Secretary of State Antony Blinken defended the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in front of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Monday. The video above shows some of the testimony from Blinken and members of the committee
The withdrawal has been widely criticized. Republicans on the committee used Monday’s hearing to take more shots at the administration.
“The president refused to listen to his own generals and the intelligence community who warned him precisely what would happen when we withdrew,” U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul said. “This was an unmitigated disaster of epic proportions.”
However, Blinken said that was not the case. “Even the most pessimistic assessments did not predict that government forces in Kabul would collapse while U.S. forces remain,” Blinken said. “As General Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has said, nothing I or anyone else saw indicated a collapse of this army and this government in 11 days.”
Even Democrats said the operation could have been handled better. “Could things have been done differently? Absolutely,” U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks said. However, he disagreed with the idea that troops could’ve remained past President Joe Biden’s Aug. 31 deadline to complete the withdrawal.
“The choice before President Biden was between a full withdrawal and the surging of thousands of Americans to Afghanistan for an undefined time,” Rep. Meeks said. “To argue that there was a third option, a limited troop presence where the safety of our personnel could be preserve in my mind is a fantasy.”
In his testimony before questioning began, Blinken talked more about the choice the president had regarding Afghanistan. “Had he not followed through on his predecessor’s commitment, attacks on our forces and those our allies would have resumed and the Taliban’s nationwide assault on Afghanistan’s major cities would have commenced,” Blinked said. “That would have required sending substantially more U.S. forces into Afghanistan to defend themselves and prevent a Taliban takeover, taking casualties, and with at best prospect restoring a stalemate and remaining stuck in Afghanistan under fire indefinitely.”