Ex-congressman, CIA officer sees history repeating itself
Simmons calls US retreat a ‘combination of Saigon and Tehran’
HARTFORD — Ten years in the CIA, combined with decades studying American foreign policy, have left former U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons with an eerie and disturbing feeling as he watches the frantic evacuation from Afghanistan.
“This is a combination of Saigon and Tehran,” the former threeterm 2nd District congressman recalled in an interview. “Saigon because the operation just dissolved into a retreat where we left thousands of our people behind and millions of dollars of equipment. Tehran because we are going to leave behind hundreds, if not thousands, of American hostages. They might not be hostages today, but what are they going to be on the first of September?”
It’s a complicated question for Simmons, a moderate Republican with a deep foreign policy background. He saw personally what happened in Saigon, but he says he opposes the “nation building” that was embraced by the three U.S. presidents before President Joe Biden.
“I personally voted to go into Afghanistan simply to get Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda,”
Simmons said of his days in Congress. “That being done, I opposed the so-called nation building. I thought that was a huge mistake, and it was badly done.”
Regarding what should have been done over the past 20 years, Simmons said, “The main numbers of forces should have been withdrawn after bin Laden was killed, although he was killed in Pakistan, not in Afghanistan.”
Simmons served as first selectman in his hometown of Stonington after Congress. At 78, he helps run a farm in Stonington that is owned by his family.
Watching events unfold on the other side of the world, Simmons says his experience makes him fear for the future of Afghanistan under the Taliban’s rule.
“Once we’re gone, the systematic elimination of their enemies will begin,” Simmons said. “There’s no shortage of terrorists running around Afghanistan these days. ... The Taliban has weapons and equipment. They’ve got terrorists. But they don’t have an economy. They have no economy. The Afghan government that we supported for 20 years was plugged into the global economy and had assets and resources. These guys do not. What’s the future going to be?”
Simmons spent his career on military issues, earning two Bronze Stars while fighting in the Vietnam War and serving on the House Armed Services Committee during his six-year tenure in Congress.
“Except for what happened in Saigon in 1975, I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Simmons, a retired U.S. Army Reserve colonel. “This is unprecedented, in my opinion.”
The evacuation has been widely criticized, but the Biden administration notes that more than 117,000 Americans and their allies have been evacuated since Aug.14 as the Taliban have captured the capital city of Kabul and surrounded the international airport that is the only departure point for those fleeing the country.
Biden says he is sticking to the announced Aug. 31 deadline for withdrawal, but he also vowed retaliation after a suicide bomber killed 13 U.S. troops and more than 150 Afghans in explosions Thursday. Officials have said that about 1,000 Americans remain in Afghanistan, and the military would evacuate any Americans who want to leave.
Due to his background in the CIA and in Vietnam, Simmons was considered a reliable vote for President George W. Bush’s administration when he served in Congress from 2001 to 2007. He lost in the 2006 election to Democrat Joe Courtney, who is still serving in Congress. A survey by Congressional Quarterly showed that he was ranked third among the most independent House Republicans
In September 2002, only one year after the 9/11 attacks, thenVice President Dick Cheney traveled to Connecticut for a major campaign fundraiser for Simmons, saying that both Bush and Simmons needed to be reelected to battle the ongoing war on terrorism.
Simmons was hesitant at the time about supporting military action to oust Saddam Hussein, but he eventually voted in favor of giving authority to Bush to invade Iraq — a move that has been widely criticized through the years.
The idea that Afghanistan, which has been wracked by civil war, could eventually be turned into a Western-style democracy has proved to be impossible over the decades, he said.
“The war on Afghanistan was never a war. It was a counter-terrorism operation,” Simmons said.
Regarding the United States and Afghanistan, Simmons said, “It was a clash of cultures and civilizations that just was not going to lead to any sort of nation-building. This is a country that is operating in the 16th or 17th century.”