Blinken draws bipartisan anger at final congressional hearing

Republicans grill US Secretary of State about Afghanistan before he departs for Middle East

Protesters hold up red-painted hands as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken testifies at a House foreign affairs committee meeting on December 11. Getty Images via AFP

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken's final Congressional appearance saw him draw criticism from Republicans and Democrats, in a contentious hearing that highlighted the departing Biden administration's troubled foreign policy legacy.

The Republican-led House foreign affairs committee hosted Mr Blinken on Wednesday to grill him a final time about the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, as the party prepares for total control of Washington under Donald Trump on January 20.

Meanwhile, pro-Palestinian protesters drew attention to the situation in the Gaza Strip, yelling that Mr Blinken is “the butcher of Gaza" before being escorted from the hearing room.

President Joe Biden's unfettered support for Israel, despite tension with the far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has angered many Democrats. More than 44,800 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since Israel launched its war after the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200.

“This will be one of the defining foreign policy legacies and I am profoundly disappointed with how it's been handled," Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro said. "What we have seen by the Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu has been inhumane. I wish that this had turned out differently, I wish you all had been successful in getting a ceasefire, but when you weren't – I wish you used more leverage.”

Mr Castro asked Mr Blinken if he would have done anything differently on the Israel-Gaza war, but he dodged the opportunity to respond, saying: “There'll be a lot of time to look back and ask ourselves whether we could or should have done anything different."

“I've also been to the region 12 times since October 7. I'm heading back in an hour or two to continue the efforts to get a ceasefire and hostage agreement, to get the hostages home, to get the guns to stop firing, to put Gaza on a better path, and meanwhile to try to make sure that people have the assistance they so desperately need,” Mr Blinken said.

On the hearing's main point, Afghanistan, Brian Mast, the incoming chairman of the House foreign affairs committee, had harsh words for Mr Blinken.

“We insult every single person that served when we come in here and say words like we're sorry the Afghanistan withdrawal wasn't exactly perfect … this place absolutely lives up to being a swamp when we try to cover up the fact that 26 of your diplomats told you directly that if you continued to go down the path you were going, that it was going to be a disaster.”

Mr Blinken again blamed Afghan officials, and a deal signed by the first Trump administration in 2020, for the withdrawal and the Taliban's ultimate takeover of Kabul.

“Even the US government's most pessimistic assessments did not anticipate the Afghan government and security forces would collapse so rapidly in the face of Taliban advances,” he said.

“All of us, including myself, have wrestled with what we could have done differently … even as we work to address the places where we fell short, I firmly believe that President Biden's decision to withdraw from Afghanistan was the right one.”

Behind Mr Blinken, a TV screen played a slide show of the images from that chaotic moment in world history – including images of the 13 US troops killed in the Abbey Gate terrorist attack, which also killed at least 170 Afghans trying to flee the country as the Taliban took over.

A 2022 Pentagon report concluded that the attack was “not preventable”, that security precautions were being taken and that intelligence about potential threats circulating that day was “not specific” – despite testimony from survivors that they had warned their chain of command of threats.

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But Mr Blinken was not without allies at the hearing. Democratic ranking member of the committee Gregory Meeks said the Republican-led investigation was “politically motivated", defending the departing administration's actions and pointing the finger at negotiations with the Taliban under Mr Trump.

“President Biden ultimately made the right decision to end our 20 year war in Afghanistan,” Mr Meeks told the committee. “No one here has argued our withdrawal was perfect … We owe it to ourselves, and our military, and diplomatic personnel on the front lines to learn from it."

The hearing also caps off a long fight between the committee's Republicans and the Biden administration over Afghanistan – including a bid to hold the US Secretary of State in contempt of Congress for failing to appear for previous subpoenas in September.

The first September hearing was scheduled, notably, when Mr Blinken and senior world leaders gathered in New York for the UN General Assembly.

The State Department paints a picture of a committee making the process difficult, including suggesting dates where Mr Blinken was known to be out of town.

But a representative of the foreign affairs committee majority told The National that the back-and-forth with Mr Blinken was extensive, and that the he had previously offered deputies, who had not worked at the State Department at the time of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, to testify in his place.

The Congressional representative added that the State Department refused to provide any date for the secretary to appear during the month of September.