The Kabul Tribune (KT) — Poland’s foreign minister has criticized U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for downplaying the contributions of allied troops in Afghanistan, urging him to explain his remarks to the families of Polish soldiers killed during the war.
Polish Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Radosław
Sikorski responded Sunday after Hegseth questioned how many NATO allies had
meaningfully contributed to the U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan.
Speaking to cadets at the University of Tennessee in
Knoxville on Saturday, Hegseth recalled his military service in Afghanistan and
said only a handful of allied countries had made significant contributions,
initially suggesting “maybe five” before adding that the number was “actually
closer to one or two.”
Hegseth also repeated a joke about the International
Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, saying troops had referred to the mission
as “I Saw Americans Fighting.”
In a post on X, Sikorski challenged Hegseth to repeat his
remarks to the families of the 44 Polish soldiers who died during operations in
Afghanistan’s Ghazni province, which he described as a particularly difficult
area.
Jan Grabiec, head of the Polish prime minister’s office,
also criticized the remarks, saying allies should not mock the blood they had
shed together.
The controversy is not the first time Hegseth has faced
criticism for comments about allied contributions in Afghanistan. He made a
similar joke about ISAF last year, drawing objections from European officials.
U.S. President Donald Trump also sparked criticism by
suggesting that NATO allies had stayed away from the front lines in
Afghanistan. Following objections from European leaders, including the British
prime minister, Trump praised the courage of British troops.
NATO invoked Article 5, the alliance’s collective defense
clause, for the first and only time following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on
the United States, leading to the alliance’s involvement in Afghanistan.
More than 1,000 NATO service members died during the
mission, including 459 British personnel and 44 Polish military personnel,
according to the figures cited in the report.
Poland supported the U.S.-led operation from 2001 and
maintained troops in Afghanistan until the international withdrawal in 2021.
More than 33,000 Polish soldiers and Defense Ministry personnel served in the
country during nearly two decades of operations.
From 2007, Poland took responsibility for security in two
Afghan provinces, with its contingent eventually reaching more than 2,500
personnel.
Poland lost 43 soldiers and one civilian paramedic during
the mission, while more than 200 Polish personnel were wounded, according to
the report.
