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Capitol, Blinken advocates withdrawing from Afghanistan in 2021

2024-12-12 16:20:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, told lawmakers last night (Wednesday evening) that the administration of President Biden was put in a very difficult position before the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in August 2021. As the correspondent of "Voice" reports of America" ??in Congress Katherine Gypson, Mr. Blinken said that President Joe Biden inherited a withdrawal deadline from former President Donald Trump, without a plan to make it happen. Republicans on the House Foreign Relations Committee have been demanding answers to the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan for years.

The Taliban's minister for refugees, Khalil Ur-Rahman Haqqani, was killed in a suicide attack on Wednesday in Afghanistan.

It is one of the worst attacks on a Taliban leader since the group returned to power in August 2021.

The disastrous withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan allowed the Taliban to return to power. House Republicans have been highly critical of President Biden's administration for the recall.

"You had many opportunities to draw up a plan for the inevitable fall of Afghanistan. Instead, even with the alarm bells clearly ringing, you denied imminent and dangerous threats to American interests, American citizens, and our Afghan partners," said Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken appeared before this Commission on Wednesday. He said President Joe Biden inherited a withdrawal deadline from former President Donald Trump, without a plan to carry it out.

"If President Biden had not followed through on his predecessor's pledge, the Taliban's attacks on our forces, our allies, and major cities would have resumed. This would require sending tens of thousands of additional US forces back to Afghanistan to defend themselves and prevent the Taliban from taking control,” said Secretary Blinken.

The incoming chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, Republican Brian Mast, who lost his legs fighting in Afghanistan, said the State Department has not been held accountable for the withdrawal.

"The department is absolutely dysfunctional as evidenced by the attempts to cover up the fact that 26 diplomats in your administration told you it would be a disaster if it continued down that path. We need to talk about it," said Republican lawmaker Mast.

But the top Democrat on the commission said Republicans had made no effort to prevent those problems from happening again.

"The so-called investigation of the Republicans has been nothing more than doing politics along party lines. They can't claim that their real goal now is the rule of law, when I don't see anything concrete. From this investigation, they did not draft any bill", says MP Meeks.

Thirteen US soldiers and 170 Afghan civilians died in the bomb attack at the 'Abbey Gate' in Kabul on August 26, 2021./ Voa