US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will not appear before the House Foreign Affairs Committee to testify on the chaotic withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, his office said on Tuesday. Lawmakers subpoenaed him to do so earlier in the day.
Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) has been trying to get Blinken’s testimony on the debacle since May. The top US diplomat “must appear before the committee on September 19, 2024, or face contempt,” the committee said in a statement.
In a letter to Blinken, McCaul said that the investigation identified him as “the final decisionmaker” for his department during the evacuation of troops and civilians from Afghanistan in August 2021, and that the secretary’s testimony could benefit lawmakers as they consider “potential legislation aimed at helping prevent the catastrophic mistakes of the withdrawal.”
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller responded by stating that Blinken had already testified before Congress on multiple occasions, including before the Foreign Affairs Committee exclusively on Afghanistan. The top diplomat will not be available on September 19, Miller said in a statement to the press.
The statement accused McCaul of rejecting “reasonable alternatives” to having a public hearing and said it was “disappointing that instead of continuing to engage with the Department in good faith, the Committee instead has issued yet another unnecessary subpoena.”
The withdrawal from Afghanistan was initiated by the administration of then President Donald Trump, after decades of failing counterinsurgency operations against the Taliban and hundreds of billions of dollars in US taxpayer money spent. The final pullout occurred under his successor, Joe Biden, and Republicans have been highly critical of how it was done.
The withdrawal led to 13 US service members being killed in a bomb attack in Kabul, which was masterminded by the terrorist group Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS). Shortly afterwards, US forces killed 10 civilians, including seven children, in a drone strike on the vehicle of an aid worker, which the Americans mistook as an imminent threat.
Last year, the State Department released an after-action report, which cited lack of crisis preparation under both administrations, miscommunication with the US-supported government in Kabul and other factors explaining why the pullout was botched. It largely absolved the department, praising its staff for “great agility, determination, and dedication” under extreme circumstances.