A retired Green Beret who helped Afghans escape the Taliban during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is raising objections to a Biden nominee. Joe Biden has nominated a person who was in charge of the visa program to be the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq.
Retired Army Lt. Colonel Scott Mann served multiple tours in Afghanistan. He led Operation Pineapple Express, a mission which evacuated hundreds of Afghan allies from Afghanistan during the Taliban takeover in 2021. The person in charge of the visa program for Afghans was Tracey Jacobson. Biden has nominated her to be U.S. Ambassador to Iraq. Mann calls this a slap in the face to veterans. She shouldn’t be getting a new assignment but she should be relieved of her duties.
Mann calls the nomination “failing up” for Jacobson. According to the announcement released by the White House, she is 59 years old and a career member of the Senior Foreign Service.
Tracey Ann Jacobson, Nominee to be Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Republic of Iraq
Tracey Jacobson, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, class of Career Minister, most recently served as Charge d’Affaires ad interim at the U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Over the course of her distinguished career, she has been a U.S. Ambassador on three occasions – to Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Kosovo, and the Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Riga, Latvia. In addition to senior leadership roles overseas, Jacobson served as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the State Department’s Bureau of International Organization Affairs and as the National Foreign Affairs Training Center’s (FSI) Dean of the School of Professional and Area Studies and then as the Deputy Director. At the National Security Council, Jacobson was the Deputy Executive Secretary and Senior Director for Administration.
Jacobson earned her B.A. degree from Johns Hopkins University and her M.A. degree from the School of Advanced International Studies, also at Johns Hopkins. She is the recipient of multiple awards from the State Department, two Presidential Rank Awards, and the Order for Peace, Democracy and Humanism “Ibrahim Rugova” (Kosovo).
The Biden withdrawal from Afghanistan was a disaster. Thirteen American military members were killed during a terrorist attack at the airport in Kabul. There are still 150,000 U.S. allies waiting to escape Afghanistan. Biden left them behind. As Mann notes, Jacobson has not been held accountable. In fact, no one has been held accountable for the disastrous withdraw.
‘The U.S. State Department role in all of this has been a colossal embarrassment and this promotion is just another slap in the face to the veteran population,’ retired Army Lt. Colonel Scott Mann exclusively told DailyMail.com in a statement.
‘Instead of being held to account and relieved her duties [Jacobson] was promoted,’ said Mann, who led Operation Pineapple Express – a mission which evacuated hundreds of Afghan allies during the Taliban takeover in 2021.
That is a huge problem with the Biden administration. White House and other federal government employees make mistakes – sometimes with very serious consequences – and no one is held accountable, no one is fired. That isn’t how it works in the private sector. It’s easy to understand why Mann says she is failing up with this nomination. It looks like she botched her job of getting the visas to those Afghan allies in Afghanistan who worked to support American troops. Then a large number of them were abandoned due to her office’s incompetence or inability to get the work done. The Afghans are left on their own trying to survive the Taliban. We know that the Taliban targets Afghans who helped Americans during the war. Jacobson was ‘in charge of a whole-of-government effort to process, transport, and relocate Afghan Special Immigrant Visa applicants and other Afghan allies.’ The failure to protect the Afghans who wished to leave Afghanistan falls on her.
Some Republicans are speaking out against her nomination.
No words…
Tracey Jacobson Abandoned Our Afghan Allies. Now She’s Getting a Promotion. https://t.co/4ayuyRo4Dy
— Rep. Mike Waltz (@michaelgwaltz) February 1, 2024
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul also weighed in against her nomination.
‘I am extremely frustrated that the Biden administration continues to reward and promote those who played a role in the catastrophic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan,’ McCaul said in a statement to DailyMail.com
‘Tracy Jacobson failed American veterans and our Afghan allies when she and the Biden administration abandoned hundreds of thousands of our Afghan allies.’
‘If she is allowed to become the next U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, the Democratic U.S. Senate will be telling the American people – and the world – that there is no such thing as accountability or justice in the Biden administration,’ McCaul said.
Mann noted that 900 days have passed from the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. Joe Biden has blood on his hands. As Mann said, Jacobson is a terrible choice. The Afghans are being hunted by the Taliban and killed. The thirteen American service members did not have to die. If Biden had taken the advice from those with experience and knowledge, the military officers and consultants, the withdrawal would have been different. Biden’s term in office has been a complete disaster. He and his administration need to be held responsible and ousted in November.