission for those in need of protection in August after the Taliban triumphed. The Taliban took power in the country in mid-August without much resistance from the Afghan armed forces. The then Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) as well as the then Foreign Minister Heiko Maas (SPD) and other members of the Federal Government had admitted misjudgments of the situation in the Central Asian crisis country.
In the coalition agreement, the traffic light parties SPD, Greens and FDP had agreed on the processing of the evacuation mission of the Afghanistan mission in a parliamentary committee of inquiry. In addition, the overall deployment is to be evaluated in a committee of inquiry with scientific expertise.
