Blinken lays blame on Trump as he defends messy withdrawal from Afghanistan
“We inherited a deadline. We did not inherit a plan,” the secretary of State said in congressional testimony.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday vigorously defended the Biden administration’s decision to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan and his agency’s handling of the chaotic and deadly evacuation mission from the war-torn country, arguing that the president “inherited” a disaster-in-the-making from Donald Trump.
In testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Blinken said the U.S. is committed to evacuating the 100 or so Americans who still want to leave the country. But he declined to say whether the U.S. would be able to evacuate the thousands of Afghan allies who applied for visas and who are at risk of retribution from the Taliban.
“We inherited a deadline. We did not inherit a plan,” said Blinken, who is no stranger to congressional oversight, having previously served on then-Sen. Joe Biden’s staff when the Delawarean chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Blinken said the Biden administration was handcuffed by Trump’s agreement with the Taliban, which in part reduced the U.S. troop presence to 2,500 by the time Biden took office. With the Taliban continuing its “relentless” military campaign regardless of that agreement, Blinken said, Biden “immediately faced the choice between ending the war or escalating it.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/13/blinken-lays-blame-on-trump-as-he-defends-messy-withdrawal-from-afghanistan-511677
= new reply since forum marked as read
