The House will return next week to consider a $3.4 trillion budget resolution. Still, lawmakers will now carve out time to grill the Biden administration on the bungled withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.
Multiple hearings and briefings are on the schedule after lawmakers demanded an explanation for the unfolding crisis.
Up to 15,000 Americans remained in the country as of Thursday, along with thousands of Afghans who worked with the United States and were promised protection from the Taliban, who easily overran the Afghan military and are now in control of the country following a hasty withdrawal of U.S. military and air support.
“There’s going to be plenty of inquiries,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, told the Hugh Hewitt radio program. “We need to find out how this happened and monitor and keep the pressure on. This job is not over, and this withdrawal is not complete until all the Americans are safely out.”
McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, sent a letter to Biden asking the administration to brief top leaders in the House and Senate on the status of Americans remaining in the country and efforts to evacuate them.
“It is of the utmost importance that the U.S. Government account for all U.S. citizens in Afghanistan and provide the necessary information and means of departure to all those Americans who desire to leave the country,” the lawmakers wrote.
Democrats, who control both the House and the Senate, are planning hearings on the matter and have also requested briefings from the White House.
At least four committees plan inquiries, and witnesses will include Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, has requested the Biden administration provide a phone briefing this week for all House lawmakers and in-person, classified briefings next week when House Democrats and Republicans reconvene.
Pelosi told KPIX in San Francisco the House Foreign Affairs Committee will hold a hearing beginning early next week “with the highest-level officials in the Biden administration” on the situation in Afghanistan.
“That’s Congress’s role,” Pelosi said. “The role of oversight.”
Biden has been criticized for pulling out all U.S. military rather than leaving a force of about 2,500 troops who would ward off a Taliban takeover while U.S. citizens and Afghan allies were evacuated. Biden apparently defied the advice of the military to leave some troops there.
Pelosi, however, has largely defended Biden’s decision to withdraw troops and suggested the unfolding chaos was unavoidable.
“Unfortunately, one of the possibilities was that it would be in disarray, as it is,” Pelosi said. “But that has to be corrected.”
Other Democrats have been far less supportive of Biden’s decision.
Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Bob Menendez said past administrations share the blame for the mess in Afghanistan but blasted Biden in a statement this week.
“I am disappointed that the Biden administration clearly did not accurately assess the implications of a rapid U.S. withdrawal,” the New Jersey Democrat said. “We are now witnessing the horrifying results of many years of policy and intelligence failures.”
Democrats this week said the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence committees also plan to hold inquiries into the Afghanistan collapse.
Congressional focus on the Afghanistan situation is poised to distract from the efforts of Democrats to push through their $3.4 trillion spending framework, which would provide funding for social welfare programs.
Democrats planned to interrupt their traditional August recess for just a few days, enough time to pass the budget resolution and consider a bill to expand federal oversight of elections.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Gregory Meeks said he’d summoned Blinken and Austin to testify next week.
Republicans are placing heavy blame on Blinken, whose State Department is responsible for the evacuation of U.S. government officials.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a retired Navy Seal and Texas Republican who lost an eye fighting in Afghanistan, called for Blinken’s removal, saying on Twitter he “failed miserably” at evacuating civilians.
Meeks suggested the House hearing will focus less on placing blame and more on learning how the administration plans to evacuate Americans and the vulnerable Afghans eligible for U.S. visas safely.
Meeks has not indicated when the hearing will take place. Republican Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the ranking member, told Fox News on Thursday the first public hearing would be in September.
“The situation in Afghanistan is rapidly changing, and it is imperative that the administration provide the American people and Congress transparency about its Afghanistan strategy,” Meeks said.
