"The veterans community was at the forefront of encouraging the U.S. government to have a commission exactly of this nature, so we owe them a great debt of gratitude," she said.

The U.S. invaded Afghanistan in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks with the goal of hunting down the perpetrators, but the war morphed into a nation-building mission over the following two decades. It ended ignominiously in August 2021 when the Taliban swept back into power as U.S. forces withdrew, forcing a U.S. military scramble to evacuate American citizens and vulnerable Afghans in an effort that was marred by the deaths of 13 U.S. service members in a suicide bombing.

Republicans in the House have been investigating what went wrong with the withdrawal, and the Biden administration conducted reviews into the withdrawal and suicide bombing, as well. But the Afghanistan War Commission is the only official body looking holistically at the entire war in a nonpartisan manner.

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Congress created the commission in the annual defense policy bill approved in December 2021, but it has been slow to get off the ground amid delays in lawmakers appointing commissioners, a lag in Congress approving funding for the commission to operate, and efforts to hire staff to support the panel.

The 16 commissioners were appointed evenly by Democrats and Republicans in Congress. In an effort to ensure an objective review, none was allowed to have been a senior official such as a Cabinet secretary or four-star military officer during the war. In addition to Chaudhary, the commission is co-chaired by Colin Jackson, who was deputy assistant secretary of defense for Afghanistan during the Trump administration.

Friday's first hearing was a table-setting session. Commissioners heard from two panels, one with experts who spoke about the importance of reflecting on the mistakes of the war and the other with a former defense official and a researcher who spoke about the lead-up to and the early days of the war.

Witnesses emphasized the heavy lift the commission has before it.

"Your task is hideously difficult. You may only succeed in raising confusion to a higher level of detail," quipped Ronald Neumann, a former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan who testified on the first panel.

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Alexis Albion, who was a staff member for the 9/11 Commission, warned that it will likely be impossible to cover every facet of the 20-year war.

"You need to answer those big questions," she added. "Why did the war go on so long?"

The panel's work is expected to take two years and feature other public events, including testimony from veterans of the war. The commission is also collecting feedback and perspectives from veterans on its website.

"If we do our job well, then we can draw meaning from those sacrifices of those who served and give insight and tools to those who may follow us," Jackson said in his opening statement. "Only by being honest about the past, uncomfortable though that may be, can we hope to improve the understanding and performance of future generations of citizens and decision-makers."