General involved in Afghanistan withdrawal has promotion confirmed by Senate

Lt. Gen. Christopher Donahue – who was seen in the viral, night vision photo showing the final American soldier out of Kabul, Afghanistan – was quietly confirmed by the Senate on Monday to lead U.S. Army forces in Europe and Africa. 

Donahue, who headed the 82nd Airborne Division during the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, was tapped by President Biden for the promotion to four-star general, but the confirmation was left out of a series of a hundred other military promotions green-lighted by the Senate before Thanksgiving recess. The delay was caused by one senator holding Donahue’s confirmation, according to Politico. 

Several outlets reported that Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., was responsible for the procedural hold. 

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Mullin has been a vocal critic of the Biden-Harris administration’s handling of the botched withdrawal mired by the killing of 13 U.S. service members and roughly 170 Afghan civilians during a suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport’s Abbey Gate. Donahue was responsible for the 82nd Airborne as it was tasked with securing the airfield at the Kabul airport during evacuations before the country fell to the Taliban. 

The senator called out Donahue, as well as other officials, in an Aug. 24, 2024, statement on the three-year anniversary of the suicide bombing attack. 

“Three years later, not one person has been held accountable for the disaster–not Gen. Milley, Gen. McKenzie, Gen. Donahue, U.S. Ambassador to Tajikistan John Pommersheim, or anyone at the State Department,” Mullin said at the time. “To this day, no one has testified before Congress as to who gave this directive. No one has been held accountable for the 13 brave American heroes who died at Abbey Gate, or the countless Americans who lost their lives trying to escape Kabul.” 

President-elect Trump’s former defense secretary turned Trump critic, Mark Esper, had defended Donahue’s nomination, and urged last month for the hold to be lifted. 

U.S. Army Gen. Christopher Donahue, commanding general of the 82nd Airborn Division and Polish General Wojciech Marchwica speak to journalists after a US Air Force transport plane transporting military equipment and troops arrived at the Rzeszow-Jasionka airport in southeastern Poland, on Feb. 6, 2022.  (JANEK SKARZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

“Responsibility for the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 rests with the White House, not the Defense Dept, and certainly not with the uniformed leaders who faithfully executed Pres Biden’s misbegotten decisions,” Esper wrote on X. 

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Trump had promised on the campaign trail to fire senior officers involved in the withdrawal, though not Donahue specifically. 

One U.S. official told NBC News last month that the Trump transition team was compiling a list of senior current and former U.S. military officers to be potentially court-martialed over the pullout. 

A sign displaying photos and names of the 13 service members killed in a terrorist attack at Abbey Gate outside Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport is seen during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 9, 2024.  (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

The Senate ultimately confirmed Donahue’s promotion to be the commander of US Army Europe-Africa by unanimous consent on Monday, as the hold was dropped. Mullin had not publicly commented about the hold. 

Donahue has headed the 18th Airborne Corps at Fort Liberty, North Carolina, since 2022. 

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He has also been leader of the Special Operations Joint Task Force Afghanistan and served as the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s deputy director for special operations and counterterrorism.