Americans watched in horror as the Biden Administration stumbled through the Afghanistan withdrawal: panic in the streets of Kabul; U.S. service members killed by suicide bombings; billions in equipment abandoned; hundreds of allies left behind.
Now we have additional confirmation that President Biden “didn’t heed” certain warnings.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) has completed his review of a State Department document detailing concerns that poured in over the months and weeks leading up to one of Biden’s biggest blunders; “the dissenters were right,” he says.
“The dissenters were absolutely right about everything they said, and it was a warning to the administration about what was going to happen and what they needed to do,” McCaul told Punchbowl News in an interview, adding that the dissenters “deserve a medal.”
“Unfortunately, the administration didn’t heed all their warnings and we got what we got.”
Requests from McCaul and his committee were ignored for months by the State Department, but ultimately Antony Blinken and Co. allowed the chairman and ranking member Rep. Greg Meeks D-NY to review a dissent channel document.
“I am thankful to Secretary Blinken for allowing myself and Ranking Member Meeks to view the dissent channel cable – an unprecedented occurrence. However, every member on our committee should be granted this same access,” McCaul said in a Wednesday statement.
“Although I cannot discuss the classified information in the cable, I can say the dissenters were right – and the administration should have listened. I am going to speak with Ranking Member Meeks and my Republican and Democrat colleagues on the committee to discuss our next course of action if the State Department continues to block all committee members from seeing this cable as the subpoena requested.”
Names of the dissenters were redacted in the reviewed document.
While McCaul was preparing to hold Blinken in contempt for dragging his feet, Meeks thanked the Secretary of State for his cooperation.
“I understand the significance and the importance for him to make sure that he’s protecting individuals in the dissent channel. Because it’s important to have that,” he said.
What’s important is accountability —and it wouldn’t be the worst thing to know who the “smartest people in the room” were when it came to the botched withdrawal.
