Democrats demand an investigation into Biden's 'clear policy execution and intelligence failures' with the Afghan withdrawal and have asked Antony Blinken and Lloyd Austin to testify before the Senate
Lawmakers from President Biden's own party are continuing to fume about the unfolding chaos in Afghanistan and firing up probes where they will demand answers from the Democratic administration.
The push for formal oversight comes even as White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan promised an internal 'hotwash' that would ultimately take a look back at how the events culminated in the sudden collapse of Kabul and a rush to evacuate U.S. nationals and allies.
The increasingly frustrated Democrats are vowing to investigate what went wrong, setting up a formal and public reckoning even as the Biden team is trying is fielding off bitter criticism from Republicans and former President Donald Trump.
'The events of recent days have been the culmination of a series of mistakes made by Republican and Democratic administrations over the past 20 years,' Senator Bob Menendez, Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement.
'We are now witnessing the horrifying result of many years of policy and intelligence failures,' Menendez said. While hammering the Trump Administration for its deal with the Taliban, he also called out the Biden administration's 'flawed' execution of the strategy.
In implementing this flawed plan, I am disappointed that the Biden administration clearly did not accurately assess the implications of a rapid U.S. withdrawal,' Menendez said. 'We are now witnessing the horrifying results of many years of policy and intelligence failures.'
Menendez said his committee would hold a hearing on U.S. policy toward Afghanistan, including negotiations between former Republican President Donald Trump's administration and the Taliban and the Biden's administration's execution of the withdrawal.
Committee Republicans said they wanted Secretary of State Antony Blinken to testify, 'to understand why the State Department was so ill prepared for the contingencies unfolding before us,' according to a letter sent to Menendez.
'Updates from the State Department have been inconsistent, lacked important detail, and not be responsive to Members and the American people,' the Republicans wrote.
The date of the hearing was not immediately announced.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) vowed in his own statement to probe 'failures of intelligence, diplomacy and a lack of imagination as we transitioned military forces from the country.'
Senator Mark Warner, the Democratic Intelligence Committee chairman, had said on Monday he intended to work with other committees 'to ask tough but necessary questions' about why the United States was not better prepared for the collapse of the Afghan government.
Republicans continued their harsh criticism of Biden's policies.
House Armed Services Committee member Rep. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.), called the latest events a 'catastrophe' in a blunt statement.
'At minimum, the Biden administration owed our Afghan allies of 20 years a real plan,' he said, the Hill reported.
Rep. Mark Kelley (D-Ariz.) said the 'rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan reveals a failure to prepare for a scenario where the Afghan government and military would refuse to fight the Taliban's advances when put to the test.'
'The security and humanitarian crisis now unfolding in Afghanistan could have been avoided if you had done any planning,' Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee wrote in a letter to the White House on Tuesday.
The congressional probes – Democrats control both Houses of Congress – follow a period in which committees tried and failed repeatedly to get top Trump Administration officials to testify in House probes when seeking to conduct public oversight of the administration.