A coterie of former US government officials and academics on Friday opened what will be an extensive examination of America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan, the nation’s longest conflict.

 “Today we make history,” said Shamila N. Chaudhary, co-chair of the Afghanistan War Commission, the Washington Post reported. “Never before has the United States commissioned such a wide-ranging independent legislative assessment of its own decision-making in the aftermath of a conflict.”

The 16-member bipartisan panel has been tasked by Congress with determining what went wrong and what US leaders could do differently the next time the United States goes to war. Their mandate encompasses policies and actions taken by four presidential administrations, the US military, the State Department, US allies, and many other agencies, organizations and people.

The commission has 18 months to carry out its research and until August 2026 to deliver a final public report.

The chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan has repeatedly been criticized by some members of the Congress and the Republicans.

The Republican-led House Foreign Affairs Committee is expected next month to deliver a final report detailing the findings of its investigation of the withdrawal.

The war commission’s 4½-hour discussion Friday, held in Washington, featured former ambassadors, military officers and CIA personnel as witnesses. It drew a small crowd of observers, many of whom were also connected to the war.

Colin F. Jackson, co-chair of the commission said it will endeavor to produce “a full, objective, rigorous, unvarnished and unflinching account of our performance as a government and a military,”

There were convoluted chains of command throughout the war; disruptive personality clashes between American decision-makers and agencies; and commanding officers served tours of duty that were so short as to represent “the institutional equivalent of a frontal lobotomy,” said another witness, Ronald Neumann, a former ambassador to Afghanistan.

There was a terribly devised system for parliamentary elections that invited fraud, said Noah Coburn, a political anthropologist who provided testimony Friday. There was too much public meddling in Afghan politics by US leaders, and too little policy input solicited from the Afghans. Poor US decisions when it came to security partners, development and investments fueled corruption, which spread mistrust of the government and support for the anti-government Islamic Emirate, said Coburn.

Among the obvious points of interest, Jackson said, will be the decision to invade Afghanistan in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The commissioners will examine the decision to surge US forces in Afghanistan in 2009. They will look at the decision-making that went into negotiations with the Islamic Emirate. And of course, they will look at decisions related to the withdrawal.

 “For so many of us, the war still lingers in our minds. We carry the moral, physical and emotional injuries in our daily lives,” Chaudhary said. “Closure may not be possible for everyone.” But a space is needed for “civic discourse,” she added.