Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, US Congressman Mike Bost, in an interview described the Bagram Air Base as the country’s “most forward air base” for countering adversaries, and said he heard that there had been plans to keep it despite the US withdrawal. Also, he criticized the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Bost stated that during the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan under then-President Joe Biden, the president had received advice, according to Bost, suggesting that the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan be retained, with approximately 3,500- 5,000 military personnel stationed there.
He said: “You’ve got China, Afghanistan and Russia … we would have had the most forward air base right there.”
He also criticized the manner in which US forces were withdrawn from Afghanistan, stating that even an ordinary member of the US military could have managed a better exit.
Mike Bost said: “An E1 — in any branch of the service that’s your basic enlisted person — if they’ve ever played a risk game would have been able to do a better withdrawal than what we did there.”
