Blinken faces Congress on Afghanistan withdrawal amid GOP criticism: LIVE

Secretary of State Antony Blinken admitted Tuesday that he does not know whether a person killed in a U.S. drone strike in Kabul was a member of ISIS-K or an aid worker, and that the Biden administration is still looking into the matter.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., grilled Blinken on the matter during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the Afghanistan withdrawal.

“The guy the Biden administration droned, was he an aid worker or an ISIS-K operative?” Paul asked, referencing a New York Times report that found that the vehicle struck was driven by U.S. aid group worker Zemari Ahmadi, one of 10 people the Times said died in the attack.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/blinken-kabul-airstrike-us-who-was-killed

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has quizzed Secretary Blinken on reports that lists of names of Americans or Afghan allies were given to the Taliban.

Blinken said that there was a “handful of situations” in which manifests were given to the Taliban when the administration was trying to get people through a checkpoint.

Blinken refused to give a number when Cruz asks it is in hundreds or thousands of people.

“These were in limited instances,” he said, to get them through a checkpoint. “They got through the checkpoint.”

Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, claimed Tuesday that someone in the White House other than President Biden is “calling the shots.”

Risch made the comments during Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s hearing before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations about the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan, which the senator called a “dismal failure.”

“One of the things we need to get to the bottom to is who is responsible for this? Who made the decisions?” Risch said. “[Biden] can’t even speak without someone in the White House censoring it or signing off on it.”

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/senator-biden-white-house-who-is-in-charge

Blinken is asked if there is a strategy in place to push back against the impact in the region that the Taliban could have, amid reports that countries are considering working with the Taliban government.

He says there is an international “collective strategy,” with NATO, the E.U. and the U.N. He says that there have been basic expectations set by the international community, including through the U.N. Security Council.

He says dozens of countries have been brought together by contact groups.

Sen. Rand Paul says while he has advocated for leaving Afghanistan for 10 years, “never in my worst nightmares did anyone conceive such a colossal incompetence

He calls abandoning Bagram Air Base “one of the worst military decisions in our history.”

He accuses the Biden administration of “circling the wagons” and of not holding anyone accountable for that failure. He also notes that $64 million in aid has been released, and…