Secretary of State Antony Blinken is facing a second day of congressional questions about the Biden administration’s much-criticized withdrawal from Afghanistan. Blinken said the administration did the best it could under trying circumstances.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken listens during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2021 on Capitol Hill in Washington. Blinken was questioned about the Biden administration's handling of the U.S. withdraw from Afghanistan.
The top two members of the committee, New Jersey Democrat Bob Menendez and Idaho Republican James Risch, both assailed the withdrawal as a debacle in their opening remarks. “There’s not enough lipstick in the world to put on this pig to make it look any different than what it actually is,” Risch said., Blinken tried to deflect the criticism and maintained the administration had done the best it could under extremely trying and chaotic circumstances.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., demanded to know how the intelligence had been so wrong, suggesting that not only the wrong people were in charge of assessing the situation but that the policy had been incoherent. “The evacuation was an extraordinary effort — under the most difficult conditions imaginable — by our diplomats, military, and intelligence professionals,” he said.Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the only woman on the committee who has long fought for the U.S. to protect the advances made by Afghan women and girls, lamented the current situation and said presidents and lawmakers of both parties shared the blame for the situation.
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