Vicky Arias, FISM News

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Secretary of State Antony Blinken may soon face legal action for his refusal to provide official documents relating to the United States’ disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.

House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) on Friday sent a letter to Blinken demanding the release of a July 13, 2021 dissent cable — a document wherein a reported 23 state officials voiced grave misgivings about the United States’ then-upcoming plan to withdraw from Afghanistan in August 2021.

In his letter, McCaul warns Blinken of the consequences that will come out of his continued refusal to cooperate.

The “subpoena, which compels you to produce in unredacted form “[t]he Dissent Channel cable sent on or about July 13, 2021, reportedly signed by 23 State Department officials and the official response to it,’ must be complied with immediately. Should you fail to comply, the Committee is prepared to take the necessary steps to enforce its subpoena, including holding you in contempt of Congress and/or initiating a civil enforcement proceeding,” McCaul writes.

The cable allegedly contains official warnings to the State Department that withdrawing from Afghanistan too quickly would likely result in the immediate deterioration of the Afghan government and pose an imminent danger to Afghan citizens who had aided the U.S. government during the war.

McCaul pointed out that in “the dissent cable, 23 of our state department officials at the embassy in Kabul took the extraordinary measure to raise their dissent to the policy … that you and your administration were effectuating. We need to know what their dissent was [and] why [they] were … objecting to your policy in the failed withdrawal from Afghanistan.”

McCaul first called for the full dissent document to be released in August of 2021, and was forced to issue a subpoena for it in March of this year. Several extensions to produce the complete document have been extended to, and ignored by the State Department.

According to McCaul, “the Committee has offered in good faith numerous extensions of the original April 4 subpoena return date. As the Department is aware, on April 21, the Committee granted a second extension, with a new deadline of May 1, 2023, at 6:00 pm. The Department failed to comply by this deadline.”

The new, now third, deadline to return the dissent document is May 11, 2023, by no later than 6 p.m.

Blinken’s office did provide a one-page summary of the full dissent document and complied with a hearing on the document, though McCaul says the offerings were “insufficient.” The summary only accounted for roughly 25% of the full document and State Dept. “briefers were unable or unwilling to provide basic information about the dissent cable,” according to McCaul.

THE FAILED STRATEGY

In a March press release, McCaul asserted that the Biden administration failed to execute a proper strategy when pulling troops out of Afghanistan. The release states,

On April 14, 2021, President Biden announced an unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. military personnel from Afghanistan. The Biden administration failed to conduct essential planning and take critical actions necessary to mitigate the likely adverse consequences of the decision to unconditionally withdraw. President Biden and other senior Administration leaders proceeded with the withdrawal in a manner inconsistent with the recommendations of military leaders and the warnings of diplomatic personnel.

When President Joe Biden pulled the remainder of American forces out of Afghanistan in August 2021, chaos ensued, the Taliban almost immediately seized control of the country, and “his approval ratings fell, and never fully recovered,” according to NPR.

A Washington Post report from August 2022 highlighted the turmoil in Afghanistan as American troops were forced to leave the country in disarray.

In August 2021, thousands of people rushed to Kabul’s airport to escape the perils of the country’s collapse, with some clinging to the outside of planes and, ultimately, falling to their deaths. In addition, a suicide bomber took the lives of over 170 individuals, including 13 U.S. service members, near the crowded airport’s perimeter.

Additionally, “a Republican-led Congressional investigation into the withdrawal found that more than 1,450 Afghan children were evacuated without a parent or guardian, and more [than] 800 Americans were left behind [at the time],” the report states.

As of March 2023, Blinken testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee that there are approximately 44 Americans, who were either left behind or returned to the nation after the withdrawal, who are trapped in the country after the Taliban seized control. In addition, Blinken stated that there are currently “several Americans who are being detained by the Taliban.”

The Taliban not only seized control of the country, it also made away with millions, and quite possibly billions, of dollars worth of American artillery, ammunition, and other military equipment.

The L.A. Times reported in 2021:

Taliban fighters reaped almost 2,000 Humvees and trucks; more than 50 armored fighting vehicles, including Mine-Resistant Ambush Protection vehicles, or MRAPs; scores of artillery and mortar pieces; more than a dozen aging but working helicopters and attack aircraft; a dozen tanks; seven Boeing-manufactured drones; and millions upon millions of bullets, according to a list compiled by the Oryx Blog, which tracks weapons used in conflicts.