DGermany’s military engagement in Afghanistan is now being investigated by the Bundestag. A parliamentary commission of inquiry began work on Monday. It is intended to evaluate the Bundeswehr’s longest deployment to date, which lasted from 2001 after the attacks by the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda on America to the hasty withdrawal of the Bundeswehr and its western allies last year. The aim of the work is to clarify the reasons for the failure of the mission and to draw “lessons from Afghanistan for Germany’s future networked engagement”. The Taliban took power again in Kabul in the summer of 2021.
The former Berlin mayor, Michael Müller, was elected chairman of the commission on Monday. “Conclusions from Afghanistan are needed so that German operations run better,” said the SPD politician. Müller is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, but only moved into the Bundestag last year. Since there are few experienced SPD foreign politicians in parliament, he was nevertheless named chairman of his parliamentary group.
In several interviews, Müller expressed the view that the history, culture and society of Afghanistan had not been adequately addressed before the deployment. In addition, the focus was too much on the big cities like Kabul and Kandahar, but neglected the flat country, where many innovations were not accepted by the population. CDU MP Peter Beyer said it was the duty of the soldiers and the public to work through the operation.
MPs, experts, generals
The Commission consists of 12 MEPs and 12 experts appointed by the political groups. The SPD and the Union are each represented by three MPs and three experts, the Greens and the FDP each with two MPs and experts, and the AfD and Left Party each with one MP and one expert. Deputy commission chair is Serap Güler from the CDU. The leader of the Greens is MP Schahina Gambir, who was born in Kabul and came to Germany with her parents as a little girl.
One of the experts nominated by the Greens is Winfried Nachtwei, who has been a member of parliament for many years and was particularly involved in the Afghanistan mission. The FDP and Union have appointed the former Bundeswehr generals Egon Ramms and Jörg Vollmer as experts. Among others, Carlo Masala from the University of the Federal Armed Forces in Munich sits on the committee for the Union. The left is represented by MP Andrej Hunko, who is controversial mainly because of his closeness to Russia, for example through a visit to the separatist “Donetsk People’s Republic”.
In parallel to the Commission of Inquiry, a committee of inquiry was set up by the Bundestag, which will hold its first official meeting on Thursday. He is supposed to examine the final phase of the mission and, above all, clarify why the strength of the Taliban was so underestimated that the American troops and their western allies had to withdraw in a chaotic manner last year. The chairman of the committee is the Schleswig-Holstein SPD politician Ralf Stegner, who, like Müller, is a member of the Bundestag for the first time. Both recently called for restraint on arms deliveries to Ukraine and called for more diplomatic efforts.
Over the course of 20 years, the Bundeswehr was deployed with around 93,000 soldiers, 59 were killed. The entire operation cost 12.3 billion euros. The commission of inquiry is to present its final report by summer 2024.
