Republicans, in control of the House of Representatives, on Friday launched a congressional investigation into the chaotic withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in 2021;during which 13 American servicemen were killed in a suicide bomber attack.
Michael McCall, the new chairman of the House of Commons international affairs committee, has announced that he has demanded a series of documents from Foreign Secretary Anthony Blinken, specifically intelligence reports and communications with the Taliban.
“It is absurd and scandalous that the Biden administration has repeatedly refused to grant our request to see (the documents) and continues to withhold information about the withdrawal.”said Michael McCall.
In case the refusals continue, the committee will not hesitate to move to “mandatory” procedureshe warned, implying subpoenas.
Joe Biden ordered the troop withdrawal to proceed USA from Afghanistan, ending the longest war America has ever been involved in, in August 2021.
But the chaos that prevailed in this operation and the return of the Taliban to power sparked fierce criticism against him.
Thirteen US service members were killed on August 26, 2021 in a bombing outside the Kabul airport that killed a total of 173.
Donald Trump’s administration negotiated the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan while the real estate mogul was in the White House, but the Republican party criticized the way his successor Joe Biden handled the business from the start.
The State Department did not respond to a request for comment on Friday, but said it had made more than 150 briefings to members of Congress between the withdrawal and August 2021, according to US media.
The war in Afghanistanlaunched in response to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon, killed more than 2,500 US service members and more than 3,500 service members of other NATO nations and US allies, according to the US Department of Defense.
Source: News Beast
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