Biden administration to release review of Afghanistan withdrawal in April

By Rabia Iclal Turan

WASHINGTON (AA) - The Biden administration will release a review of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan next month and will make it available to Congress, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday.

"I am committed and determined to make that information available to Congress, and we will do that by mid-April," Blinken told senators when he testified before the Senate Appropriations​​​​​​​ Committee.

“We will share the findings and find the appropriate mechanism to do that within the next three weeks,” he said.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters at the White House that the administration expects “agencies themselves who conducted these after action reviews, will be able to share the classified reports with their relevant congressional oversight committees, again, on the same basic timeline of mid-April.”

Republican lawmakers have been accusing President Joe Biden of the “failed” withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, and the chaos at the Kabul airport in August 2021.

Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee requested documents related to the withdrawal from Afghanistan from the State Department, to being an investigation into the controversial withdrawal.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul sent a letter to Blinken on Tuesday as a follow-up on the requests, demanding the State Department release the documents ahead of the Secretary's testimony to the Senate.

"Failure to produce these documents will result in the Committee issuing a subpoena to compel their production," wrote McCaul.