WASHINGTON – United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday insisted the Biden administration had prepared for worst-case scenarios in Afghanistan, as irate lawmakers accused the White House of presiding over a historic disaster.
The famously even-tempered top US diplomat stayed cool as he faced the toughest grilling of his career at the first congressional hearing on President Joe Biden’s end to the 20-year war, which brought a swift victory by the Taliban.
As rival Republicans raised their voices, waved pictures of slain soldiers, and occasionally demanded he resign, Blinken repeatedly noted that former president Donald Trump had set the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“We inherited a deadline; we did not inherit a plan,” Blinken told the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
After Trump’s February 2020 deal with the Taliban and drawdown of US troops, the Islamist movement was in the “strongest military position it had been since 9/11”, the attacks 20 years ago that prompted America’s longest war, Blinken said.
Blinken said the Biden administration was “intensely focused” on the safety of Americans and had been “constantly assessing” how long the Western-backed government could survive.
“Even the most pessimistic assessments did not predict that government forces in Kabul would collapse while US forces remained,” Blinken said.
“Nonetheless, we planned and exercised a wide range of contingencies,” he added.
“The evacuation itself was an extraordinary effort – under the most difficult conditions imaginable – by our diplomats, by our military, by our intelligence professionals.” – AFP, September 14, 2021
