Secretary of State Antony Blinken is preparing to face tough congressional questioning this week over the Biden administration’s handling of the military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
In separate House and Senate hearings, lawmakers are expected to grill Blinken on the Biden administration’s response to the rapid collapse of the Afghan government and more specifically on the State Department’s response to what many claim was a predictable result in the final days of the American military presence there.
Blinken, who had publicly predicted in June that a complete Taliban takeover would not happen “from a Friday to a Monday,” will appear before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Monday and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday. He’s likely to get assailed for that prediction, which turned out to have been wrong.
The State Department has come under heavy criticism from both Republicans and Democrats for not doing enough and not acting quickly enough to get American citizens, legal residents and at-risk Afghans out of the country after the Taliban took control of Kabul on Aug. 15.
Republicans, in particular, have been demanding answers as to why American citizens were left behind in the chaotic days and weeks before the military completed its withdrawal on Aug. 30.
