The only thing Secretary of State Antony Blinken could offer during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on the Biden administration's botched withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 were excuses, Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, told Newsmax on Wednesday.
"There are certain people that are absolutely 100% responsible for this," Jackson told "The Record With Greta Van Susteren." "It's President Biden, Kamala Harris. Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, is a huge, huge part of this. He was the decision-maker in most of this, and Anthony Blinken from the State Department."
President-elect Donald Trump, during his first term, negotiated with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, an agreement to end the United States' longest war, with a full withdrawal of U.S. troops by May 2021 provided the Taliban abide by certain conditions, which they didn't do."
Still, the Biden administration went forward with the withdrawal, pushing it past the agreed date of the Doha deal. It led to the deaths of 13 U.S. service members by a suicide bomber at an airport in Kabul. The U.S. also left behind billions of dollars worth of weaponry by abandoning Bagram Air Base, not to mention Afghans who cooperated with the U.S. military and American citizens.
Jackson, a member of the House Foreign Affairs and Armed Services committees, was asked whether Blinken sincerely believed what he told the committee that Biden couldn't have changed course knowing that the Taliban was not abiding by the agreement.
"No. Absolutely not. They're just trying to make excuses," Jackson said. "They know this was an absolute foreign affairs disaster. This was horrible for our national security. A lot of the stuff that's followed that's been really detrimental to this country with our relationships overseas [is] a direct result of what happened in Afghanistan.
"President Trump put that deadline in place, and it was contingent upon the Taliban meeting the requirements of the Doha Agreement, which they violated. So, [Biden] had every right to not stick to that deadline.
"President Trump wouldn't have stuck to the deadline had he still been in office because they didn't hold up their end of the deal, and we would have moved on.
"We would have withdrawn at the proper time in the proper way."
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Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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