Media Contact 202-226-8467

WASHINGTON — Today, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman questioned Secretary of State Antony Blinken at a full committee hearing on the failures of the Biden-Harris administration’s deadly withdrawal from Afghanistan. 

WATCH HERE

– Chairman McCaul’s Questioning –

Chairman McCaul: “Mr. Secretary, in September of this year, your State Department’s inspector general revealed that Embassy Kabul, under your leadership, abandoned ‘sensitive security assets’ during the deadly Afghanistan evacuation. Those lethal assets included firearms, armored vehicles, and other weapons. Your [inspector general] concluded your embassy left them intact for the Taliban. And if that wasn’t bad enough, documents – classified documents, many that I subpoenaed – also reveal that you left behind droves of the embassy’s, again, classified documents to the Taliban. Your own diplomats [made] desperate attempts to burn documents on the rooftops and in the embassy while helicopters took off the embassy’s roof – very reminiscent in my younger life of Saigon – all because the administration failed to prepare. Finally, your chief of mission kicked out the embassy’s Afghan employees from [Hamid Karzai International Airport], telling them to come back later, leaving them to the Taliban, [and many of them] never made it back, who never survived, [and] who we gave our trust to that we would protect them. You left weapons behind to the Taliban, classified documents to the Taliban, you left behind embassy employees to the Taliban, and now three years later your own IG, inspector general, concluded that your State Department has been unwilling and unable to learn from its mistakes.

“My question is, have you read the IG report and have you held your own State Department accountable?”

Secretary Blinken: “Mr. Chairman, first with regard to the documents. We have in place at every embassy, including in Afghanistan, a process by which sensitive documents are destroyed in the event of evacuation and shutting down the embassy. We began that process on August the 1st, and then when we got to August the 12th before the collapse of Kabul, we proceeded with the emergency destruction of all the remaining sensitive documents. And that process was complete by the 14th, the day before Kabul fell. That’s a process that we engage in wherever we have an emergency and that’s exactly –”

Chairman McCaul: “The fact is, they should’ve been evacuated long before. I mean, you were still negotiating as the Taliban entered Kabul. …

“Let me ask you this, when President Biden announced his nconditional surrender to the Taliban on [August] 14, 2021, you demanded that Embassy Kabul remain open no matter what the cost. Your personnel opposed that. In fact, they did so in a cable of dissent that we were able to get from you in our discovery process – a cry for help. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs [General Mark Milley and] to the [U.S. Central Command] Commander [Frank McKenzie] said [the] ‘fundamental mistake,’ ‘a fatal flaw,’ and their ‘biggest regret’ is keeping the embassy open despite the advice of your own people on the ground and military advisers. Why did you do that?”

Secretary Blinken: “Very simply. Because no one anticipated that the government and the Afghan armed forces would collapse as quickly as they did. We anticipated, and every intelligence assessment that we had anticipated, that Kabul would remain in the hands of the government and the hands of the Afghan armed forces through the balance of the year. … The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley, said, ‘Nothing I, or anyone else, saw indicated a collapse of the army or the government in 11 days.’  The [Director of National Intelligence] Avril Haines said, ‘In the days leading up to the Taliban takeover, intelligence agencies did not see collapse was imminent. This unfolded more quickly than many anticipated, including in the intelligence community.’”

Chairman McCaul: “Okay, reclaiming my time. I hear what you’re saying that no one saw the collapse coming. However, I’ve read the dissent cable [from] your embassy personnel that you provided to me that they sent to you in July before the collapse in 2021, warning of Afghanistan’s imminent collapse, fearing for their safety. You personally read this, sir, and cleared it. Your Deputy Secretary Brian McKeon testified before this committee that you took no step to answer the cries for help. And as you know, as Secretary of State, you have a responsibility to protect Americans and diplomats.”

Secretary Blinken: “Mr. Chairman, that’s incorrect.”

Chairman McCaul: “Why did you ignore the cries for help? Why’d you leave this embassy open, and finally, who was in charge? Was it you or Mr. Sullivan? Because it seems to me you delegated all your responsibility on this. You had very little to do with it, and it was Jake Sullivan and the National Security Council at the White House calling all the shots. However, under law, sir, you are the captain of the ship.”

Secretary Blinken: “Mr. Chairman, that’s incorrect on a number of counts, as is the report that I’ve read. First, when it comes to a [noncombatant evacuation operation] – the evacuation – that is a decision that’s reached by the entire interagency and ultimately by the president. State Department initiates it by asking the Department of Defense to proceed with it, but the decision itself is reached as a result of interagency deliberations. And we did not, as an interagency and that includes the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the President –”

Chairman McCaul: “Who was in charge? This is going to help us legislate, sir. Were you in charge of this evacuation?”

Secretary Blinken: “I was in charge of the State Department. The government, the administration, was in charge of the evacuation. Specifically, the State Department and the Department of Defense together on any NEO work closely together with clearly assigned responsibilities, and that’s exactly what we did –”

Chairman McCaul: “And it is the statutory responsibility, sir, for you to execute the plan, correct? The NEO, the plan.”

Secretary Blinken: “The NEO was executed by the State Department and the Defense Department.”

Chairman McCaul: “I would have to say, sir, waiting until the last minute is not executing a plan at all. And it led to the deaths of many Americans and Afghan people and Afghan allies.”

Secretary Blinken: “Mr. Chairman, the record reflects that, again, this decision was reached collectively. No one urged initiating the NEO until we decided to do it on [August] 14th.”

Chairman McCaul: “I think in my review of our investigation, there was so much confusion coming out of your embassy, coming from the top military advisers who told me, testified, that they told you to close down that embassy in advance to protect Americans and American assets and classified documents. They were left to the Taliban. You were in charge by law. You may have delegated this, I don’t know. But to legislate moving forward, I need to know who was in charge and that’s why it is so important that Mr. Sullivan, the National Security Advisor, come before this committee and give his testimony about what the hell was going on during this disastrous evacuation.”

###