U.S. Launches More Investigations Into Biden Administration’s Afghanistan Withdrawal

The reviews, which have been started separately by the offices of inspectors general at the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services and State, as well as at the U.S. Agency for International Development, aim to determine whether the administration adequately planned for and executed the withdrawal and subsequent evacuation and relocation of Afghan nationals, according to internal disclosures and U.S. officials familiar with the internal discussions.

The five agencies will hold internal calls among the various offices of inspectors general to share periodic updates on their findings, the officials said. The agencies are working with the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction and the inspectors general at the departments of State and Defense, to coordinate continued oversight work related to Afghanistan.

The reviews amount to a broad examination of how the federal government managed the withdrawal from Afghanistan and of questions about whether it could have been handled better. The Biden administration has come under fire for the chaotic nature of the withdrawal, after the U.S. troop drawdown turned into an emergency evacuation mission for the U.S. and many of its foreign partners based in Afghanistan, as well as for Afghans who served those governments.

The Taliban took control of Kabul on Aug. 15 after the U.S.-backed government collapsed and its president fled, two weeks before the U.S. withdrawal deadline and long before anyone in Washington had anticipated.

On Thursday, Republican Sens.

Jim Risch

of Idaho,

James Inhofe

of Oklahoma and Rob Portman of Ohio, ranking members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Senate Armed Services Committee, and the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, respectively, sent a letter to the inspectors general of the State Department, DHS, Defense Department and USAID requesting a joint review and audit of the Afghan special immigrant visa (SIV) program.

“This investigation should thoroughly review each individual executive department that holds responsibilities in the SIV process, as well as their respective bureaus, offices, and missions, and the interagency processes in place to help facilitate communication and coordination between them,” the senators wrote.

This week, the State Department’s acting inspector general informed Congress that her office will review the State Department’s special immigrant visa program for Afghanistan, its processing and resettlement of refugees for admissions into the U.S., and the emergency evacuation of U.S. citizens and Afghan nationals, according to a letter viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The Defense Department inspector general has begun two evaluations and an audit of the final days of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. The audit is aiming to determine whether the Pentagon had adequately planned and provided support for the relocation of Afghan nationals.

“We plan to focus on housing, medical, security, dining and cultural capabilities” at facilities where refugees have been taken, a statement on the department’s website said.

The Defense Department inspector general also is evaluating how well the Pentagon is managing and tracking displaced persons from Afghanistan. It is also looking into an Aug. 29 U.S. airstrike in Kabul, which the Pentagon later said resulted in as many as 10 civilian casualties, among them, seven children.

The Pentagon earlier began a separate internal probe of that strike, launched by a U.S. aerial drone.

The USAID Office of Inspector General said in a statement about its review that it plans an audit of the humanitarian-assistance activities in Afghanistan, as well as an audit on the termination process for Afghan-related programming.

The offices of inspectors general at the departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services didn’t respond to a request for comment on the scope of their internal investigations.

It isn’t uncommon for several inspectors general at various federal agencies to launch separate probes into the same general issue and coordinate their reviews, according to government transparency experts.

Opening several reviews into the Afghanistan withdrawal “makes a lot of sense, practically speaking,” said Liz Hempowicz, director of public policy at the Project On Government Oversight, especially with an episode that involved several different agencies and drew intense public interest and congressional scrutiny.

More reviews can sometimes lead to duplication of efforts and bureaucratic challenges, but typically allow for a more fulsome public accounting of what transpired, Ms. Hempowicz said.

“While inspectors general have a lot of access in their own agencies, they often don’t have that access to other agencies,” she said.

—Dustin Volz contributed to this article.

Write to Vivian Salama at vivian.salama@wsj.com and Nancy A. Youssef at nancy.youssef@wsj.com