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EXCLUSIVE: A new Pentagon review of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan will declassify previously restricted materials from previous investigations, reopening scrutiny of key decisions made during the Biden administration's failed exit from the country in 2021.
The review will include interview transcripts, internal documents and previous findings that officials said were overclassified, according to Pentagon adviser Stu Scheller.
“We plan to declassify all the documents that we obtain in this investigation: all the interview transcripts, all the previous investigations that the Biden administration conducted that have been overclassified,” Scheller told Fox News Digital. “We are going to declassify everything so that everyone can make their own assessments.”
Unlike previous reviews that cataloged failures but stopped short of pinpointing individual responsibility, this Pentagon effort is examining a broader set of records and conducting extensive interviews with both senior military leaders and rank-and-file troops, a reach that officials say could reopen unanswered questions about who made key decisions during the 2021 withdrawal.
“There will be accountability,” Scheller said.
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“We've talked to a lot of people, all the key generals… and we also interviewed thousands of young service members,” Scheller told Fox News Digital about the report. “One of the things they said was that they didn't feel like their experiences had been validated.”
President Donald Trump has repeatedly criticized the previous Biden administration over the Abbey Gate tragedy that killed 13 US service members, calling the 2021 withdrawal “a Biden disaster” and “the lowest point in our country's history.” In May 2025, the administration ordered a new review of the Pentagon as part of what officials described as their push for accountability.
Scheller's role in the review marks a surprising turnaround for a Marine Corps officer who was previously punished after publicly criticizing the military's handling of the withdrawal.
Scheller, then a lieutenant in command of an infantry training unit at Camp Lejeune, gained national attention in August 2021 after posting a viral video in uniform demanding accountability from senior leaders. He was relieved of command, placed in preventive detention and later pleaded guilty in a court-martial.
“I felt like there was no other voice advocating for the emperor not to wear clothes,” Scheller said. “I didn't do it randomly.”
“God was with me in that. I got through it. Here I am influencing the changes I originally outlined.”
British and US security forces maintain order among Afghan evacuees inside Abbey Gate in Kabul on August 25, 2021, during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. (Marcus Lam/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images)
Previous investigations by Congress, the Pentagon and federal watchdogs identified a series of failures in the planning and execution of the withdrawal, including gaps in evacuation efforts, intelligence assessments and high-level decision-making.
A report from the Republican-led House Foreign Affairs Committee found that the State Department did not develop a plan to evacuate Americans and Afghan allies despite growing warnings that Kabul could fall, delaying evacuation efforts until the Taliban entered the capital.
The report also said that US officials were tracking credible threats of a suicide attack in the days before the Abbey Gate bombing, including intelligence pointing to a possible ISIS-K attack on the airport, but operations at the gate continued.
Those conditions are now being re-examined as part of the Pentagon review, including how the Marines' actions on the ground were recognized.
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Scheller said his team focused from the beginning on the unit stationed at Abbey Gate, where several Marines had been nominated for higher awards that were then downgraded during the approval process.
“They actually had submitted awards that had been downgraded. So we didn't create these awards out of thin air,” Scheller said. “All seven awards were presented and we had formal documentation of the original report.”
Evacuees wait to board a Boeing C-17 Globemaster III during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, Aug. 23. (Sgt. Isaiah Campbell/US Marine Corps)
The upgrades affected Marines from Company G, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, including instances where commendation medals were raised to include devices of valor and, in one case, a Bronze Star was upgraded to reflect combat heroism.
The Abbey Gate bombing killed 13 U.S. service members and more than 150 Afghans, marking the deadliest day for U.S. forces in Afghanistan in years.
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The Biden administration has defended its handling of the withdrawal, arguing that the decision ended America's longest war and prevented more American casualties, while accusing critics of politicizing the issue.
A spokesperson for former President Joe Biden did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
