Blinken faces Republican critics of Afghanistan withdrawal

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken attends an interview, in Brussels, Belgium December 4, 2024. REUTERS/Johanna Geron/File Photo

(Reuters) -Secretary of State Antony Blinken defended the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan as an ending of the country's longest war that freed resources for other conflicts, in testimony in the House of Representatives on Wednesday.

"Our adversaries, including Russia, would have been delighted if we had doubled down and remained stuck in Afghanistan for another 20 years," Blinken told a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, in what is likely his final public testimony to lawmakers before leaving office next month.

Blinken's appearance came after a long dispute with the Republican-led committee over when he would testify about one of the darkest incidents of Democratic President Joe Biden's presidency.

Republican Representative Michael McCaul, the panel's chairman, blasted the administration for the deaths of 13 Americans in a suicide attack at Kabul's airport in August 2021 and for thousands of Afghans who worked with U.S. forces who could not be evacuated as the Taliban took over.

"You ignored warnings of collapse from your own personnel," McCaul said.

Blinken said every American who wanted to leave Afghanistan has been given the opportunity to leave and thousands of Afghans have been resettled internationally, although Washington remains committed to helping those who remain.

House Foreign Affairs and the State Department had wrangled over Blinken's appearance for months. Panel Republicans voted in September - weeks before the presidential election - to recommend the top U.S. diplomat be held in contempt of Congress for failing to comply with a subpoena.

The chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan after 20 years of war became intensely politicized during the campaign pitting Republican President-elect Donald Trump against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump, who returns to the White House on Jan. 20, has vowed to go after those responsible for the withdrawal. During his campaign, he said he would ask for the resignation of every senior official "who touched the Afghanistan calamity."

Democrats have insisted much of the blame for the war's messy end - less than seven months into Biden's presidency - rests with Trump, who began the withdrawal process by signing a deal with Afghanistan's militant Islamist Taliban in 2020.

McCaul also announced during the hearing that Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, had agreed to brief the committee on Dec. 17.

McCaul released a report on Sept. 8 on a Republican investigation of the Afghanistan withdrawal, blasting Biden's administration for failures surrounding the evacuation. Panel Democrats also released their own investigation.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Rod Nickel)