Hegseths new Afghan probe risks dragging the Pentagon down a political rabbit hole

When Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a new investigation this week into the Biden administration’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, many on the right cheered.After all, despite four previous inquiries conducted by the National Security Council, the State Department, US Central Command, and the GOP-led House Foreign Affairs Committee, no one in the Pentagon or in the military chain of command was fired or relieved for their role in the debacle.Nor did any heads roll at the State Department or White House as a result of a botched evacuation that reminded Americans of the shameful fall of Saigon in 1975.But Hegseth’s renewed search for “accountability,” as he put it, is a risky move — one that the Trump administration will be tempted to use as a political bludgeon against the president’s perceived enemies.Heading that grievance list is retired Gen.Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and former USCENTCOM commander Gen.

Keith McKenzie.The new probe will likely focus on the decisions and advice made by both men.Milley is already squarely in the crosshairs.

In January, Hegseth terminated Milley’s security detail and national security clearance — and ordered the Pentagon’s inspector general to conduct a review of Milley’s past decisions to decide if he should be demoted in rank.The general’s public falling-out with Trump was headline news.In Bob Woodward’s latest book, Milley was quoted as calling the president “a fascist to the core” and saying “he is the most dangerous person ever [in America].”Now, Milley could be facing a Pentagon court-martial — even though he’s immune from federal prosecution after receiving President Biden’s preemptive pardon — and the new Afghanistan investigation’s findings will likely loom large in the evidence presented against him.Milley has gone on record stating his regrets, saying “the whole thing was a strategic failure” and that “the fundamenta...