Blinken subpoenaed by US House committee to testify on Afghanistan exit

US House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul has issued a subpoena to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, demanding that he testify on America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.

The subpoena, announced Tuesday, requires Blinken to appear before the committee on Sept. 19 or face contempt charges.

"The Committee is holding this hearing because the Department of State was central to the Afghanistan withdrawal and served as the senior authority during the August non-combatant evacuation operation (NEO)," McCaul wrote in a letter to Blinken.

"As Secretary of State throughout the withdrawal and NEO, you were entrusted to lead these efforts and to secure the safe evacuation of Americans and Afghan allies...You are therefore in a position to inform the Committee’s consideration of potential legislation aimed at helping prevent the catastrophic mistakes of the withdrawal, including potential reforms to the Department’s legislative authorization."

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that Blinken has testified before Congress on Afghanistan more than 14 times and added that Blinken is unavailable to testify on the dates suggested by the committee.

"This includes four times directly before Chairman McCaul’s Committee, including at a previous hearing that focused exclusively on Afghanistan, all while the Department has provided the Committee with nearly 20,000 pages of Department records, multiple high-level briefings, and engaged on transcribed interviews of nearly 15 current and former State Department officials with the Committee," he wrote in a statement to Anadolu.

"Though the Secretary is currently unavailable to testify on dates proposed by the Committee, the State Department has proposed reasonable alternatives to comply with Chairman McCaul’s request for a public hearing. It is disappointing that instead of continuing to engage with the Department in good faith, the Committee instead has issued yet another unnecessary subpoena," he added.

McCaul's move follows a prolonged standoff between the committee and the State Department over access to documents related to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, which Republicans have criticized as chaotic and mishandled.

The State Department released its Afghanistan report on June 30 that blamed both the administrations of Donald Trump and Joe Biden for the chaotic withdrawal in August 2021.

"The decisions of both President Trump and President Biden to end the U.S. military mission in Afghanistan had serious consequences for the viability of the Afghan government and its security," said the unclassified report, Afghanistan After Action Review (AAR).

"Those decisions are beyond the scope of this review, but the AAR team found that during both administrations, there was insufficient senior-level consideration of worst-case scenarios and how quickly those might follow," it added.