[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                         AFGHANISTAN 2001-2021:
                    EVALUATING THE WITHDRAWAL AND U.S. 
                              POLICIES PART 1

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                      COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                           SEPTEMBER 13, 2021

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-73

                               __________

        Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
        
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       Available:  http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/, http://
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                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
45-496PDF                  WASHINGTON : 2023                    
          
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------     

                      COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS

                  GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York, Chairman

BRAD SHERMAN, California              MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas, Ranking 
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey                  Member
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia	      CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey
THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida	      STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
KAREN BASS, California		      SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania
WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts	      DARRELL ISSA, California
DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island	      ADAM KINZINGER, Illinois
AMI BERA, California		      LEE ZELDIN, New York
JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas	              ANN WAGNER, Missouri
DINA TITUS, Nevada		      BRIAN MAST, Florida
TED LIEU, California		      BRIAN FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania
SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania	      KEN BUCK, Colorado
DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota	      TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee
ILHAN OMAR, Minnesota		      MARK GREEN, Tennessee
COLIN ALLRED, Texas		      ANDY BARR, Kentucky
ANDY LEVIN, Michigan		      GREG STEUBE, Florida
ABIGAIL SPANBERGER, Virginia	      DAN MEUSER, Pennsylvania
CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania	      AUGUST PFLUGER, Texas
TOM MALINOWSKI, New Jersey	      PETER MEIJER, Michigan
ANDY KIM, New Jersey	              NICOLE MALLIOTAKIS, New York
SARA JACOBS, California		      RONNY JACKSON, Texas
KATHY MANNING, North Carolina	      YOUNG KIM, California
JIM COSTA, California		      MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR, Florida
JUAN VARGAS, California		      JOE WILSON, South Carolina
VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas		      
BRAD SCHNEIDER, Illinois              
                                   
                    Sophia LaFargue, Staff Director
               Brendan Shields, Republican Staff Director
               
                            C O N T E N T S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page

                               WITNESSES

Blinken, Honorable Antony J., Secretary, U.S. Department of State    11

                                APPENDIX

Hearing Notice...................................................   105
Hearing Minutes..................................................   106
Hearing Attendance...............................................   107

                        STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD

Statement for the record from Representative Connolly............   108

            RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

Responses to questions submitted for the record..................   110

 
AFGHANISTAN 2001-2021: EVALUATING THE WITHDRAWAL AND U.S. POLICIES PART 
                                   1

                       Monday, September 13, 2021

                          House of Representatives,
                      Committee on Foreign Affairs,
                                                    Washington, DC.

    The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:12 p.m., in 
room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Gregory W. 
Meeks(chairman of the committee) presiding.
    Chairman Meeks. The Committee on Foreign Affairs will come 
to order.
    Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a 
recess of the committee at any point, and all members will have 
5 days to submit statements, extraneous material, and questions 
for the record subject to the limitation of the rules. To 
insert something into the record, please have your staff email 
the previously mentioned address or contact full committee 
staff.
    As a reminder to all members, please keep your video 
function on at all times, even when you are not recognized by 
the chair. Members are responsible for muting and unmuting 
themselves. Consistent with House rules, staff will only mute 
members, as appropriate, when they are not under recognition to 
eliminate background noise.
    Just a second. We are now waiting--we are putting up the 
Secretary. Let's see.
    Secretary Blinken. I am here, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Meeks. Great. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
    Before I make my opening remarks, Mr. Secretary, thank you, 
No. 1, for being here. And this is--the importance--given this 
topic and the importance of this topic and this committee's 
constitutional responsibility of oversight, I wanted to ask you 
whether or not you would be willing to stay to answer all 
member questions.
    We want all members to have the opportunity knowing that it 
is--this is the first time that we are having some testimony in 
regards to pulling out since August 31 of this year. Can you--
would you have the ability to stay to answer all members' 
questions?
    Secretary Blinken. Mr. Chairman, I am prepared to stay 
until every member has had an opportunity to ask a question, 
yes.
    Chairman Meeks. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. We thank you for 
that.
    And I see that we have a quorum, and I now will recognize 
myself for opening remarks.
    Pursuant to notice, we meet today to evaluate the United 
States' withdrawal from Afghanistan and the series of policies 
from the past 20 years that led to the events of August 2021. 
Mr. Secretary, it is good to have you back here before our 
committee a third time since you have been Secretary, and thank 
you, and we appreciate your recognition of the important role 
this legislative body plays in conducting oversight on the 
executive.
    I want to start off today by citing some numbers. 800,000. 
That is the number of Americans who served with the U.S. 
military in Afghanistan since 2001; 2,461. That is the number 
of American military personnel who died in Afghanistan, 
including the 13 brave Americans who were killed facilitating 
the evacuation of 124,000 people over the course of 17 days; 
66,000. The number of Afghan national security forces killed in 
the conflict; 47,245. That is the number of Afghan civilians 
killed since 2001.
    Twenty. That is the number of years we have been fighting 
in Afghanistan.
    A war that has gone on for almost 20 years is a disaster. 
Disentangling ourselves from the war in Afghanistan was never 
going to be easy. And for my friends who presume a clean 
solution where the withdrawal existed, I would welcome hearing 
what exactly a smooth withdrawal from a messy, chaotic, 20-year 
war looks like. In fact, I have yet to hear the clean 
withdrawal option because I do not believe one exists.
    Now, are there things the administration could have done 
differently? Absolutely, yes, as always. Foremost for me is for 
the State Department to evaluate how it could better evacuate 
Americans when events unravel quickly.
    I look forward to hearing from the Secretary how the State 
Department intends to complete its evacuation of the 100 to 200 
Americans remaining in Afghanistan who want to come home as 
well as for evacuating those Afghans who worked alongside us 
during the past 20 years.
    However, it is important to separate fair criticism from 
criticism that isn't made in good faith and divorced from the 
realities on the ground in Afghanistan. We have heard some 
criticize the decision to close Bagram which they claim would 
have been better suited for evacuations, as though it would 
have been easier to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people 
from an airfield 40 miles outside of Kabul.
    Others criticize the decision to not keep a small 
counterterrorism force in the country. I ask, where was this 
protest when the Trump administration sidelined the Afghan 
government in order to cut a deal with the Taliban? Where were 
the protests when the Trump administration negotiated a deal 
with the Taliban just 1 month after the abduction of Navy 
veteran Mark Frerichs? And where was this protest when then 
President Trump and Secretary Pompeo agreed to withdraw all 
troops by May 21, 2020.
    And let me remind everyone that Trump's deal forced the 
Afghan government to release 5,000 prisoners and offered 
international legitimacy to the Taliban. It was a deal that 
failed to require the Taliban to separate from al-Qaeda 
terrorists and did not require the Taliban to stop attacking 
the Afghan government. The deal altered the political order of 
the country.
    Now, some may say Trump's agreement was conditions-based, 
but it was different, that it came with stronger conditions, 
but that is simply not true. The choice before President Biden 
was between a full withdrawal and the surging of thousands of 
Americans to Afghanistan for an undefined time.
    To argue that there was a third option, a limited troop 
presence where the safety of our personnel could be preserved, 
in my mind is a fantasy. Had we not removed American troops 
from Afghanistan, we would have left them in the middle of a 
rapidly deteriorating war zone with no assurances that they 
would be spared by the Taliban.
    And it strikes me that many of those critical of the 
administration's evacuation efforts are really just angry that 
the President made good on his pledge to end America's 
involvement in the war in Afghanistan. They are masking their 
displeasure with criticism but fail to offer feasible 
alternatives. Once again, we are seeing domestic politics 
injected into foreign policy.
    The Taliban's quick takeover of provinces, Afghan security 
forces laying down their arms, and President Ghani's abrupt 
departure from the country he led, watching 20 years of effort 
crumble in only a matter of days has made it all the more clear 
that we could no longer occupy Afghanistan and the President's 
decision to bring our troops home was the right one.
    And for me, as I close, closing this chapter of the U.S. 
Afghanistan book is a difficult one. I voted to authorize the 
war back in 2001 after the terrorist attacks on September 11. 
In the 20 years since, I have seen how this conflict cost the 
lives of countless Americans, Afghans, and our NATO partners. 
And what makes this all the more difficult is this is a war 
that should have ended 19 years ago with a different outcome. 
But our hubris, our own desire to remake Afghanistan, our own 
willingness to negotiate got in the way of that victory. These 
are hard truths, but only by examining these hard truths will 
we be able to understand what went wrong in Afghanistan.
    The task before us on this committee, one that I am 
committed to making, will explore the past 20 years. We will be 
talking to individuals from the Bush Administration, from the 
Obama Administration, from the Trump administration, as well as 
the Biden Administration,
    And I now recognize Mr. McCaul for his opening statements.
    Mr. McCaul. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the 
Secretary also for agreeing to stay until every member has been 
heard. I believe every member has a right to ask questions on 
such an important topic.
    Over the last several weeks, we witnessed Afghanistan 
rapidly fall to the Taliban and the chaotic aftermath that 
followed. This did not have to happen, but the President 
refused to listen to his own generals and the intelligence 
community who warned him precisely what would happen when we 
withdrew. This was an unmitigated disaster of epic proportions. 
I never thought in my lifetime that I would see an 
unconditional surrender to the Taliban.
    For weeks, our offices were flooded with requests to help 
people get out of Afghanistan, requests that were coming to us 
because the State Department failed to provide help. And then 
the unimaginable happened.
    On August 26, 13 American servicemen and women were 
brutality murdered by ISIS-K trying to help American citizens 
and our Afghan partners escape from the Taliban.
    Two days ago, we commemorated the 20th anniversary of 9/11. 
And while we mourned the loss of almost 3,000 innocent people, 
the Taliban at the same time celebrated by raising their flag 
over the Presidential palace. Days before, they emblazoned 
their flag on the wall of our United States embassy, 
proclaiming the defeat of the United States of America.
    Shockingly, the White House has described this Taliban 
regime as businesslike and professional, so let's meet a few of 
these professionals of the so-called new and improved Taliban. 
The acting Prime Minister, Mullah Hasan Akhund, one of the 
Taliban's founding leaders. He is also sanctioned by the United 
Nations and sheltered Osama bin Laden for years.
    The infamous members of the Taliban five released from 
Guantanamo under the Obama Administration also all hold senior 
positions in the new government. And, finally, the worst, 
acting Interior Minister Haqqani. He is responsible for 
overseeing policing and counterterrorism. He is also wanted by 
the FBI. He is the head of the brutal Haqqani network with 
close ties to al-Qaeda and is currently sanctioned by the 
United States. Most of the new and improved Taliban leaders 
hold the same or similar positions they held prior to 9/11.
    And we are now at the mercy of the Taliban's reign of 
terror, all while a dark veil of Sharia law covers Afghanistan. 
The freedoms our troops helped secure for Afghan women and 
girls have been stripped away in a matter of weeks. This, in my 
judgment, is not only disgraceful, it also dishonors the men 
and women who served our Nation so bravely.
    Mr. Secretary, the American people do not like to lose, 
especially not to the terrorists, but that is exactly what has 
happened. This has emboldened the Taliban and our adversaries. 
The Taliban, a designated terrorist group, now equipped with 
American weapons than most countries in the world. Just a few 
weeks ago, thousands of terrorists, the worst of the worst, 
were all released from prisons as the Taliban overran the 
country.
    The situation we find ourselves in is far worse, in my 
judgment, as a former Chairman of Homeland Security Committee, 
far worse than pre-9/11. To make matters worse, we abandoned 
Americans behind enemy lines. We left behind the interpreters 
who you, Mr. Secretary, and the President both promised to 
protect.
    I can summarize this in one word: betrayal. The America I 
know keeps its promises. The most important promise in our 
military is no man left behind, no one left behind, but you 
broke this promise.
    Unfortunately, it wasn't the only promise this 
administration broke. In April, President Biden promised, 
quote, we will not conduct a hasty rush to the exit, and we 
will do it responsibly, deliberately, and safely. But that 
promise was broken. And then in July, the President said, 
quote, there is going to be no circumstance where you see 
people being lifted off the roof of the United States Embassy 
in Afghanistan. That promise was also broken.
    Our standing on the world stage has been greatly 
diminished. Our enemies no longer fear us, and our allies no 
longer trust us. And our Afghan veterans are questioning if 
their sacrifice was worth it.
    For those veterans who are watching this today, I have a 
message for you. Your service was not in vain. It is because of 
your heroism that we have not witnessed a large scale attack by 
the terrorists since 9/11 in the last 20 years. And for that, I 
say to all of you, thank you.
    And so we are here today to better understand how this 
administration got it so wrong, and I hope you will directly 
answer our questions, Mr. Secretary, succinctly because we have 
quite a few.
    And with that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman yields back.
    I now turn to the chair of the subcommittee on ASIA, the 
Pacific, Central Asia, and Nonproliferation, Ami Bera, for 1 
minute.
    Mr. Bera. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. 
Secretary, for coming before the subcommittee.
    Obviously, this is not going to be an easy hearing. There 
will be a lot of questions back and forth. And we certainly, 
over the course of the next few months at the subcommittee and 
full committee level, will do some more oversight on the 
information and so forth that decisions were made on.
    I want to focus, though, on the mission that is still at 
hand. You know, my district has the largest Afghan refugee 
population in the country. We have submitted over 10,000 names 
of U.S. citizens, visa holders, family members, et cetera. And, 
you know, that mission still remains.
    I have got close to 30 school age kids that are still in 
Afghanistan, U.S. citizens, visa holders along with their 
parents. We have got to do everything we can to get those folks 
to safety.
    And I look forward to working with you, your staff, and 
others to make sure we do not leave folks behind, and we get 
those folks out as reasonably as possible to safety, and I look 
forward to the testimony.
    And, with that, I yield back.
    Chairman Meeks. Thank you, Chair Bera.
    I now turn to the ranking member, Mr. Chabot, for 1 minute.
    Mr. Chabot. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Secretary, this administration's bungled pullout from 
Afghanistan just may be the worst foreign affairs disaster in 
American history. You essentially surrendered that country and 
its people to the good graces of the Taliban, and the Taliban 
does not have good graces. Afghanistan is once again a haven 
for terrorists, and those terrorists now have our weapons and 
equipment to use against us.
    As Mr. McCaul directly stated, our allies may well not 
trust us as much, and our enemies may not fear us as much. Yes, 
the majority of the American people wanted to leave Afghanistan 
but not like this. Pulling our troops out before civilians, 
abandoning Americans behind enemy lines, as well as thousands 
of Afghans who worked with us and fought with us and their 
families, and leaving half the population, about 20 million 
women and girls, to be brutalized once again by the Taliban, 
this is a disgrace. And I yield back.
    Chairman Meeks. Thank you. I will--thank you, Mr. Chabot.
    Now I will introduce our witness. Secretary of State Antony 
J. Blinken was sworn in as the United States Secretary of State 
on January 26, 2021. And as I mentioned in my opening 
statement, this will be the third time Secretary Blinken 
testified before this committee, and we are grateful for his 
appearance before us today.
    I now recognize the witness for his testimony which I 
understand will be a little longer than 5 minutes, but being 
that he is going to be here for all of our questions, I think 
it is important for his statement to be heard in its entirety.
    Secretary Blinken, I now recognize you.

 STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE ANTONY J. BLINKEN, SECRETARY, U.S. 
                      DEPARTMENT OF STATE

    Secretary Blinken. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. And, 
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member McCaul, thank you for today. I 
welcome this opportunity to discuss our policy on Afghanistan 
including where we are
    [inaudible] And where we are going in the weeks and months 
ahead.
    For 20 years, Congress has conducted oversight and provided 
funding for the mission in Afghanistan. I know from my own time 
as a staff member for then Senator Biden how invaluable a 
partner Congress is.
    As I said when I was nominated, I believe strongly in 
Congress' traditional role as a partner in foreign 
policymaking. I am committed to working with you on the path 
forward in Afghanistan and to advance the interests of the 
American people.
    On this 20th anniversary of 9/11, as we honor the nearly 
3,000 men, women, and children who lost their lives, we are 
reminded why we went to Afghanistan in the first place; to 
bring justice to those who attacked us and to ensure that it 
would not happen again. We achieved those objectives long ago.
    Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011, a decade ago. al-
Qaeda's capabilities were degraded significantly, including its 
ability to plan and conduct external operations. After 20 
years, 2,641 American lives lost, 20,000 injuries,
    [inaudible] Dollars spent, it was time to end America's 
longest war.
    When President Biden took office in January, he inherited 
an agreement that his predecessor had reached with the Taliban 
to remove all remaining forces from Afghanistan by May 1 of 
this year. As part of that agreement, the previous 
administration pressed the Afghan government to release 5,000 
Taliban prisoners, including some top war commanders.
    Meanwhile, it reduced our own force presence to 2,500 
troops. In return, the Taliban agreed to stop attacking U.S. 
and partner forces and to refrain from threatening 
Afghanistan's major cities.
    But the Taliban continued a relentless march on remote 
outposts, on checkpoints, on villages and districts, as well as 
the major roads connecting them. By January 2021, the Taliban 
was in the strongest military position it had been in since 9/
11, and we had the smallest number of troops on the ground 
since 2001.
    As a result, upon taking office, President Biden 
immediately faced a choice between ending the war or escalating 
it. Had he not followed through on his predecessor's 
commitment, attacks on our forces and those of our allies would 
have resumed, and the Taliban's nationwide assaults on 
Afghanistan's major cities would have commenced.
    That would have required sending substantially more U.S. 
forces into Afghanistan to defend themselves and prevent a 
Taliban takeover, taking casualties, and with, at best, the 
prospect of restoring a stalemate and remaining stuck in 
Afghanistan under fire indefinitely.
    There is no evidence that staying longer would have made 
the Afghan security forces or the Afghan government any more 
resilient or self-sustaining. If 20 years and hundreds of 
billions of dollars in support, equipment, and training did not 
suffice, why would another year, another 5, another 10?
    Conversely, there is nothing that our strategic competitors 
like China and Russia or adversaries like Iran and North Korea 
would have liked more than for the United States to reup a 20-
year war and remain bogged down in Afghanistan for another 
decade.
    In advance of the President's decision, I was in constant 
contact with our allies and partners to hear their views and 
factor them into our thinking. When the President announced the 
withdrawal, NATO immediately and unanimously embraced it.
    We all sat together on the drawdown. Similarly, we were 
intensely focused on the safety of Americans in Afghanistan. In 
March, we began urging them to leave the country. In total, 
between March and August, we sent 19 specific messages with 
that warning and with offers to help, including financial 
assistance to pay for plane tickets.
    Despite this effort, at the time the evacuation began, 
there were still thousands of American citizens in Afghanistan, 
almost all of whom we evacuated by August 31. Many were dual 
citizens living in Afghanistan for years, decades, generations. 
Deciding whether or not to leave the place they know as home 
was an incredibly wrenching decision.
    In April, we began drawing down our embassy, ordering 
nonessential personnel to depart. We also used this time to 
significantly speed up the processing of the special immigrant 
visas for Afghans who had worked for us and by our side these 
past 20 years.
    When we took office, we inherited a program with a 14-step 
process based on a statutory framework enacted by Congress and 
involving multiple government agencies and a backlog of more 
than 17,000 SIV applicants. There had not been a single 
interview in the SIV program in Kabul for 9 months going back 
to March 2020.
    The program was basically in a stall. Within 2 weeks of 
taking office, we restarted the SIV interview process in Kabul. 
On February 4, one of the very first executive orders issued by 
President Biden directed us to immediately review the SIV 
program, to identify causes of undue delay, and to find ways to 
process SIV applications more quickly. This spring, I directed 
significant additional resources to the program, expanding the 
team in Washington of people processing applications from 10 to 
50 and doubling the number of SIV adjudicators at our embassy 
in Kabul.
    Even as many embassy personnel returned to the United 
States under ordered departure, we sent more consular officers 
to Kabul to process SIV applications.
    As a result of these and other steps, including working 
with Congress, by May, we had reduced the average processing 
time for special immigrant visas by more than a year. Even amid 
a COVID surge in Embassy Kabul in June, we continued to issue 
visas.
    And we went from issuing about 100 special immigrant visas 
per week in March to more than 1,000 per week in August when 
our evacuation and relocation efforts began.
    That emergency evacuation was sparked by the collapse of 
the Afghan security forces and government. Throughout the year, 
we were constantly assessing their staying power and 
considering multiple scenarios. Even the most pessimistic 
assessments did not predict that government forces in Kabul 
would collapse while U.S. forces remained.
    As General Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 
Staff has said, nothing I or anyone else saw indicated a 
collapse of this Army and this government in 11 days.
    Nonetheless, we planned and exercised a wide range of 
contingencies. Because of that plan, we were able to draw down 
our embassy and move our remaining personnel to the effort 
within 48 hours. And the military, placed on standby by 
President Biden, was able to secure the airport ask start the 
evacuations within 72 hours.
    The evacuation itself was an extraordinary effort under the 
most difficult conditions imaginable by our diplomats, by our 
military, by our intelligence professionals. They worked around 
the clock to get American citizens, Afghans who helped us, 
citizens of our allies and partners, and at-risk Afghans on 
planes out of the country and off to the United States or to 
transit locations that our diplomats had arranged and 
negotiated in multiple countries.
    Our consular team worked 24/7 to reach out to Americans who 
could still be in the country, making in those couple of weeks 
55,000 phone calls, sending 33,000 emails, and they are still 
at it.
    In the midst of this heroic effort, an ISIS-K attack killed 
13 servicemembers working the gates at HKIA, wounding 20 
others, and killing and wounding scores of Afghans. These 
American servicemembers gave their lives so that other lives 
could continue.
    In the end, we completed one of the biggest airlifts in 
history with 124,000 people evacuated to safety. And on August 
31 in Kabul, the military mission in Afghanistan officially 
ended and a new diplomatic mission began.
    I want to acknowledge the more than 2 dozen countries that 
have helped with the relocation effort. Some served as transit 
hubs, some welcoming Afghan evacuees for longer periods of 
time. And I want to recognize the extraordinary efforts by 
Congress as well. To name just a few examples, Congressman 
Fitzpatrick worked with the State Department to reunite an 
Afghan family in New Jersey.
    Congressman Keating worked with our folks on the ground to 
help a Voice of America reporter and his family get to the 
airport. Congresswoman Jacobs and Congressman Issa worked 
across party lines to draw attention to cases of legal 
permanent residents and Afghans at risk.
    Please know your emails, your calls made a real difference 
in getting people out, and we continue to use the list and 
information you are providing in the next phase of the mission.
    Let me now just briefly outline what the State Department 
has done over the next--over the last couple of weeks and where 
we are going in the days and weeks ahead. First. We moved our 
diplomatic operations from Kabul to Doha where our new Afghan 
affairs team is hard at work. Many of our key partners have 
joined us there.
    Second. We are continuing our relentless efforts to help 
any remaining Americans as well as Afghans and citizens of 
allied and partner countries leave Afghanistan if they so 
choose.
    This past Thursday, a Qatar Airways charter flight with 
U.S. citizens and others on board departed Kabul and landed in 
Doha. On Friday, a second flight carrying U.S. citizens and 
others departed Afghanistan. These flights were the results of 
a coordinated effort by the United States, Qatar, and Turkey to 
reopen the airport and intense diplomacy to start the flights.
    In addition to those flights, a half dozen American 
citizens and about a dozen permanent residents of the United 
States have also left Afghanistan via an overland route with 
our help.
    We are in constant contact with American citizens still in 
Afghanistan who have told us that they wish to leave. Each has 
been assigned a case management team to offer specific guidance 
and instruction. Some declined to be on the first flights on 
Thursday and Friday for reasons of needing more time to make 
arrangements, wanting to remain with extended family for now, 
or medical issues that precluded traveling last week.
    We will continue to help them, and we will continue to help 
any American who still wants to leave and Afghans to whom we 
have a special commitment, just as we have done in other 
countries where we have evacuated our embassy and hundreds or 
even thousands of Americans remained behind, for example, in 
Libya, in Syria, in Venezuela, in Yemen, in Somalia. There is 
no deadline for this mission.
    Third. We are focused on counterterrorism. The Taliban has 
committed to prevent terrorist groups from using Afghanistan as 
a base for external operations that could threaten the United 
States or our allies, including al-Qaeda and ISIS-K.
    We will hold them accountable for that. That does not mean 
we will rely on them. We will remain vigilant at monitoring 
threats. We will maintain robust counterterrorism capabilities 
in the region to neutralize those threats, if necessary, and we 
do that in places around the world where we do not have 
military forces on the ground.
    Fourth. We continue our intensive diplomacy with allies and 
partners. We initiated a statement joined by more than half the 
world's countries, over 100 countries, as well as a United 
Nations Security Council resolution setting out the 
international community's expectations of a Taliban-led 
government.
    We expect the Taliban to ensure freedom of travel, to make 
good on its commitments on counterterrorism, to uphold the 
basic rights of the Afghan people, including women, girls, and 
minorities, to name a broadly representative permanent 
government, to force
    [inaudible] Reprisals. The legitimacy and support the 
Taliban seeks from the international community will depend on 
its conduct.
    We have organized contact groups with key countries to 
ensure the international community continues to speak with one 
voice on Afghanistan and to leverage our combined influence. 
Last week, I led a ministerial meeting of 22 countries, NATO, 
the EU, the United Nations, to continue to align our efforts.
    And fifth. We will continue to support humanitarian aid to 
the Afghan people consistent with sanctions that they will not 
flow through the government but rather, through independent 
organizations like NGO's and U.N. agencies. Just today, we 
announced the United States is providing nearly $64 million in 
new humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan to 
meet critical hands on nutrition needs, address the protection 
concerns of women, children, and minorities, to help more 
children, including girls, go back to school. This additional 
funding means the United States has provided nearly $330 
million in assistance to the Afghan people this fiscal year.
    In Doha and Ramstein, I toured the facilities where Afghans 
that we evacuated are being processed before moving on to their 
next destinations. Here at home, I spent some time at the 
Dulles Expo Center where more than 45,000 Afghans have been 
processed after arriving in the United States. It is 
remarkable, remarkable to see what our diplomats, our military, 
and employees from other civilian agencies across the U.S. 
Government have been able to achieve in a very short time. They 
have met an enormous human need.
    They have coordinated food, water, sanitation for 
thousands, tens of thousands of people. They are arranging 
medical care, including the delivery of babies. They are 
reuniting families who are separated and caring for 
unaccompanied minors. It is an extraordinary interagency effort 
and a powerful testament to the skill, the compassion, and the 
dedication of our people.
    We should all be proud of what they are doing. And as we 
have done throughout our history, Americans are now welcoming 
families from Afghanistan into our communities and helping them 
resettle as they start their new lives. That is something to be 
proud of as well.
    Thanks very much for listening. And, with that, Mr. 
Chairman, Ranking Member McCaul, I look forward to your 
questions. Thank you.
    [The prepared statement of Secretary Blinken follows:]

    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
    
    Chairman Meeks. Thank you, Secretary Blinken, for your 
testimony.
    I will now recognize members for 5 minutes. And pursuant to 
House rules, all time yielded is for the purposes of 
questioning our witness.
    I will recognize members by committee seniority, 
alternating between Democrats and Republicans. Please note that 
I will be strict in enforcing the 5-minute time limitation for 
questions. What do I mean? I do not want members to ask 
questions for 5 minutes and then not leave the Secretary time 
to respond. So when addressing your questions, please keep in 
mind that the 5 minutes is for questions and answers. I will 
start by recognizing myself.
    Mr. Secretary, you mentioned that an area of concern that I 
know is shared by all is the status of American citizens, green 
card holders, and our SIV heroes who are yet to be evacuated.
    Can you tell us how many of them remain in the country--in 
country, and what is our plan to facilitate their evacuation 
now?
    Secretary Blinken. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So as of 
the end of last week, we had about 100 American citizens in 
Afghanistan who had told us that they wished to leave the 
country. And I want to emphasize that this is a snapshot in 
time. It is, more accurately, a moving picture.
    As you know, stepping back for a minute, to know precisely 
at any given moment in time exactly how many American citizens 
are in any country is something we cannot and do not know. 
Americans are not required to register when they go to a 
foreign country or if they reside there.
    And so from the start of this effort, we have been engaged 
in an intense effort to identify every American citizen that we 
could in Afghanistan, to be in touch with them, in contact with 
them, and to work with them if they wanted to leave.
    We have also benefited greatly from information provided by 
Congress to help us fill out this picture. But as of last week, 
there were about 100 who we were in contact with who continued 
to express an interest to leave. We offered seats on the planes 
that got out last week to about 60. Thirty came forward and 
used those seats.
    What happens in any--at any given moment is that people are 
making decisions hour by hour, if not day by day, about whether 
to leave or not. And as I said earlier, these are incredibly 
wrenching decisions because, for the most part, this is a 
community of people who have been living, residing in 
Afghanistan for all their lives.
    Afghanistan is their home. They have extended families. And 
it is very, very hard for them, understandably, to make that 
decision. But that is the group that we are working with.
    Now, what also happens is people will identify themselves, 
including since the end of the evacuation, as American citizens 
in Afghanistan who wish to leave, so they get added to the 
picture. We get information from you, from NGO's, from other 
groups, veterans' groups, about people purporting to be 
Americans in Afghanistan. We immediately seek to contact them, 
to engage with them, to find out if, in fact, they are in 
Afghanistan, and if, in fact, they want to leave.
    So this is a picture that will continue to change over 
time, but that is the rough population that we are working with 
right now.
    Chairman Meeks. Thank you. Let me ask the next question. I 
know that the Trump administration's deal with the Taliban 
meant that there were 2,500 troops remaining with less than 5 
months to complete the withdrawal. At any time did the Biden 
Administration consider whether to renegotiate the deal with 
the Taliban?
    Secretary Blinken. The Taliban made abundantly clear in 
many public statements, private statements to us, to others 
around the world that it was going to hold us to the deadline 
that the previous administration negotiated in terms of 
withdrawing the remaining American forces. It made very clear 
that if we move past that deadline, it would resume the attacks 
that it had stopped on our forces and on our allies and 
partners as well as to commence the onslaught on the cities 
that we have seen in recent months.
    And so that was exactly choice that President Biden faced, 
whether to go forward with the agreement and the commitments 
that his predecessor had made in terms of withdrawing all 
forces by May 1 or return to war with the Taliban and escalate, 
not end the war.
    Now, Mr. Chairman, as you know, what the President did do 
was to take some risk in extending past May 1 the time we would 
use to actually withdraw our forces so that we could do it in 
the safest most orderly way possible, and so we extended that--
--
    Chairman Meeks. One more question.
    Mr. Brown [continuing]. Deadline until September.
    Chairman Meeks. So, also, we know there was a point 
recently in the government hard liners and the new Taliban 
group, Taliban's commitment to share power with other Afghan 
political and social groups excludes women and minorities.
    How does this--does the appointment of this new government 
factor into the administration's strategy to engage with the 
Taliban or assumptions that the Taliban may have changed?
    Secretary Blinken. So the interim government named by the 
Taliban falls very short of the mark that was set by the 
international community for inclusivity, that is, to have a 
government that was broadly representative of the Afghan 
people, not just the Taliban and its constituency, to include 
women which this interim government does not. And as has been 
noted, it includes many key members who have very challenging 
track records.
    We have been very clear that when it comes to engaging with 
that government or any government to be named on a more 
permanent basis, we are going to do so on the basis of whether 
or not it advances our interests, and those interests are very 
clear.
    They are the expectations that we have set and the 
international community has set for the ongoing treatment of 
travel for a government that makes good on the Taliban's 
commitments to combat terrorism, not allow Afghanistan to be 
used as a haven for launching attacks directed against other 
countries, to support the basic rights of the Afghan people, 
including women and minorities, and to allow humanitarian 
assistance to get to people who so desperately need it.
    That will be the basis upon which we engage any Taliban-led 
government, whether it is the central government or one they 
may name in the days and weeks ahead.
    Chairman Meeks. I now yield for questions to Ranking Member 
McCaul.
    Mr. McCaul. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Secretary, in the weeks before the fall of Kabul, the 
surrender to the Taliban, I was on the phone with very high-
ranking officials at State, DoD, White House, trying to save 
lives. We had Americans that couldn't get out. We had 
interpreters that couldn't get through the perimeter of the 
Taliban. They are left behind. They will be executed. They do 
have a bull's eye on their back.
    We had four buses of Afghan girls, orphans, at the American 
University School of Music that sat there for 17 hours when I 
was finally told the State Department would not lift the gate 
to let them in to safety even though they had an aircraft 
waiting. Will you guarantee to this committee--now we are at 
the mercy of the Taliban, though.
    Can you guarantee to this committee that we will get them 
out?
    Secretary Blinken. First, Ranking Member McCaul, thank you 
for every effort that you made, as well as other members of 
this committee made, to help people in need, to try to help 
them get out. Those are deeply appreciated, and going forward, 
we continue to look to you.
    Now, I have men and women in my Department, the State 
Department, who raised their hands from around the world and 
ran into the building. They went from posts around the world 
into that airport to help people get out. They were serving at 
the gates right alongside our brothers and sisters in uniform, 
including the 13 who gave their lives, literally trying to pull 
people in as necessary or to walk them in, to talk them in, to 
do everything they possibly could to bring American citizens, 
to bring Afghans at risk, to bring the nationals of our 
partners and others into the airport, taking extraordinary----
    Mr. McCaul. I am reclaiming my time at it is limited.
    Secretary Blinken. It is important, sir, for you to 
recognize what was----
    Mr. McCaul. We also thank the service--and we also thank 
the service of people like--that worked in Operation Pineapple 
and Dunkirk. I would ask that the State Department work with 
them. Those are heroes as well as the State Department 
officials you are talking about.
    My last question, very important. Bagram went down, the 
embassy went down, and we went dark. We have no eyes and ears 
on the ground. We have lost intelligence capability in the 
region, and that includes Russia, China, and Iran, as you know.
    This is a national security threat as China moves in. For 
all I know, they may take over Bagram Air Base. But this over 
the horizon capability I believe is exaggerated. It is not a 
viable option. It is too far away. Do you negotiate with 
countries like Uzbekistan or Tajikistan to put an ISR 
capability there?
    And my last question. Is it true that President Putin 
threatened the President of the United States, saying he could 
not build intelligence capabilities in the region?
    Secretary Blinken. This is an important question and one 
that in its detail and substance I think we need to take up in 
another setting for reasons that I know that you very much 
appreciate.
    Let me just say this very broadly, and you know this very 
well, given your focus and expertise on these issues. The 
terrorist threat has metastasized dramatically over the last 20 
years, and it is most acute in places like Yemen, like Libya, 
like Iraq, like Syria, like Somalia. And, of course, we have 
much greater and different capabilities than we had 20 years 
ago in terms of dealing with that threat.
    And in many countries around the world, we deal with it 
effectively with no U.S. boots on the ground. We lost some 
capacity for sure in not having those boots on the ground in 
Afghanistan, but we have ways, and we are very actively working 
on that to make up for that, to mitigate for that, to make sure 
that we have eyes on the problem, to see if it reemerges in 
Afghanistan, and to do something about it.
    But what I would propose is that we have this conversation 
in another setting----
    Mr. McCaul. I would like to work with you because if we 
cannot see what's happening on the ground, we cannot see the 
threat, we cannot be respond to it, the threatis only going to 
grow. It is going to get worse, not better, and we have to have 
that capability.
    You know, let me ask you one last question. We had these 
planes grounded at Mazar-e-Sharif, and the Taliban seems to be 
holding these planes up. Are you currently negotiating with the 
Taliban with respect to these Americans that are trying to get 
out on these planes?
    And, also, are you negotiating with the Taliban on the 
issue of legitimizing them as a real government?
    Secretary Blinken. Not only us, but virtually the entire 
international community, including the United Nations Security 
Council resolution, has made clear what we expect and will 
insist on from the Taliban if they want to seek any legitimacy 
or any support, and that includes--it starts with freedom of 
travel.
    So we have been intensely engaged with Turkey and Qatar to 
get the airport in Kabul up and running again which is now the 
case, and we started to get flights out last week with American 
citizens on board.
    And with regard to Mazar-e-Sharif, you are correct. There 
have been charter flights there that have been there for some 
time that have not been allowed to leave. We want to see those 
flights leave. We need to see a process put in place to allow 
those flights to start to move, and we are working on that 
every day.
    Mr. McCaul. Thank you. I yield back.
    Chairman Meeks. Thank you.
    Mr. Secretary, we requested such a classified briefing not 
too long ago, and we welcome your assurance to schedule this 
briefing sometime in the immediate future.
    Secretary Blinken. Yes. Absolutely.
    Chairman Meeks. I now recognize representative Brad Sherman 
from California for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Sherman. Secretary Blinken, thank you for reminding us 
that Americans were not required to register if they were in 
Afghanistan, and I hope my colleagues will support my 
legislation to require Americans to register if they go to a 
war zone.
    The ranking member says that he never thought he would see 
an unconditional surrender of the United States to the Taliban. 
He saw it in 2020 when President Donald Trump announced that we 
would be out by May 1 of 2021, forced the release of 5,000 of 
the Taliban's best fighters, and most importantly, created a 
circumstance where there was not even a credible possibility 
that we would engage in force to support the Afghan government.
    There are those who say we should get out all of our Afghan 
allies and all those who face oppression or death from the 
Taliban. I would point out that the Afghan Army, together with 
all of its veterans over 20 years, together with all their 
families, you are talking about millions of people. And while 
the Taliban may be harsh to the girls who are music students, 
who are orphans, imagine how harsh they will be to a girl whose 
father was in the Afghan Army trying to kill the Taliban.
    When the administration took over, the American people made 
it clear we had to get out in 2021. The Afghan government, some 
thought, had some chance to fight to a stalemate. But by 
spring, those closest to us, those most in the know were 
demanding visas to get out, to flee as quickly as possible. 
They weren't asking for guns to build trenches around Kabul to 
fight the Taliban.
    They were asking for visas. They were demanding visas. They 
were making videos about how they were going to be killed. When 
they started to flee, that started a stampede, and there is 
simply no way the administration could have an orderly or 
successful stampede.
    And it seems absurd, at least in retrospect, to think that 
the average Afghan grunt would fight in the trenches while 
seeing those who are best connected desperate to flee in a 
matter of days.
    Secretary Blinken, when you came into office on January 20, 
we were committed to pulling everyone out of Afghanistan within 
3 months, by May 1. Did the Trump administration leave on your 
desk a pile of notebooks as to exactly how to carry out that 
plan? Did we have a list of which Afghans we were going to 
evacuate? Did we have a plan to get Americans from all over 
Afghanistan to Kabul and out in an orderly way? How meticulous 
was the planning for the Trump administration declared May 1 
withdrawal?
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you, Congressman. We inherited a 
deadline. We did not inherit a plan.
    Mr. Sherman. So no plan at all. It is amazing that it 
wasn't much, much worse. It was controversial when we gave up 
five Taliban for Bergdahl, not the most meritorious of American 
fighting men, but the Trump administration gave 5,000 of the 
Taliban's top fighters back to the Taliban. What did we get for 
that other than empty promises that were broken?
    Secretary Blinken. Congressman, the deal that the previous 
administration struck involved, as you rightly said, committing 
to remove all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by May 1 of this 
year. And, in addition, as that deal was being negotiated and 
put into effect, pressing the Afghan government to release 
these 5,000 prisoners, many of whom went back to the 
battlefield, and at the same time, in return, getting from the 
Taliban two commitments. One, not to attack our forces or 
allied and partner forces during the time of the agreement, 
from the time it was reached until May 1 when we were supposed 
to pull out all of our forces as well as not to go at the major 
cities and to take steps to ensure that Afghanistan would not 
be used by al-Qaeda or any other
    [inaudible]
    Mr. Sherman. Mr. Secretary, I need to get one more 
question. You are criticized for not getting our weapons out. 
Our weapons were given to the Afghan military. They were all 
over the country. Was there a way to disarm the Afghan 
government without being seen by the world as betraying the 
Afghan government? And was there a way without casualties to go 
all over Afghanistan and grab the trucks and the tanks, et 
cetera?
    Secretary Blinken. Simply put, no. Of course, a lot of 
excess equipment was handed over to the Afghan security and 
defense forces, partners that we had worked with for 20 years, 
supported, financed, and equipped for 20 years to take on some 
of that equipment.
    And, of course, when those forces collapsed in the space of 
about 11 days, some of that equipment wound up in the hands of 
the successor forces, the Taliban. Our folks worked very hard 
to disable or dismantle equipment that we still controlled 
before we left Afghanistan.
    And what we see now is much of the equipment that was left 
behind, including in the hands of the Afghan forces that then 
fell to the Taliban, much of it, based on what I understand 
from my colleagues at DoD, is inoperable or soon will become 
inoperable because it has to be maintained.
    It is not of any great strategic value in terms of 
threatening us or threatening any of Afghanistan's neighbors, 
but it does give the Taliban, as we have seen in pictures, all 
of us, uniforms and guns and some other equipment that is now 
in their hands.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman's time has expired.
    I now recognize Representative Chris Smith of New Jersey 
who is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global 
Health, and Global Human Rights, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Smith. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Secretary, you testified that you had encouraged 
Americans to leave the country, but you know, simultaneously 
with that was statements being made, including by President 
Biden, that Afghans' military capability was 300,000 men strong 
and that they had the best training imaginable.
    So at best, I would say they were misled. And you do not 
mention withdrawal conditions that were placed by President 
Trump on any exodus from Afghanistan.
    But I do have a couple of questions I would like to ask. 
Did you concur and support President Biden's July 23 phone call 
telling President Ghani to be untruthful about the Taliban's 
success? According to Reuters, which reviewed both the 
transcript and the audio, President Biden said, quote, and 
there is a need--whether it be true or not, there is a need to 
project a different picture. Was that an ad lib by President 
Biden, or was that lie scripted into the phone call? And if it 
was scripted, by who?
    Second. Have any Americans been arrested, beaten, abducted, 
or killed by the Taliban or ISIS-K since we left, and do we 
have the capacity or the capability to know that?
    Third. Were there any gaps or weaknesses in the vetting 
process of Afghan evacuees, especially in light of the fact 
that reliable information on some, perhaps many who got parole, 
wasn't available to conduct a meaningful background check? Are 
you concerned that the Taliban may have embedded its members as 
evacuees?
    I visited our base at Fort Dix recently with some other 
Members of Congress and our Governor and asked a number of 
questions, but I was very concerned about the vetting or lack 
thereof and the fact that parolees, about 70 percent strong at 
our base, at least, are going to go up to about 13,000, they 
could leave if they would like. They are free to leave. It is 
not clear whether or not they could return, but they are free 
to leave.
    And, finally, one of the profoundly negative consequences 
outside of Afghanistan has been China and Taiwan. The State-
controlled Chinese Communist Party media, including CCP run 
Global Times, and I read it every day, are saturating the 
Taiwanese with messages to give up and surrender to Beijing 
because the United States will, just as it did in Afghanistan, 
abandon them too. That is what the Global Times is saying. But 
if you could start off with the first question, I would 
appreciate it. And go to----
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you very much, Congressman. Let me 
see if I can address all those questions.
    First. With regard to the phone call you cited, I am 
obviously not going to comment on leaked--purportedly leaked 
transcripts of phone calls. Here is what I can tell you. What 
the President said in that conversation with then President 
Ghani is exactly what he was saying in public, and it is this: 
That the issue was not the capacity at that point of the Afghan 
government and the Afghan security forces to hold the country 
and to hold Kabul. It was their will and whether they had a 
plan to do so, and we were concerned that they were not 
demonstrating that will or that plan.
    He pressed President Ghani on the need to consolidate his 
forces
    [inaudible] From military advice from our military leaders 
to make sure that he could defend the places that needed 
defending and not overstretch those forces, and he needed to 
bring people together, the different factions, to show a united 
front. That was what--that is what he said----
    Mr. Smith. I have only got a few minutes.
    Secretary Blinken. I will answer the rest of the questions 
if I can.
    Mr. Smith. Was it a real--I mean, is the transcript untrue?
    Secretary Blinken. Again, I am not commenting on any 
purportedly leaked transcripts. I am telling you what, based on 
my knowledge of the conversation the President said, and what 
he said is exactly what he said in public.
    Second. With regard to American citizens remaining behind. 
The ones we are in contact with, we have 500 people on a task 
force and teams dedicated to them to be in regular contact with 
them, and I have not heard from those people that concern 
raised.
    I cannot say whether there are any American citizens who we 
are not in contact with or do not know of who may have been 
mistreated in some fashion in Afghanistan.
    Third. With regard to the background checks, and this is 
very important, and you are right to focus on it. You know, as 
you know, before Afghans evacuated from Afghanistan reached the 
United States, they go to a transit country, and that is where 
the initial checks are done.
    We have surged Customs and Border Patrol. We have surged 
our intelligence and law enforcement capacity to do those 
initial checks. And then when they get to the United States, 
first at a military base, those checks are continued, using all 
of law enforcement intelligence, security agencies, to do that 
so that we can make sure that we are not letting anyone into 
the country who could pose a threat or a risk.
    It is exactly that balance that is so important as well in 
the SIV program. We all want to bring Afghans at risk in the 
United States. We also have an obligation, that you rightly 
point out, to the security of our fellow citizens.
    Finally, on China and Taiwan. As I said earlier, whatever 
protestations they may be making in newspapers or in their 
propaganda, there is nothing that China would have liked more 
than for us to have reupped the war in Afghanistan and to 
remain bogged down for another 5, 10, or 20 years.
    That would have been profoundly against our strategic 
interests and profoundly in China's strategic interests. Thank 
you.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman's time has expired.
    I now recognize Representative Albio Sires of New Jersey 
who is the chair of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, 
Civilian Security Migration, and International Economic Policy 
for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Sires. Thank you, Mr. Secretary, for being with us for 
the third time.
    And I want also to say thank you to the work done that the 
State Department has done in getting people, including 11 
members of one family that were all united and are here now in 
this country. So I--my hat is tipped off to those people who 
worked so hard.
    The question that I have is the Taliban seems to be having 
a complete hold in the country while I understand there are 
other groups in Afghanistan. How fragile or how strong or firm 
is the Taliban's hold on this country?
    And do you see that breaking apart as everybody wants their 
piece down the line because it seems that this country is made 
up of pieces--of people that control certain pieces of the 
country.
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you. It is a very good question 
and an important one. And it is very hard to predict with any 
certainty.
    The country is in so many ways, as you have pointed out, 
fractured among different groups, different ethnic groups--
north, south, east, and west--different outside actors that may 
be supporting one group or another. And so for the Taliban to 
fully consolidate control, I think that remains an open 
question. It is also why, ironically, it would be profoundly in 
the Taliban's interest to actually put forward a genuinely 
inclusive and representative government.
    Because to the extent it does not, to the extent that 
everyone other than the Taliban is left out, that is only 
likely to--at some period in time, whether it is tomorrow, next 
week, next year, or thereafter, cause those who are left out to 
try to assert, one way or another, their rights and needs. So 
all of that, I think, is an open question at this point.
    One last thing I would mention. The country itself is in 
desperate straits. The U.N. estimates that fully half the 
population is in need to humanitarian assistance. We have 
severe malnutrition, health problems, COVID-19, droughts, et 
cetera, and so there too the Taliban has a big problem on its 
hands. And, of course, it is generating very, very little 
revenue in order to deal with that, all of which, I might add, 
gives the international community very significant leverage and 
influence going forward.
    Mr. Sires. I also read where they are running out of food 
in the next few months?
    Secretary Blinken. Yes, that is correct. We have seen, you 
know, a terrible drought, growing nutrition problems. It is one 
of the reasons that we think it is so important to make sure 
that, regardless of anything else, we and other countries find 
ways to continue humanitarian assistance to the people of 
Afghanistan.
    We have committed additional funds to do that. There is a 
pledging conference called by the United Nations that is 
ongoing, and we can and will do that consistent with the 
sanctions, consistent with our laws, by directing assistance 
through NGO's, through the United Nations' agencies, not 
through the government.
    We need to do everything we can to make sure the people of 
Afghanistan do not suffer any more than is already the case.
    Mr. Sires. I would like to see, if we are going to help 
Afghanistan with food and aid, that we extract certain 
commitments from them before we just give them food.
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you.
    Mr. Sires. And the last thing I want--and the last thing I 
want to say----
    Secretary Blinken. Please.
    Mr. Sires [continuing]. I want to commend the country of 
Colombia. I think they have taken thousands of Afghanistans and 
they are vetting them before they get here. Is that accurate?
    Secretary Blinken. There are a number of countries around 
the world that have made those commitments that are either 
serving as transit countries or serving as resettlement 
countries, taking in Afghans as refugees, and we deeply 
appreciate the countries that have stood up and agreed to do 
that.
    Mr. Sires. Thank you. I do not have any more questions, 
Chairman.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman yields back.
    I now recognize Representative Joe Wilson of South 
Carolina, who is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on the 
Middle East, North Africa, and Global Counterterrorism, for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much, Chairman Greg Meeks. And I 
am glad to join with our dear colleague, Albio Sires, in 
thanking our great ally of Colombia, of helping the Afghan 
refugees.
    Sir, in my service on the Foreign Affairs Committee, the 
Global Terrorism Subcommittee, the Armed Services Committee, 
the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, and the Helsinki Commission, I 
have always been impressed by American Foreign Service 
diplomats worldwide. Their dedication to service is inspiring. 
That is why I am shocked at your actions superseding military 
advice, leading to the surrender in Afghanistan to be a safe 
haven for murderous terrorists.
    Biden and Harris have also opened the southern border, 
stopping the wall of President Donald Trump. This allows 
identified terrorists of the terror watch list to enter 
American neighborhoods as lone wolf suicide bombers to murder 
as many Americans as possible. In American history, American 
families have never been at a greater risk of attack at home 
than today, as the global war on terrorism is not over, it has 
been moved from abroad to Americans homes.
    As the grateful father of an Afghanistan veteran, I 
especially see your actions as indefensible. With 12 visits by 
me across Afghanistan to thank the South Carolina Army National 
Guard troops, the 218th Brigade, commanded by General Bob 
Livingston, I know firsthand they appreciated serving with 
their Afghan brothers.
    I saw the United States Agency for International 
Development success in building schools, agricultural projects, 
hospitals, and bridges and roads.
    My beliefs have been actually expressed by the New York 
Post Editorial Board on September 1, and that is, quote, ``6 
lies Joe Biden told about Afghanistan.'' How can any American 
believe anything Biden says after he has lied so blatantly?
    Lie: If there are American citizens left, we are going to 
stay until we get them out.
    Truth: Biden himself admits Americans remain stranded in 
Afghanistan.
    Lie: We are making the same commitment, Biden said, to 
Afghanistans who assisted America.
    Truth: A senior State Department official confessed to NBC 
News that the majority of Afghans did not make it out of Kabul.
    Lie: The United States stands by its commitment that we 
have made to vulnerable Afghans, such as women leaders and 
journalists.
    Truth: Team Biden did not even ensure American-employed 
journalists made it to safety.
    Lie: Asked by a reporter, do you see any parallels between 
what happened in Vietnam? None whatsoever. Zero.
    Truth: Not even a month later, pictures came from Kabul of 
a helicopter flying over the American Embassy.
    Lie: Biden vowed to continue to provide Afghan army with 
air support.
    Truth: In the wake of Biden's withdrawal decision, he 
pulled the air support, intelligence, and contractors. The 
Afghan militaries couldn't operate.
    Lie: July 8, Biden added that the likelihood there is going 
to be a Taliban overrunning everything is highly unlikely.
    Truth: In fact, Biden knew the Taliban were overtaking the 
Afghan Government and asked President Ghani to lie about it. 
Whether it is true or not.
    Sadly, the advance military equipment left to the 
terrorists--and I end the quote of that article--sadly, the 
advance military equipment left to the terrorists is comparable 
to all of the military equipment that we have provided to 
Israel since 1948.
    The countries who have suffered most from Islamic extremist 
terrorist attacks--India, Israel, and America--are in danger. 
They chant death to Israel, death to America.
    We must never forget the May 8 bombing in Kabul, where 
Islamic extremist terrorists slaughtered over 80 innocent young 
girls. You should have changed course then because of this 
gruesome revealing fact. The murderers of that attack now will 
have a safe haven to attack American families at home.
    Your bizarre abandoning of Bagram Airfield led directly to 
13 Marines murdered in Kabul. You should resign.
    I yield back.
    Chairman Meeks. Mr. Secretary, we only had 43 seconds left 
of the 5 minutes. So your response, I know you will not be able 
to answer many of the questions that was put forward by 
Representative Wilson, but if you choose, you have 43 seconds 
of which to respond for whichever questions were asked to you.
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Let me simply thank the member for his support for the men 
and women of the State Department. I appreciated that part of 
his statement. Thank you.
    Chairman Meeks. I now recognize Representative Gerry 
Connolly of Virginia, who is the president of the NATO 
Parliamentary Assembly, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Connolly. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
    I guess I would say to my friend from South Carolina, if I 
were the Member of Congress who committed one of the most 
grievous acts in the state of the Union Address when the 
President of the United States, Mr. Obama, was our guest, to 
shout out, ``You lie,'' I might take more care about 
enumerating other alleged lies in a hearing with the Secretary 
of State.
    Mr. Secretary, what we are listening to on the other side 
of the aisle, sadly, is sort of a salad mix of selective facts 
and a lot of amnesia in the salad dressing.
    The history of instability in Afghanistan did not begin on 
August 14 of this year, did it?
    Secretary Blinken. It did not.
    Mr. Connolly. Am I correct in remembering that, in fact, 
you could trace direct routes to 1977, 1978, when there was a 
communist coup and the President of Afghanistan was 
assassinated in the Presidential palace. Is that correct?
    Secretary Blinken. It is.
    Mr. Connolly. And 1 year later, the Soviet Union, because 
of that instability, decided to invade Afghanistan. Is that 
correct?
    Secretary Blinken. It is.
    Mr. Connolly. And 10 years later, the Soviets left 
Afghanistan because they had mounting and maybe really 
unsustainable military casualties and felt that they were 
engaged in a process that could not be won. Is that correct?
    Secretary Blinken. It is.
    Mr. Connolly. And, meanwhile, because the United States 
decided once that happened, it would disengage primarily from 
Afghanistan, groups like the Taliban had 12 years in which to 
create political power. Is that correct?
    Secretary Blinken. It is.
    Mr. Connolly. And in 2001, we reentered Afghanistan in 
response to the tragedy we just remembered--20-year remembrance 
this week--and we rolled up the Taliban by making alliances 
with various militia groups in the north and moved south until 
they lost control of the country in that year, in 2001. Is that 
correct?
    Secretary Blinken. Yes, it is.
    Mr. Connolly. And the purpose of our involvement was to 
defeat al-Qaeda because the Taliban were harboring this 
virulent terrorist group that had attacked America. Is that 
correct?
    Secretary Blinken. That is correct.
    Mr. Connolly. Would it be fair to say that we achieved that 
objective?
    Secretary Blinken. It would.
    Mr. Connolly. Would it be it fair to say that, in fact, 10 
years later, the leader of that group, who masterminded the 
attacks of 9/11, was, in fact, killed by a United States 
specially trained military unit?
    Secretary Blinken. That is correct.
    Mr. Connolly. So what happened ultimately on August 14 has 
lots of history. I know it is convenient to pretend that did 
not happen. And I know that we want to give ourselves sort of 
the pleasure of attacking a political leader of the other 
party, and so let me engage in that too.
    I am going to assert that the events of August 14had their 
direct antecedent with a bad decision by President Trump and 
Secretary Pompeo, in 2018, to elevate and legitimize the 
Taliban in Doha, Qatar, by agreeing to have face-to-face 
negotiations.
    That tragedy was compounded exponentially by an 
unbelievable decision to exclude the Government of Afghanistan, 
ostensibly we were defending, from those very negotiations. Is 
that an accurate statement, Mr. Secretary?
    Secretary Blinken. Certainly that is what we inherited.
    Mr. Connolly. But the Afghan Government was, in fact, 
excluded from the negotiating table in Doha by the Trump 
administration. Is that not correct?
    Secretary Blinken. It is essentially correct, yes.
    Mr. Connolly. And when those 5,000 people were released 
from prison, since the ranking member is so concerned, and 
correctly so, about two Haqqani members in the current cabinet 
of Taliban, were there any known terrorists or declared 
terrorists by the United States among those 5,000 people 
released with the consent and negotiated agreement of the Trump 
administration?
    Secretary Blinken. Almost certainly, yes.
    Mr. Connolly. Ah, I guess our concern about terrorists is 
pretty selective and limited to partisanship.
    I yield back.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman yields back his time.
    I now recognize Representative Steve Chabot of Ohio, who is 
the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, 
Central Asia, and Nonproliferation, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Chabot. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    On August 16, Mr. Secretary, President Biden said that the 
administration had considered every contingency and was 
executing the evacuation according to your plan.
    Was it part of your plan to rely on the Taliban to ensure 
the safety of Americans trying to flee the country? Because 
that is what happened.
    Secretary Blinken. We, through the course of the spring and 
summer, did indeed, as the President said, look at every 
contingency for dealing with our drawdown. And as part of 
that----
    Mr. Chabot. And we relied upon the Taliban to be our 
security. In essence, we ended up getting 13 of our military 
personnel and over 150 Afghan civilians killed by relying upon 
the Taliban. They did not provide very good security. We never 
should have relied upon them.
    But let me move on----
    Secretary Blinken. We were not relying upon the Taliban. As 
you know what happened, was the Afghan security forces and the 
government collapsed within the space of 11 days. We then 
executed the plans that we had in place to safely draw down our 
embassy, move it to the airport. The military came in, took 
over the airport, and started getting evacuation flights out 
within 72 hours. Those were the plans that were in place.
    Mr. Chabot. We certainly relied upon it at the airport. It 
did not work out so well.
    Mr. Secretary, President Biden has laid the blame for the 
evacuation debacle in Afghanistan on others rather than on 
itself, where it really belongs. He blamed President Trump, as 
we have discussed already to some degree here, basically 
claiming that he was just following Trump's policy.
    But he has not hesitated to disregard every other major 
Trump policy: our southern border, the Keystone Pipeline, the 
Paris climate accord, the Iran deal, Mexico City policy, and on 
and on.
    Yet this was the one Trump policy that he had to follow. Do 
you understand why this is pretty hard to fathom for a lot of 
people?
    Secretary Blinken. I think what is perhaps, Congressman, 
hard to fathom or people just do not understand, is that the 
agreement reached by the previous administration required all 
U.S. Forces to be out of Afghanistan by May 1. In return, the 
Taliban stopped attacking our forces, our partners, and it did 
not commence an onslaught of the Afghanistan cities.
    Had the President not followed through on the commitments 
that his predecessor made, those attacks would have resumed, we 
would have re-upped the war in Afghanistan after 20 years, for 
another 5, 10, or 20 years. We would have had to send more 
forces back in.
    And I recognize that a lot of people do not understand 
that, do not know the agreement that was reached, and the 
choice that President Biden faced for May 1.
    Mr. Chabot. Well, let me ask you this. When he wasn't 
blaming Trump, he was blaming the Afghan military forces for 
allegedly not being willing to fight.
    But whereas we hadn't suffered a single U.S. military death 
in a year and a half--and that is a wonderful thing--the Afghan 
military forces had lost about 3,000 of their military 
personnel during that same time.
    So wasn't the President being a little unfair to those 
3,000 Afghans who lost their lives fighting the Taliban during 
that period of time?
    Secretary Blinken. Congressman, many Afghan soldiers fought 
with incredible bravery and gave their lives, you are right. 
But as an institution, after 20 years of investment by the 
United States, by the international community, hundreds of 
billions of dollars, equipment, support, training, as an 
institution, it collapsed in 11 days.
    Mr. Chabot. Mr. Secretary, we went into Afghanistan in the 
first place because the Taliban had harbored al-Qaeda, correct, 
and they attacked us on September 11.
    Now, 20 years later, we have the Taliban back in charge 
there, and they have billions and billions of dollars worth of 
our equipment and our weaponry, and once again, they are a 
haven for terrorists. How is this not a debacle of monumental 
proportions?
    Secretary Blinken. Congressman, as we were discussing a 
little bit earlier, al-Qaeda, the group that attacked us on 9/
11, long ago was vastly degraded to the point where it is 
currently not capable, in the assessment of our intelligence 
agencies, of conducting an externally directed attack against 
us or against others.
    The Taliban should remember as well what happened the last 
time it did, as you rightly said, harbor al-Qaeda, and it 
engaged in an outwardly directed attack against us. It knows 
the consequences of continuing to do that, and it has made 
commitments not to allow that to happen.
    But, of course, we are not relying on those commitments. As 
we discussed a little bit earlier, we are putting in place what 
we do in countries around the world where we do not have boots 
on the ground, which is an over-the-horizon capacity to detect 
the reemergence, should it happen, of any threat, including 
from al-Qaeda, and the means to do something about it.
    Mr. Chabot. This pullout was----
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Chabot. Thank you.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman's time has expired.
    I now recognize Representative Ted Deutch of Florida, who 
is the chair of the Subcommittee on the Middle East, North 
Africa, and Global Counterterrorism, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Deutch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Secretary, I appreciate you being here today. And we do 
need to look back--this is a really important hearing--but we 
also need to look forward.
    The reality is, we have a Taliban government, we have 
terrorist groups already surging, potential threats to U.S. 
interests remain. It is true that we are not the world's 
policeman, but we know that a strengthened ISIS-K or al-Qaeda 
pose a threat, not only to the U.S. homeland, but to Americans 
abroad, our interests abroad in the region.
    The Middle East and North Africa in particular were 
fundamentally changed in the aftermath of 9/11, with the rise 
of al-Qaeda and ISIS affiliates. We clearly cannot trust the 
Taliban to keep terrorists at bay.
    So, Mr. Secretary, you traveled to Doha to conduct 
diplomatic talks with partners and allies on our continued 
counterterrorism role. What do you assess to be the operational 
capacities of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan? And how is the 
administration planning to hold the Taliban to its commitment 
to ensure that al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups are unable 
to use Afghan soil to plan terrorist attacks on or threaten the 
security of the U.S. and our allies?
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you very much. A few things on 
this. First, as we were discussing a little bit earlier, as you 
know from your focus on this, the terrorist threat has 
metastasized significantly from 9/11, and it is much more acute 
now in terms of potential threats to the homeland and threats 
beyond the countries in question, from Somalia, from Yemen, 
from Libya, Iraq, Syria, a number of other countries in Africa 
as well.
    And so we have to be able to make sure that we are focused 
everywhere that is a possibility and resourced appropriately. 
And we are. And in a number of those places, as you know very 
well, we do not have boots on the ground, but we find ways to 
deal with that threat, including with over-the-horizon 
capabilities.
    In the case of Afghanistan, a couple of things. The current 
assessment of the intelligence community is that long ago al-
Qaeda was so significantly degraded, that it is not in a 
position to conduct externally faced--externally directed 
attacks. But we will remain hypervigilant about any reemergence 
of that threat, and we will be working closely with partners 
and other countries to be in a position to do that.
    I think the chairman referenced earlier that we hope and 
expect in the near future to be able to do some classified 
briefings on this because there are a number of things that it 
would not be appropriate to discuss in this setting.
    Mr. Deutch. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. And we appreciate 
your commitment to ensuring that those classified briefings 
occur.
    Secretary Blinken, the war in Afghanistan was the first 
mission in the history of NATO arising out of the invitation of 
article 5, and over 50 NATO members and partner countries sent 
troops. Thirty-six, it has been reported, had troops there at 
the time of the drawdown.
    They invested political capital--our allies invested 
political capital and funds and certainly troops, and often 
those troops gave their lives as well.
    The criticism that we have heard from some of our allies is 
that there was not adequate consultation and coordination with 
our NATO allies. We heard the Secretary General of NATO say 
just this week that there was others doubting that. I would 
like you to speak to that.
    But finally this. We had an administration, Mr. Secretary, 
that wanted to go it alone, a President who failed to 
appreciate and often criticized the importance of NATO allies, 
while embracing Xi and Putin.
    If you could also, in your final time with me, speak to, at 
a time when democratic values are being threatened and at risk 
in so many places around the world, if you could also speak to 
the importance of that transatlantic relationship and how to 
reassure those allies of ours who have raised concerns about 
how we went about pulling out of Afghanistan and about failing 
to coordinate with them as we did.
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you. Couple of things. First, you 
are so right to point to our allies and partners who stood with 
us on 9/11 and in all the days and time thereafter. And you are 
exactly right that article 5 of NATO, an attack on one is an 
attack on all, in essence, was invoked for the very first time 
in its history in our defense by our allies and partners, 
something that I will never forget and I suspect no one on this 
video conference today will ever forget.
    And we determined that when it came to Afghanistan, we went 
in together and we would go out together. And that is exactly 
what we did. We engaged--I engaged, for the Secretary of 
Defense, in intense consultations with our NATO partners well 
before the President made his decision, going to Brussels for a 
special session of the North Atlantic Council and listening 
intently to every single partner, relaying what we heard 
directly to President Biden, to factor that into our thinking 
and into our planning.
    I have spent more time in Brussels, either in person or 
virtually, than in any other place since I have been on this 
job, working very closely with these allies and partners. On 
the day that the President's decision was announced, I was back 
in Brussels, again with the Secretary of Defense, and NATO 
immediately and unanimously endorsed that decision.
    Now, in the discussions and conversations that we had 
throughout this time, including individual conversations, 
people brought various perspectives to the table, but each 
recognized that given the deadline that existed, that is, that 
our forces had to depart Afghanistan by May 1, pursuant to the 
agreement negotiated by the previous administration, that the 
alternative, should we choose to stay, was for the Taliban to 
resume attacks, not just on us, but on our NATO partners and 
allies, as well as to engage in this countrywide offensive that 
we have seen to retake the major cities, in effect, to re-up 
the war. And all unanimously endorsed the proposition that we 
would leave together, and that is exactly what we worked on 
doing and what we have been doing.
    I know from talking to many allies and partners the 
tremendous solidarity we saw at the Kabul Airport, working to 
help each other, to make sure that we could get out our fellow 
nationals, Afghans who had helped each of us, and our embassy 
personnel.
    I heard a lot of gratitude from allies and partners about 
the work that our folks did in making sure that we could 
deliver on that commitment to them.
    So, from my perspective at least, there was tremendous and 
genuine consultation with allies and partners throughout this 
process. And going forward, right now, we are deeply engaged 
with them, at NATO and in other organizations, on working 
together on the way forward, to collectively hold the Taliban 
to the commitments that it has made to the international 
community.
    Chairman Meeks. Thank you. The gentleman's time is expired.
    I now recognize Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania 
for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Blinken, assuming it is not classified, can you tell us 
where you are today?
    Secretary Blinken. Yes. I am at the State Department.
    Mr. Perry. Oh, couldn't be bothered to come down here and 
see Congress. All right. That is great.
    Secretary Blinken. My understanding--excuse me, sir. My 
understanding is that the House is not in session, and that is 
why the session has been convened----
    Mr. Perry. I am right here, Secretary, so----
    Secretary Blinken. If the chairman would like to correct 
me, I will stand corrected.
    Mr. Perry. Reclaiming my time. Did State at any point in 
the evacuation process block American citizens from leaving 
Afghanistan?
    Secretary Blinken. No, we did not.
    Mr. Perry. None? Your testimony before Congress is that 
State did not block any American citizens leaving?
    Secretary Blinken. To the contrary, my officers, men and 
women, ran into the building from around the world to help 
Americans get out, and----
    Mr. Perry. You can do it with Mr. Connolly, you can do it 
with me. Yes or no? I just want to clarify, you did not block 
anybody?
    Secretary Blinken. No. They were there to help Americans 
get out, not to block----
    Mr. Perry. How many Afghans not meeting the qualifications 
of SIV have been brought to the United States, prior to--how 
many Afghan citizens came to the United States that had not met 
the qualifications for a special immigrant visa?
    Secretary Blinken. We are in the process of going through--
--
    Mr. Perry. How many? How many? How many did you bring? You 
were just at Dulles. How many did you bring?
    Secretary Blinken. We have--we will have, by the end of the 
month, we will have brought a total of approximately 60,000 to 
the United States.
    Mr. Perry. That have met the SIV process.
    Secretary Blinken. Some of those will be--some of those 
will have been through the SIV process. All of them, regardless 
of SIV status, will have gone through rigorous security checks, 
first at the transit points outside of the United States and 
then the United States.
    Mr. Perry. [Inaudible] Before we brought these people to 
the United States of America.
    Mr. Secretary, are Afghan refugees required to be 
vaccinated for COVID before coming to the United States of 
America?
    Secretary Blinken. They are vaccinated in the United States 
before they are--before they are resettled into the United 
States.
    Mr. Perry. There are none of these Afghan citizens that are 
allowed to leave these resettlement communities--Fort Dix, 
Dulles, et cetera--that are allowed to leave at any time they 
want. None of them are leaving unless they are vaccinated for 
COVID. Is that your testimony?
    Secretary Blinken. They are tested for COVID and vaccinated 
for COVID.
    Mr. Perry. Vaccinated before they leave?
    Secretary Blinken. That is my understanding.
    Mr. Perry. All right. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
    Is it the policy of the United States of America to take 
hard-earned tax dollars and pay terrorist organizations?
    Secretary Blinken. It is not.
    Mr. Perry. It is not. So your testimony earlier was, is 
that we are sending taxpayer dollars to Afghanistan right now 
for humanitarian relief. Who are we sending that to?
    Secretary Blinken. To NGO's and to United Nations' agencies 
who are using that assistance. Not to the Afghan Government.
    Mr. Perry. Not to the Afghan--the Taliban government. How 
are you accounting for that? How are you making sure that the 
Afghan--the Taliban government is not receiving that?
    Secretary Blinken. As we do around the world in places of 
conflict where we provide humanitarian assistance, working 
through United Nations, working through NGO's, with long-tested 
methods to make sure that the assistance provided goes to the 
people who need it, not to the government in question.
    Mr. Perry. All right. Let me ask you this. Is it your 
understanding that over the past 20 years, United States 
taxpayers have paid Pakistan, who has then used that money to 
support the Taliban, the Haqqani Network, ISIS-K, Khorasan 
group, et cetera, for the past 20 years? Is that not true?
    Secretary Blinken. There is a long history that we should 
all look at together about the involvement of Pakistan in the 
last 20 years.
    Mr. Perry. I would say that we should no longer pay 
Pakistan and we should pay India.
    Let me ask you this. I just have a couple more questions 
for you, a little off topic here, but I think it is 
interesting.
    How long was your recent interview with the FBI, and was it 
a deposition?
    Secretary Blinken. I am sorry. I do not know to what you 
are referring.
    Mr. Perry. Are you saying that you have not had a recent 
interview with the FBI since becoming Secretary of State?
    Secretary Blinken. I am not sure what you are referring to, 
and I am happy to take that up with you offline.
    Mr. Perry. Did the State Department turn over documents to 
the FBI related to Hunter Biden, Burisma, and/or the Blue State 
Strategies Corporation?
    Secretary Blinken. You will have to ask the----
    Mr. Perry. You have no knowledge of this. You have had no--
are you saying you have not had an interview with----
    Secretary Blinken. It would not be appropriate for me to 
comment in a public forum on any legal proceedings that the 
Department or I may or may not have been involved in.
    Mr. Perry. I am not asking you to comment on the legal 
proceedings. I am just asking if you have been interviewed by 
the FBI since becoming Secretary of State.
    Secretary Blinken. Again, I am not going to comment one way 
or another on any legal proceedings or not that may or may not 
have happened.
    Chairman Meeks. Let me remind the gentleman that the topic 
of this hearing is Afghanistan. That is what we are----
    Mr. Perry. I appreciate it, Mr. Chairman, but the Secretary 
generally refuses to answer questions about Afghanistan, so I 
just figured we would talk about something he should be 
intimately familiar with.
    Have you sought to alter any of your testimony from last 
year's Senate investigation regarding this topic, Mr. 
Secretary?
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman's time has expired.
    And let me also for the record make clear that this is a 
hybrid hearing. Just as members had an option to come or to be 
other places, the Secretary also. It is a hybrid hearing 
because we are not in session.
    Mr. Issa. Mr. Chairman, point of inquiry, if I could?
    Chairman Meeks. Who seeks recognition?
    Mr. Issa. This is Congressman Issa. Just for my 
edification, was it expressed to the Secretary that he had a 
choice of either one, or was he invited to come here, or was he 
alerted to remain there?
    And I only ask because I think we all agree that if he 
could have been here in person, it would have been better, but 
if it was an option or for whatever reason--because I want to 
make sure that it is clear that the Secretary may have done no 
wrong, even though many of us would prefer him to be here.
    Chairman Meeks. The Secretary has done no wrong. It was an 
option, and I made it as an option as I have done with every 
member.
    Mr. Issa. Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Meeks. I now recognize Representative Karen Bass 
of California, who is the chair of the Subcommittee on Africa, 
Global Health, and Global Human Rights, for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Bass. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
    And thank you, Secretary Blinken, for attending this 
hearing and for your patience with putting up with the 
theatrics of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. I 
want to thank you, again, for spending the time and agreeing to 
take everyone's questions for 5 minutes.
    The departure from Afghanistan has provided really 
unprecedented insight into our foreign policy, in addition to 
demonstrating the bravery, dedication, and professionalism of 
our military, diplomats, and Afghan partners. It has also shown 
how a 20-year effort and billions of dollars have really raised 
questions about what the return of investment is that we 
desired in terms of sustaining peace and stability in 
Afghanistan.
    The assumption of power by the Taliban has secondary and 
tertiary effects on the most vulnerable segments of the 
population, especially women and children, and we are concerned 
that it will reverse any gains that were realized in the last 
two decades.
    So my first question, yes or no, Mr. Secretary, did the 
agreement from the last administration include any protections 
for girls and women?
    Secretary Blinken. Not to my knowledge.
    Ms. Bass. So many people are concerned about the status of 
women and girls in Afghanistan under the Taliban. The 
restrictions on education, movement, health, physical safety, 
under their regime paints a grim picture.
    I would like to know how the administration will work with 
partners to support Afghan women's rights and the rights of 
ethnic and religious minorities in Afghanistan. Go ahead.
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you, Congresswoman. One of the 
truly great achievements of the last 20 years was the progress 
made by women and girls in particular in Afghanistan. And one 
of the things that we should be proud of is the support--the 
leading support that we gave to that when it comes to access to 
education, to healthcare, to the work force, entrepreneurship. 
Those gains were significant, and we were the leading 
contributor.
    I was in Kabul in April. I sat with a number of women who 
had benefited from our assistance, including women who had gone 
on to become leaders in their parliament, in the media, NGO's, 
et cetera, and, of course, heard their profound concerns about 
the future.
    Just recently when I was in Doha and at Ramstein talking to 
people who had been evacuated from Afghanistan, I spoke to a 
lot of women and girls and heard their deep concerns about the 
future, as well as people who were still in Afghanistan.
    And so we have an ongoing commitment to use every tool at 
our disposal through our diplomacy, through our economic 
assistance, humanitarian assistance, programmatic assistance, 
to do whatever we can to continue, in coordination with many 
other countries, to support women and girls and minorities in 
Afghanistan. The assistance that we announced today will go in 
that direction. The assistance we will provide going forward 
will do that.
    And with regard to women and girls in particular, given the 
incredible fragility of the situation that they are now in, I 
will be naming a senior official here at the State Department 
to focus entirely on the ongoing effort, both from the U.S. 
Government and in coordination with other countries, to support 
them.
    Ms. Bass. Well, thank you very much. And so will the 
administration expand the license to operate humanitarian 
programs in Afghanistan? And how will that take place? And 
which partners do you see us continuing to work with?
    Secretary Blinken. In short, yes, that is exactly what we 
are looking at. And you rightly point out, we have already 
issued a license to make sure that humanitarian assistance 
could go forward. We are looking at whether that needs to be 
expanded, consistent, of course, with our sanctions and 
consistent with our national security, to allow appropriate 
assistance to get to those who need it.
    Ms. Bass. Who approves that license? Who are we making that 
request to?
    Secretary Blinken. The Treasury Department is responsible 
for the licenses, but we do this in coordination or 
consultation with us and other agencies in the government, as 
well as, of course, the White House.
    Ms. Bass. And which partners on the ground are we 
continuing to work with?
    Secretary Blinken. We have--and we can get you the list. We 
have a number of NGO's that remain active in Afghanistan, as 
well as----
    Ms. Bass. Are these SGOs (ph) or NGO's?
    Secretary Blinken. Some are--there are, I believe, a couple 
of U.S. NGO's that are still active, international NGO's, and 
U.N. agencies. I met with the head of the U.N.'s Humanitarian 
Assistance Program just a few days ago when I was in Doha, and 
we spent a lot of time talking about how this assistance could 
continue to go forward and what some of the mechanisms were 
that could be put in place to make sure that it was getting to 
the right people and being used effectively.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentlelady's time has expired.
    I now recognize Representative Darrell Issa from California 
for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Issa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Secretary, before we get into the tougher part of this, 
I want to thank you for the effort that has gone on by the men 
and women of both the State Department and the Department of 
Defense, and a lot of independent actions that occurred to try 
to help get people out in the aftermath of the withdrawal.
    I would not be doing my job, though, if I did not ask some 
tough questions. One of them is up here on this board, and it 
is pretty straightforward. A response I received from the State 
Department said to my staff when we asked about continued work 
to get people out, it said, make contingency plans to leave 
when it is safe to do so that do not rely on U.S. Government 
assistance.
    How do we square the fact that in an official response that 
I waited weeks for, that we do not have any assurance for 
assistance but that when people get out, typically they are 
lauded by the State Department as success stories. That 
includes an 80-year-old couple that was announced to have 
gotten out when, in fact, we saw no real assistance by the 
State Department, had to find out it was a nongovernment flight 
and get these two American citizens onto that flight, and we 
still have a number of others.
    So, in a nutshell, how do I explain, do not rely on the 
United States? Do we or do we not rely on the United States of 
America for blue passport holder American citizens who want to 
get out?
    Secretary Blinken. The answer to that is, yes, absolutely. 
And could you tell me, because I am sorry, I cannot see it 
clearly from here, you know, when and to whom that statement 
was made?
    Mr. Issa. We will give it to your staff so that you get it 
without it being fully disclosed----
    Secretary Blinken. And, Congressman, I would really welcome 
following up with you, with your team, with your staff to make 
sure that we are following up on that particular request.
    I have got here--because I really want to express deep 
appreciation to Members of Congress, this committee--I have 
here a very lengthy document of all of the inquiries that we 
have received just from HFAC, from members of HFAC, on people 
who have come to you seeking assistance, all of which has been 
factored into our data bases, our information, our efforts. But 
if someone is not getting the response they need, please come 
back to us and let me know, and we would be very happy to work 
with you on that.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Issa. We will do that. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
    Now, if I can quickly go through a few dates and a few 
statements. On July 8, President Biden was asked if he listened 
to the intelligence assessment that the Afghan Government was 
likely to collapse. He answered, that is not true. They are 
not--they did not reach that conclusion. In other words, the IC 
hadn't reached that conclusion.
    I believe that we will find that as of July 8, the 
President misspoke.
    The President also said the likelihood there is going to be 
the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country 
is highly unlikely. Two days later, on July 10, the Taliban was 
reported to have 85 percent of the country.
    Then on August 12, The Wall Street Journal reported that on 
July 13, you received an urgent dissent memo from 23 U.S. 
Embassy personnel in Kabul warning that the advances of the 
Taliban and the rapid collapse of Afghanistan. Your spokesman 
said you read every memo sent to you from the Dissent Channel. 
So if you do, then you knew that, in fact, a major portion of 
people in the embassy believed that they were going to quickly 
overrun.
    On August 18, President Biden said, the intelligence 
community did not say, back in June or July, that, in fact, 
this was going to collapse like it did. But the embassy told 
you, or at least a great many, in July, that it would.
    The question really is, how do we regain confidence in the 
State Department and its spokespeople, yourself included, and 
the President, if, in fact, we cannot square what we receive, 
Members of Congress, both publicly and privately, that indicate 
some of those statements that I just read, including ones by 
the President, are not supported by the facts?
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you. As you know from tracking 
this as well, throughout the year, assessments were made of the 
resilience of the Afghan Government, the Afghan security 
forces, and the possibility of the Taliban taking over the 
country.
    And this was typically done in a series of different 
scenarios: worst, mid case, best case scenarios. In the worst 
case scenarios throughout the spring, I think it is fair to say 
that the general assessment was that the government and 
security forces would be able to hold on to the country well 
into next year, 2022.
    At some point in July, there was an assessment that it was 
more likely than not that that timeframe was down to the end of 
the year. Then, of course, as things fully unraveled in August, 
that changed.
    To my knowledge, Congressman, no one predicted the 
unraveling before our forces and embassy left Afghanistan on 
August 31.
    The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Milley, has said, 
nothing I or anyone else saw indicated a collapse of the 
government and the security forces in 11 days.
    The Director of National Intelligence has said, in the days 
leading up to the Taliban takeover, intelligence agencies did 
not say collapse was imminent.
    This unfolded more quickly than we anticipated, including 
in the intelligence community. And there are a number of other 
conclusory statements of that kind that I can share with you.
    With regard to the so-called Dissent Channel cable, it is 
something I am immensely proud of, it is a tradition that we 
have. And you are right, I read every such cable, I respond to 
it, I factor it into my own thinking and actions. And that 
cable did not predict the collapse of the government or 
security forces before our departure. It was very focused, and 
rightly focused, on the work we were doing to try to get 
Afghans at risk out of the country and pressing to speed up 
that effort.
    As it happens, a number of the things that were suggested 
in that very important cable were things that we were in the 
process of doing. The very next day--I think the cable came in 
on the 13th of July--the 14th, we launched Operation Allies 
Refuge, which, of course, had been in training for some time, 
as well as the 24/7 task force to help those in the SIV program 
get out and even to relocate them, which is not part of the 
program.
    So that was a very important cable. I am grateful for it, 
and grateful that we have a process at the State Department 
where people can clearly express their views and differences on 
policy or recommendations on policy. That is hugely important.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman's time has expired.
    I now recognize Representative Bill Keating of 
Massachusetts, who is the chair of the Subcommittee on Europe, 
Energy, the Environment, and Cyber, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Keating. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And thank you, Mr. Secretary, for your service, and as head 
of the Department of State for our country. I want to thank all 
of your people for the work they have done. They stood side by 
side with our military, risking their lives in helping people 
evacuate in the most dangerous situation. So my sincere 
appreciation to everyone----
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you.
    Mr. Keating [continuing]. At State who was part of that.
    I am also glad that you reinforced, as my conversations 
have, the renewed commitment, the strength that is there with 
our transatlantic allies going forward on our mission, not just 
in the region, but also worldwide through our counterterrorism 
efforts.
    I must say this, though. This is a period of reassessment, 
I think, as we go forward, where we have some lessons learned, 
where we go embarking on a new mission, where we are trying to 
do the best in that area and so many fronts. But there is one 
relationship that really has always troubled me a great deal, 
certainly over the last couple of decades, and that is our 
relationship with Pakistan. You know, from its--Pakistan has 
played an active and, by so many accounts, a negative role in 
Afghan affairs for decades, not just recently but for decades.
    From the very beginning, its inception, they helped in 
actually branding the name Taliban. And by 2005, when the 
Taliban was reconstituting in east and south Afghanistan and, 
importantly, across the border in Pakistan, and as Pakistan's 
ISI, their Inter-Services Intelligence agency, had such strong 
ties and cooperation with the Haqqani Network, responsible for 
so many things, including the deaths of some of our soldiers.
    And even recently when the Taliban took over, in the last 
month, Pakistan's Prime Minister Khan claimed that Afghanistan 
had, quote/unquote, broken the shackles of slavery.
    So we used to always hear diplomatically that we have a 
complicated relationship with Afghanistan--I mean with 
Pakistan. I would say it is often duplicitous.
    So as we go forward in the region, as we go forward dealing 
with our counterterrorism missions, how do we reassess that 
relationship? How have we learned from their actions? And when 
we go forward, what do we do? What are some of the big issues 
that we should have, stakes in the ground that we should have 
in dealing with Pakistan and the way they have acted over these 
decades?
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you, Congressman. And I think you 
are very right to point at the role that Pakistan has played 
throughout the past 20 years and even before. And it is one 
that has involved hedging its bets constantly about the future 
of Afghanistan. It is one that is involved harboring members of 
the Taliban, including the Haqqanis. It is one that has also 
involved, at different points, cooperation with us on 
counterterrorism.
    And so there are a number of things that have come into 
play. It has a multiplicity of interests, some that are in 
clear conflict with ours when it comes to Afghanistan. It is 
focused, of course, as well on India and the role that India is 
playing in Afghanistan. It looks at it through that prism as 
well.
    All of these things, I think, have influenced what it has 
done on many occasions detrimental to our interests; on other 
occasions, in support of those interests.
    And so going forward, what we are looking at, what we have 
to look at is an insistence that every country, to include 
Pakistan, make good on the expectations that the international 
community has of what is required of a Taliban-led government, 
if it is to receive any legitimacy of any kind or any support 
going forward, to include ensuring freedom of travel, to 
include making good on its commitments on not allowing 
Afghanistan to be used as a haven for outward-directed 
terrorism, to include upholding the basic rights of the Afghan 
people, including women and girls and minorities, to include 
allowing humanitarian assistance in, to include having a more 
representative government.
    And so Pakistan needs to line up with the rest of the--with 
the broad majority of the international community in working 
toward those ends and in upholding those expectations.
    Mr. Keating. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I would like to----
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Keating [continuing]. Another time and thank for your 
work with the U.S. Agency for Global Media. We will continue to 
work on that front and many others.
    I yield back.
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman's time has expired.
    I now recognize Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois 
for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Kinzinger. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here and spending this 
time. It is very important.
    You know, watching some of this debate, I think it is 
important to remind people, yes, the Trump administration 
failed in the setup, and I think the Biden Administration 
absolutely failed in the execution of this.
    I also want to make it clear, Mr. Secretary, we support the 
members of the State Department and their heroic action in the 
evacuation. I think the broader point is, they never should 
have been put in a place where they had to act heroically.
    We found ourselves--many times we talk about Bagram and 
leaving that, and I think that it is important to point out, 
but there was also moments where the U.S. military, with the 
6,000 people that we sent in, could have defended Kabul proper. 
It was clear that the Taliban were not intending to move into 
Kabul as early as they did. But we put them in a position where 
they had to act heroically, and we shouldn't ask that of our 
State Department employees, even though we appreciate that they 
did.
    I also think it is important to point out, you know, that 
there is a lot of blame of the Afghan military. And I 
certainly, as a military man myself, wish that the Afghan 
military would have helped. But keep in mind, prior to that, 
there were assessments coming out that it was only a matter of 
time, maybe it is 6 months, maybe it is a year, till the whole 
place collapsed.
    You know, we had pulled--we had built a military in our own 
image that relied on air power, that relied on logistics, and 
then we pulled our logistic and air power support from the 
Afghan military. And as they received night letters from the 
Taliban saying, we are going to kill your family because the 
United States is vacating, they are leaving you, it is--to me, 
as much as I would have loved for them to have stayed and taken 
a stand heroically, I do not know many even of our allies' 
militaries that, frankly, could have stood in those conditions 
in that kind of an onslaught.
    Let me ask you, though, Mr. Secretary, you know, you talk a 
little about the Taliban legitimacy, and we are going to see 
how they act. I want to ask you a question because I am not 
sure where that changed. At the beginning of all of this, we 
were talking about building a worldwide coalition to not 
recognize the Taliban, and all of a sudden this is on the 
table.
    Is the Taliban the legitimate government of Afghanistan; 
and if not, would you consider what the Taliban have done in 
Afghanistan to be a coup d'etat?
    Secretary Blinken. First, let me just start by thanking you 
for your strong words in support of the men and women of the 
State Department. I very much appreciate them and appreciate 
you saying them.
    Second, with regard to the Taliban and your question, it is 
the de facto government of Afghanistan. Those are just the 
facts and----
    Mr. Kinzinger. I do not mean to interrupt, but I need to. 
Has there been any discussion of an Afghan government in exile 
with the Vice-President? Even if the President had left, is 
there any discussion of that? Because this, to me, appears to 
be an armed military coup against the legitimate elected 
government of Afghanistan.
    Secretary Blinken. Congressman, I will certainly look to 
see what the lawyers say. From where I sit, this is the product 
alas of one side getting the upper hand in a civil war.
    Mr. Kinzinger. Let me ask a couple of questions here on 
something too about that. So if we look at the list of new key 
players in the regime, we have the current Prime Minister, who 
was deputy during the 9/11 attacks, the current Deputy Prime 
Minister, who served as No. 2 defense official during the 9/11 
attacks. The current Foreign Minister, who is your counterpart, 
was the Minister of Culture and Information during the 9/11 
attacks. And we have designated terrorists in key positions, 
like those that are responsible for preventing Afghanistan from 
becoming a safe haven in terror once again.
    So we look at that list and we see those individuals who 
not only defended al-Qaeda but have committed crimes against 
women and vulnerable populations, and I think anybody would 
look at that and say this is the same regime that failed to 
hand over Osama bin Laden 20 years ago.
    But let me just ask you, have these individuals committed 
to denouncing al-Qaeda, to denouncing the Haqqani Network, and 
ensuring that they will execute any attacks against them should 
they try to organize in their territory?
    Secretary Blinken. Well, in the agreement that was secured 
by the previous administration, the Taliban, now represented by 
these individuals, made commitments not to allow Afghanistan to 
be used as a launching ground for externally directed 
terrorism, whether by al-Qaeda or by anyone else.
    The big question now--and you are right to point to it--is 
whether they will make good on that commitment. But, of course, 
we cannot and will not rely on them to do that even as we 
insist that they do.
    Mr. Kinzinger. Let me ask you too--thank you, and I am 
sorry to cut you off.
    Secretary Blinken. No, please, go ahead.
    Mr. Kinzinger. Just a couple of quick points. No. 1, we 
would need--we absolutely have to be executing any attack 
against al-Qaeda that we can, where we see them form.
    And secondarily, because I am running out of time, let me 
stress to you the importance of State Department working hand-
in-hand in a public and private way with these NGO's, made up 
of former veterans, that are doing stuff that unfortunately the 
government can no longer do, and let me encourage you to give 
them top cover and work with them to provide the assets 
necessary to get these people out.
    Thank you, Mr. Chair and Mr. Secretary. I yield back.
    Secretary Blinken. Let me just say, I really appreciate you 
saying that and putting the spotlight on that, because veterans 
groups are doing remarkable work. We are in close contact with 
them. I met with about 75 veterans organizations and groups 
virtually about a week ago. We followed up with a number of 
other meetings, and we deeply appreciate the work that many 
veterans on this committee, as well as organizations are doing, 
and we are looking to work even more closely together on that. 
Thank you.
    Mr. Kinzinger. Good news.
    Chairman Meeks. I now recognize Representative David 
Cicilline of Rhode Island for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. You know, you 
explained that you inherited an agreement with a deadline but 
no plan, a backlog of 17,000 special immigrant visas, and a 
responsibility to evacuate safely both Americans and those who 
helped us in this effort.
    As a candidate, President Biden promised to end the war in 
Afghanistan, and he kept his word. I agree with him it was the 
right thing to do.
    And while today's hearing is focused on the U.S. 
withdrawal, I think it would be a mistake to lose sight of the 
misjudgments and lessons learned over the long arc of the past 
20 years. And I hope Congress will have an opportunity to do 
its own self-reflection.
    But I want to begin, Mr. Secretary, my question about the 
evacuation. You were cutoff when you were trying to explain the 
vetting process, and I wonder if you could quickly finish that 
answer about what the State Department did with respect to 
vetting people that were being evacuated out of Afghanistan.
    Secretary Blinken. Sure. And two things. And by the way, I 
very much agree with you, and I heard the chairman say at the 
outset that this committee, among other things, will be 
focusing on the 20-year history of our engagement in 
Afghanistan. And I think there are lots of lessons to be 
learned across the board, through every administration, 
including our own.
    With regard to the vetting, two things I would point out 
here. First, you know, we spent a lot of time talking about the 
special immigrant visa program and our commitment, and the 
commitment, I know, of so many members of this committee, to 
the Afghans who worked with us, who sit side by side with us, 
and the work that we did these first months of the 
administration to take a program that was in pretty much a dead 
stall and to put it into third, fourth----
    Mr. Cicilline. Okay. I do not want to be impolite, but if 
you could just quickly say what you did, because I know how 
thorough it was, I just----
    Secretary Blinken. Sure. Thank you. Simply put, when it 
comes to vetting people coming out of Afghanistan, they go to 
transit countries. We negotiated agreements with more than a 
dozen countries to transit Afghans at those countries, and we 
do security screenings there.
    We have sent Customs and Border Patrol agents to all of 
those countries. We have the law enforcement, intelligence, and 
security agencies all there doing vetting, biometrics, 
biographic information.
    Then they come to the United States. But before they are 
resettled anywhere, they are also at one of our military bases, 
and any vetting continues there.
    And under authorities that we have asked Congress for, 
including the ability for people who are resettled in a year's 
time to apply for a green card, the vetting and background 
authorities will continue so that if anything comes up, we can 
continue to do that.
    Mr. Cicilline. Great. Thank you. As you know, Mr. 
Secretary, the LGBTQI community in Afghanistan is extremely 
vulnerable to punitive actions from the Taliban. It is 
important, in my view, that we take steps to ensure that those 
who would be subjected to violence or worse because of their 
sexual orientation or gender identity are safe.
    The Council for Global Equality, the human rights campaign, 
and LGBTQI+ refugee support groups released a ten-point plan to 
protect Afghan LGBTQI refugees. My question is have you seen 
this plan? And if so, is the administration prepared to 
implement it, and is it consistent with the Presidential 
memorandum of early 2021 that speaks of the responsibility to 
help Afghan refugees that make it to neighboring States as 
outlined in that memorandum.
    Secretary Blinken. Well, thank you for rightly putting the 
spotlight on concerns about the LGBTQI+ community in 
Afghanistan and the particular threat they may find themselves 
under. This is something that we are focused on. I have not 
personally seen the report that you referred to. I am going to 
ask to see it. I am pretty sure that my team has, but I will 
take a look at that myself, and I thank you for sending it to 
us.
    Mr. Cicilline. Great. And I look forward to following up 
with you on that.
    And, finally, Mr. Secretary, the Brown University Cost of 
War Project has compiled a sobering list of figures as it 
relates to post 9/11 conflicts including Afghanistan, trillions 
of dollars spent, over 900,000 lives lost in Afghanistan, 2,641 
Americans, and 38 million people displaced around the world. 
And, Mr. Secretary, the war in Afghanistan went on, as you 
know, for 20 years, leading to extraordinary costs in terms of 
dollars spent, lives lost, and political capital expended.
    Taking stock of these costs, my question is, what do you 
think are the most important lessons after 20 years in 
Afghanistan and 20 years of post 9/11 conflict that we should 
learn?
    Secretary Blinken. I think all of us have to come together 
to do just that, to try to look at the lessons and then reflect 
those lessons in what we do together going forward. To my mind, 
at least, one of the lessons is while we are very effective at 
dealing with terrorist threats to our country and eliminating 
them, which we did very successfully in Afghanistan, the idea 
of using military force to try to remake a society is something 
that is beyond our means and beyond our capacity, and we need 
to think really hard about whether we want to engage in these 
enterprises going forward.
    You are right to point to the costs. Let me just say very 
quickly that I think that Brown study concluded that on the 
basis of about $2 trillion being spent on Afghanistan over the 
last 20 years when you include indirect costs, that averages 
out to $300 million a day for 20 years. And I know people will 
say, well, that wasn't the case the last year or so.
    But had we not ended the war and brought our people home, 
we would have had to have reupped it to deal with the renewed 
attacks by the Taliban, to deal with the onslaught nationwide. 
And those costs would have gone right back up again, and we 
have to ask ourselves very hard questions about whether that is 
the right way to spend our money.
    Mr. Cicilline. Thank you.
    Chairman Meeks. Thank you. The gentleman's time has 
expired.
    I now recognize Representative Lee Zeldin of New York for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Zeldin. Mr. Secretary, one of my colleagues claimed 
earlier in this hearing that the last administration's 
agreement with the Taliban was unconditional. That was false. 
In fact, you, sir, actually started to outline some of those 
conditions, and you were stopped. To recap, Mr. Secretary, the 
last administration's agreement with the Taliban was 
conditions-based, correct?
    Secretary Blinken. The conditions that you referred to 
included a commitment not to allow Afghanistan to harbor 
outwardly directed terrorists. Let me just be clear, though, in 
response to your question.
    Mr. Zeldin. The question is, it was a conditions-based 
agreement, correct?
    Secretary Blinken. Yes, except that those conditions were 
so loose, particularly with regard to commitments it made----
    Mr. Zeldin. You can criticize it all you want, Mr. 
Secretary. I just want you to answer the question.
    Next, are you aware that President Biden says in the 
transcript of his George Stephanopoulos interview that he would 
have withdrawn from Afghanistan regardless of that prior 
agreement?
    Secretary Blinken. Yes, that is right, but not necessarily 
in the time, place, and manner that we did which was imposed on 
us by that agreement.
    Mr. Zeldin. On July 8, as Congressman Issa referred to 
earlier in this hearing, President Biden said, quote, the 
likelihood that there is going to be the Taliban overrunning 
everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely. 
That is a very different prediction than what the U.S. 
intelligence community actually was saying.
    Mr. Secretary, where did the President get the highly 
unlikely intelligence estimate from?
    Secretary Blinken. As the intelligence community has 
actually said, including in the days leading up to the Taliban 
takeover, they were not and no one was predicting the rapid 
collapse of the government and the security forces. Throughout 
the year--throughout the year, the intelligence community 
looked at a range of scenarios, worst case to best case, about 
the durability, resiliency of the government security forces--
--
    Mr. Zeldin. Reclaiming my time. The question is, where did 
the President get highly unlikely from?
    Secretary Blinken. Again, based on what the intelligence 
community was saying and the military. The Chairman of the 
Joint Chiefs has said that no one anticipated that the 
government or the security forces would collapse in 11 days.
    Mr. Zeldin. Mr. Secretary, it would be good, though, if you 
were giving answers that were consistent with the answers that 
we were getting behind a closed door briefing that we had with 
you and others.
    What is the number of Americans who are in Afghanistan as 
of the last update you received?
    Secretary Blinken. Congressman, going back to this weekend, 
we had about 100 American citizens in contact with us who 
were--who seek to leave Afghanistan. Those are the Americans we 
are working with.
    Mr. Zeldin. Do you have an exact number?
    Secretary Blinken. I cannot give you an exact number. We 
were talking about this a little bit earlier. It is really a 
snapshot at any given moment because what happens is----
    Mr. Zeldin. That is why I asked you as of the last update 
you received.
    Secretary Blinken. As of the last update, it was about--
about 100.
    Mr. Zeldin. Okay. How many green card holders?
    Secretary Blinken. Green card holders is something that we 
do not track directly, so what we have done is we have 
solicited people, if they are green card holders, to let us 
know. I think the best estimates are that there are several 
thousand green card holders in Afghanistan.
    Mr. Zeldin. How many SIV applicants?
    Secretary Blinken. SIV applicants? Those are numbers that 
we are working on right now. As people come out of Afghanistan, 
some of them in the United States already, others at these 
transit points, we are collecting all of that information.
    The overwhelming majority of Afghans who have come out are 
Afghans who are at risk in one way or another. Some of them 
will be SIVs, applicants. Others will be people who are 
eligible for refugee visas. Still others will be at risk in 
some fashion. We are putting all those numbers together, and we 
should have that in the next couple of weeks.
    Mr. Zeldin. Yes. I mean, this was fatally flawed, poorly 
executed. We had the lost of U.S. servicemembers as a result. 
We should not have been operating off of an arbitrary July 31 
deadline.
    Instead, what we should have done was tell the Taliban that 
we are going to leave Afghanistan when we are done bringing 
last every American home, not operating off of some arbitrary 
date. We shouldn't have collapsed Bagram when we did. We 
shouldn't have been relying on the Taliban to provide security 
at the airport. We shouldn't have been allowing billions of 
dollars worth of U.S. weapons and equipment to get turned over 
to Afghanistan.
    You, the administration, should not have been lying and 
misleading the American public like the White House press 
secretary is standing out there to the press and to the 
American public and saying that Americans aren't stranded even 
though we all know that they are.
    And I am concerned that this administration with 
incompetency is exposing a vulnerability that other countries 
like we see North Korea now testing long-range missiles. We see 
Iran enhancing uranium enrichment.
    What happens when China and Russia and Hamas and Hezbollah 
and al-Qaeda and the Taliban--they continue to press forward 
because we have an administration that does not know how to 
confront an adversary, understanding that they do not respect 
weakness. They only respect strength. And it is so greatly 
unfortunate, the consequences, and I believe that you, sir, 
should resign. That would be leadership.
    I yield back.
    Secretary Blinken. To the contrary, Congressman, I believe 
that there is nothing that our strategic competitors like China 
or Russia or our adversaries like Iran, like North Korea would 
have liked more than for President Biden to have reupped the 
war in Afghanistan for another 5, 10, or 20 years, to be bogged 
down in that conflict, nothing they would have liked more.
    And we are now able as a result of the decision the 
President made that none of his predecessors made to end the 
war after 20 years, to ensure that a third generation of 
Americans did not have to go off and fight and die in 
Afghanistan while bringing 125,000 people out. We are now in a 
much better position to confront the challenges and threats 
that we actually face in 2021.
    Mr. Zeldin. This is the Democratic National Committee's----
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman's time has expired.
    I now recognize Representative Ami Bera of California, the 
chair of the Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, Central Asia, 
and Nonproliferation for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Bera. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, Mr. Secretary, once 
again, I want to reiterate our thanks as a committee for your 
appearing before us, answering all the questions and giving 
every member a chance. That is nothing something your 
predecessor did very easily.
    Look. I agree with President Biden's decision to withdraw. 
I think most of the American public agrees with that decision. 
I have sat in many hearings, sat in many classified and open 
briefings as we were looking at various scenarios of what that 
withdrawal looks like, what the capabilities of the Afghan 
government were. And, you know, unfortunately, the worst case 
scenario played out. And the images that we saw coming out of 
Afghanistan were painful, frankly, in the last few weeks of 
August.
    And I do think the men and women in the military and State 
Department in difficult circumstances stepped up. I do think 
the logistics of that airlift and getting the numbers of 
American citizens, visa holders, SIVs, vulnerable Afghans out 
in such a short period of time was remarkable.
    I think we all mourn the loss of life of Afghan civilians 
but also the 13 men and women serving our country and leading 
the mission. And there will be time to go through and do the 
oversight and get a sense of where did our estimates go wrong, 
where were the flaws.
    But at this moment in time, knowing that we still have 
American citizens there, knowing that we still have vulnerable 
Afghans and so forth, I really do want our focus to be getting 
those folks to safety, the visa holders, the SIVs, and others.
    I will not ask you to guarantee a commitment that you will 
get everyone out. Nobody can make that promise. But what I will 
ask is working with my office, working with the various 
congressional offices, the men and women of the State 
Department, that we will use every resource that we can in a 
difficult situation, in a challenging security situation on the 
ground to do the best job possible to get every American 
citizen, visa holder, SIV, and vulnerable Afghan out to safety. 
Can I get that promise that we will do that?
    Secretary Blinken. Absolutely. You have that commitment, 
and I welcome working with every member of this committee to do 
just that.
    Mr. Bera. Great. Thank you. And your staff, and again, the 
men and women within the State Department and elsewhere, again, 
in trying circumstances have been very readily available to 
work with us. You know, again, we have submitted over 10,000 
names of folks just given the size of our population in the 
community.
    Second, and we haven't talked about this, is, as I 
mentioned earlier, we have the largest Afghan refugee 
population in the country, and we are proud of that, you know. 
We have welcomed these men and women. We have got great 
resettlement agencies that are working with folks, but we have 
also got real challenges just because of the rapidity of folks 
leaving country and arriving after being vetted in the United 
States.
    Many of these folks now are coming as humanitarian parolees 
under a visa status that does not necessarily have the 
resources that are available. I know we will be working on a 
budget supplement to help provide the resources to get medical 
resources, get visa resources, and ramp up your staffing of the 
State Department to process these refugees.
    I would hope that the men and women on this committee, 
Democrat, Republican, as well as everyone in the House and 
Senate overwhelmingly support the supplemental requests that 
will be coming hopefully within the next few weeks to provide 
those resources.
    It is the one thing when I talk to our veterans community, 
and, you know, many that have served in Afghanistan and are, 
you know, wondering about that service, the one thing we can to 
make them whole is to welcome these folks that, you know, 
served them, worked with them side by side and often saved 
their lives and really do everything we can to get those folks 
to safety. Those that are coming to the United States, to help 
them reassemble our lives.
    So, you know, Mr. Secretary, I would imagine that 
supplemental is coming. We have already heard some top line 
numbers the President has asked for. Are there specifics that, 
you know, from your vantage point that the men and women who 
work for you that you see on that horizon?
    Secretary Blinken. Yes. Thank you so much for flagging 
that. Let me just say very quickly yes. We are going to be 
looking for support from all of you on this and particularly a 
few things for Afghans who are paroled into the United States 
to receive the same benefits that refugees do so that they have 
some ongoing support, the ability to work in the United States, 
HHS benefits that they wouldn't otherwise get.
    We would also like them to be able to apply for a green 
card after 1 year of being in the United States. And there is 
some significant funds that will be requested to support both 
the efforts that we have already made at the different transit 
points where we have incurred significant expenses a well as to 
continue to relocate people, to bring them to transit points 
into the United States, process them, et cetera.
    So that is coming, and in fact, we need to get this done 
quickly in the CR, I think, so we have just a few weeks to do 
it, and I really welcome your support and everyone's support 
for that. Thank you.
    Chairman Meeks. I now recognize Representative Ann Wagner 
of Missouri who is the Vice Ranking Member of the full 
committee for 5 minutes.
    Mrs. Wagner. Secretary Blinken, I represent the people of 
Missouri's Second congressional District, and today I am also 
here on behalf of the family of Lance Corporal Jared Schmitz of 
our region. Let me tell you about this heroic and selfless 
young man.
    Lance Corporal Schmitz from Wentzville, Missouri, was 20 
years old when he lost his life at the terrorist attack at the 
airport in Kabul just days before Joe Biden's arbitrary 
deadline of August 31. He was passionate about his military 
service. He was totally committed to making a difference as a 
U.S. Marine and had gotten his parents' permission to enlist at 
just 17 years old.
    I do not believe that this hearing will allow us to truly 
understand why he and his fellow military servicemen and women 
were killed on August 26 of 2021. His family, their families, 
and all Americans deserve answers, sir.
    I am outraged to hear this administration claim its retreat 
from Afghanistan, its surrender was a success. How could anyone 
say that 13 precious young men and women lost their lives is a 
success? I am not asking for my own peace of mind. I am asking 
on behalf of the families that are burying their sons and their 
daughters this week, and they deserve accountability, and they 
deserve transparency, and they deserve answers.
    The Biden Administration outsourced the security of our 
military stationed at the Kabul airport to the Taliban. It was 
a total betrayal. He put the lives of our men and women in the 
hands of a brutal terrorist organization after you claimed that 
the Taliban would never even be in charge of the country. Then 
he said they would never be in charge of Kabul. He said we 
would never leave Americans and allies behind. It was lie after 
lie.
    President Biden wanted out at any cost, and that cost sir, 
was 13 American lives and $85 billion in equipment, our Bagram 
Air Base, our United States embassy, our credibility with the 
allies and the Afghans who stood and fought with us, and our 
national security and safety of our homeland. Make no mistake, 
Mr. Secretary. The Biden Administration's egregiously inept 
withdrawal has left America and the world a much less safe 
place 20 years after September 11.
    Secretary Blinken, will you honor these families and give 
the American people the answers they deserve in the wake of 
this ongoing disaster? Who will be held accountable?
    In your opening statement, you said the Taliban. You said 
several times the Taliban made it clear that we had to 
withdraw. The Taliban made it clear, or they would escalate. 
Now, we hear in testimony President Putin was dictating our 
counterintelligence. And you tell us NATO made us do it. Trump 
made us do it.
    The Taliban made it clear. Do you take any responsibility, 
Secretary Blinken, for this disastrous withdrawal, or do you 
still want to call it a success?
    Secretary Blinken. Congresswoman, I am responsible for the 
decisions that I make. I am responsible for the actions of the 
State Department. I am responsible for looking at any lessons 
to be taken from those decisions and those actions. I am also 
responsible for being accountable for those decisions and 
actions.
    Mrs. Wagner. I asked you a simple question.
    Secretary Blinken. If you will let me answer, please.
    Mrs. Wagner. Reclaiming my time.
    Secretary Blinken. The way that I am accountable is doing 
exactly what I am doing today which is to you and through you 
to the American people hold myself accountable for those 
decisions and we made the right decision in ending America's 
longest war.
    We made the right decision in not sending a third 
generation of Americans to fight and die in Afghanistan. We did 
the right thing by our citizens and working feverishly to get 
every one of them out. We did the right thing by 125,000 
Afghans to bring them to safety.
    And now we are working to do the right thing to hold the 
Taliban to the expectations of the international community to 
ensure people can continue to travel freely, to ensure that the 
rights of Afghans are upheld, to ensure that they make good on 
commitments they have made on counterterrorism. That is what we 
are doing.
    Mrs. Wagner. I hope you plan----
    Mr. Malinowski [presiding]. The gentlewoman's time has 
expired.
    I now recognize Representative Castro of Texas for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Castro. Thank you, Chairman, and thank you, Secretary, 
for your testimony today. Thank you for your work and the work 
of the many very devoted employees at the State Department.
    And I want to talk to you for a second about a way that 
Congress can be helpful in that work. Secretary Blinken, the 9/
11 Commission's report held that only 56 percent of the Bush 
Administration's senior National Security positions were filled 
at the beginning of September 2001, impeding its ability to 
respond to crises.
    Today, only 26 percent of the State Department's Senate 
confirmed positions are filled. This isn't because President 
Biden has not presented nominees. It is because a single 
Senator has thrown a tantrum and blocked these nominees from 
getting a vote and prevented national security positions from 
being filled. So I am going to ask you a few yes or no 
questions regarding very important staffing at the State 
Department.
    Do we have a Senate confirmed Assistant Secretary of State 
for Conflict and Stabilization Operations who would inform U.S. 
policy in war zones like Afghanistan?
    Secretary Blinken. We do not.
    Mr. Castro. Do we have a Senate confirmed Assistant 
Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs who 
would cover Afghanistan?
    Secretary Blinken. We do not.
    Mr. Castro. Do we have a Senate confirmed Assistant 
Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs who would 
guide U.S. policy toward China, a country deeply involved in 
south Asia?
    Secretary Blinken. We do not.
    Mr. Castro. For African affairs.
    Secretary Blinken. We do not.
    Mr. Castro. European and Eurasian affairs.
    Secretary Blinken. We do not.
    Mr. Castro. Western hemisphere affairs.
    Secretary Blinken. We do not.
    Mr. Castro. International organization affairs, 
international narcotics and law enforcement affairs, and 
educational and cultural affairs.
    Secretary Blinken. We do not.
    Mr. Castro. For each of these positions, President Biden 
has nominated a candidate. The candidate has testified in front 
of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, been vetted and 
recommended by that committee for a vote, only to be delayed by 
a hold by Senator Ted Cruz of my home state of Texas. This has 
delayed many other positions as well and is denying you the 
team you need to advance our Nation's interests abroad and 
protect our own national security.
    Despite this, the State Department rose to the occasion. 
Over 120,000 people were successfully evacuated from 
Afghanistan in a short period of time in one of the biggest 
humanitarian operations the United States has ever seen. But 
the work continues and having seen--having Senate confirmed 
people in these positions will be critical as we marshal our 
allies for what comes next in Afghanistan.
    And I want to ask you, Mr. Secretary, as you have done this 
very hard work, and your people at the department are stretched 
thin because the Senate has not confirmed these nominees, what 
would you say to Senator Cruz who is singlehandedly blocking 
key national security appointments and jeopardizing our 
national security?
    Secretary Blinken. Look. I would just simply ask the 
Senator and ask the Senate to move forward in confirming our 
nominees, virtually all of whom went through the Senate Foreign 
Relations Committee and were sent to the floor, and that is 
where they now lie.
    And to your point, we need all these people. We need them 
to do the business of the United States. We need them to 
advance the interests of the United States, especially at this 
critical time, so I hope very much that we can work through 
this very, very quickly, and I would hope that the Senate can 
get our nominees confirmed.
    Mr. Castro. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I am going to ask 
another question on Pakistan, and you may have to take it, some 
of it for the record, but I want to get to the question real 
quick.
    Secretary Blinken. Sure.
    Mr. Castro. I want to followup on Rep Keating's line of 
questioning about Pakistan. As you just noted, over the years, 
Pakistan has harbored Taliban leaders and provided other forms 
of support to the group. As my colleague noted, Pakistan's 
leader cheered the Taliban taking over Afghanistan. You began 
discussing what we will be looking at with Pakistan moving 
forward.
    And on that note, Pakistan is currently a major non NATO 
ally of the United States, giving it a number of benefits, 
including privileged access to U.S. arms sales.
    And so based on their past actions, our conversation today, 
all of it, I want to ask you. Given its long-time support for 
the Taliban, is it time for the United States to reassess its 
relationship with Pakistan and reassess its status as a major 
non NATO ally?
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you. For the reasons you have 
cited, as well as others, this is one of the things that we are 
going to be looking at in the days and weeks ahead, the role 
that Pakistan has played over the last 20 years, but also the 
role that we would want to see it play in the coming years and 
what it will take for it to do that.
    Mr. Castro. Thank you.
    I yield back, chairman.
    Mr. Meeks [presiding]. The gentleman's time has expired. I 
now recognize Mr. Brian Mast of Florida for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Mast. Mr. Secretary, as the transcript, the leaked 
transcript, as you referred to it says, did President Biden 
work with the coward, exiled president of Afghanistan to 
manipulate the intelligence about the Taliban?
    Secretary Blinken. What the President said to president--
then President Ghani in private is exactly what he said in 
public, that the issue was not whether Afghanistan had the 
capacity to withstand the Taliban. It is whether it had the 
will and the plan to do so. He urged him to have that plan----
    Mr. Mast. Is the transcript wrong? It is incorrect?
    Secretary Blinken [continuing]. And to bring people 
together in unity.
    Mr. Mast. Are you saying it is false, it is a lie, it is 
incorrect? He did not work to tamp down the intelligence on the 
Taliban.
    Secretary Blinken. Absolutely not.
    Mr. Mast. So the transcript is incorrect. That is your 
testimony today.
    Secretary Blinken. The intelligence that we had, we have 
already discussed at some length about what the assessments 
were of the Taliban and its capacity to take over the country.
    Mr. Mast. I think that everybody looking for an explanation 
about what happened and how everybody got it so wrong, how your 
administration got it so wrong needs to look at that as the 
most likely explanation, asking the President to manipulate the 
intelligence of what was actually going on with the Taliban. 
And I am going to tell you. The 13 families that deserve most 
to really hear the honest answers on that, it is these 
families.
    Marine Lance Corporal Kareem Nakoui. His family deserves to 
truly know that. Marine Corporal Daegan Page. His family truly 
deserves to know if that is why they are missing their son 
because intelligence was manipulated. Marine Lance Corporal 
Rylee McCollum, 20, wife expecting their first child, sister 
said he was going to be the best dad ever. They deserve to know 
if that is what happened, and that is why everything went so 
wrong. Marine Sergeant Nicole Gee, 23 years old. You can see 
her there holding a young child. Her family deserves to know if 
that is why everything went so wrong because that intelligence 
was manipulated.
    Marine Lance Corporal David Espinoza, just 20 years old, 
family deserves to know if that is why everything went so wrong 
is because the intelligence was manipulated. Marine Corporal 
Humberto Sanchez, just 22 years old, mother said my kid was a 
hero. That is what was said. That is what his mother said. 
Deserves to know if that is why everything went so wrong 
because the intelligence got manipulated.
    Marine Lance Corporal Jared Schmitz, just 20 years old. His 
family deserves to know if that is why everything went so 
wrong. Marine Corporal Hunter Lopez, just 22, son of two 
sheriffs, planned to follow in their footsteps. Their family 
deserves to know if that is why everything went so wrong is 
because you all worked to manipulate the intelligence of what 
was going on on the ground there.
    Marine Corps Staff Sergeant Darin Hoover. His family said, 
I love you, son. Check in on us. We will try to make you proud. 
They deserve to know if that is what happened, if that is how 
everything went so wrong in Afghanistan. Marine Corps Sergeant 
Johanny Rosario-Pichardo. Her family deserves to know if that 
is why everything went so wrong because you all worked to 
manipulate the intelligence of what was going on with the 
Taliban.
    Marine Lance Corporal Dylan Merola, just 20. The family 
said he always had a smile on his face, was the kindest person. 
They deserve to know if that is why everything went so wrong 
because you all manipulated intelligence. Army Staff Sergeant 
Ryan Knauss. The ultimate honor he could give was to give back 
to his country. He would not be sorry. He would not regret it. 
That is what his family said. They deserve to know if you 
manipulated intelligence, if President Biden manipulated 
intelligence, and that is what led to everything going so 
wrong.
    Navy Corpsman Maxton Soviak, just 22. His family deserves 
to know if that is why everything went so wrong. We deserve 
hearings on what is going on with that leaked transcript. We 
deserve to know why there are others that remain in 
Afghanistan. Mark Frerichs, Navy veteran, disappeared in Coast 
Province January 30 of 2020. We deserve to know what is going 
on with his release.
    These are things that have to be answered for. I do not 
believe whatsoever what you are saying about the administration 
not working to manipulate that intelligence.
    To me, that is the most logical, the most logical 
explanation of how so many in the intelligence community got 
this so wrong about what was going to happen in Afghanistan. 
Why would it seem somehow logical for President Biden to leave 
the, quote, most advanced military weaponry, why some would not 
speak out against that. If they were getting the false 
intelligence because it was coming from the top down, to 
manipulate it, in my opinion, that is absolutely aid and 
comfort to the enemy.
    I absolutely wonder if you were complicit in this as well. 
I find it hard to believe that President Biden would do that 
without you being aware of this, and these are things that we 
deserve to know, better answers, have better hearings on this. 
I do not believe a word that you are saying on this.
    Secretary Blinken. Simply put----
    Mr. Mast. I do not wish to hear from you. I am----
    Secretary Blinken. Simply put, Congressman, what you have 
said is dead wrong.
    Mr. Mast. Reclaiming my time. I do not wish to hear--from 
you. You tell lies every time you are in front of the cameras--
--
    Secretary Blinken. There was no manipulation of 
intelligence, period. You have all been regularly apprised of 
the intelligence assessments all the way through over these 
many months--this is not true.
    Mr. Mast. I am not looking to hear----
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Mast. And so has the Secretary's.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Mast. And so has the Secretary's.
    Chairman Meeks. The Secretary can answer the question.
    Mr. Mast. I did not ask him a question.
    Chairman Meeks. You did ask a question.
    Mr. Mast. I do not want to hear from the Secretary.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Mast. He lies every time he steps in front of the 
camera. That is what he does----
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman's time has expired. Mr. 
Secretary--the gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Mast [continuing]. Least believable thing I have ever 
heard.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Mast. People need to use common sense in this area.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman's time has expired. We are 
here to hear from the secretary.
    Mr. Mast. Not to Hear lies.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Secretary, if you wish, you may answer the question.
    Mr. Mast. We do not need to hear lies.
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just to respond 
briefly, what the Congressman said is simply wrong, period.
    Second. I think virtually every member of this committee 
has had access to or been apprised of the intelligence 
assessments throughout the year. And you know what they were; 
you know what they are. And we will continue to provide those 
assessments and those briefings in the weeks and months ahead.
    You have heard the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 
say that he has not seen anything that indicated to him or to 
anyone else that the Afghan government and military would 
collapse in 11 days. The Director of National Intelligence has 
said that even in the days leading up to the Taliban takeover, 
intelligence agencies did not say collapse was imminent.
    This unfolded more quickly than we anticipated including in 
the intelligence community, and I could go on. So what has been 
said and alleged is simply not true.
    Mr. Mast. And that would be----
    Chairman Meeks. I now recognize the gentlewoman from 
Nevada.
    Mr. Mast. President Biden specifically----
    Chairman Meeks. The Representative from Nevada is now 
recognized for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Mast. It makes sense. That is why it all adds up.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman's time has expired----
    Mr. Mast. Mr. Chairman, he definitely proved the point.
    Chairman Meeks [continuing]. The gentleman will cease 
immediately.
    Mr. Mast. He definitely proved the point. Thank you.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman will cease immediately.
    Mr. Mast. Well, he proved the point. Thank you for letting 
him prove it. I appreciate that.
    Chairman Meeks. I now recognize the gentlelady from Nevada, 
Ms.--Representative Dina Titus, for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Titus. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. 
Secretary for being here. I would like to go back to a point 
made by Mr. Connolly on the Doha agreement.
    I wonder if you would discuss for us what impact you think 
that agreement may have had on the morale of the Afghan defense 
forces and on the unity of the Afghan government.
    Secretary Blinken. Well, that agreement committed the 
United States to leave Afghanistan by may 1 of this year, and 
so that certainly factored into the thinking and concerns of 
the Afghan government and of the Afghan security forces. The 
extent of that impact, hard to know for sure, but certainly 
that had to factor into their thinking as well as into their 
concerns.
    Ms. Titus. I believe so, and it let to that perhaps quicker 
than realized collapse that occurred that we did not 
anticipate.
    I have got just a couple of other questions. We have been 
hearing about domestic and foreign journalists being abused by 
the Taliban and also some of the NGO or healthcare workers or 
just nongovernment humanitarian workers.
    I wonder if there is anything going on, any talks between 
the U.S. and any of our international partners of how to defend 
them, to be assured that they are able to continue their work 
once we are gone.
    Secretary Blinken. Yes. Very much so. Two things. One, we 
have been working very hard to make sure that basic 
humanitarian assistance can still get into Afghanistan, working 
with and through NGO's, working with and through the United 
Nations agencies, and also putting in place mechanisms to make 
sure that that assistance is used in the way we intend it to be 
used, that is, to the benefit of the Afghan people, the 
recipients, not the Taliban-led government.
    Second. We have been working full time around the world to 
bring country after country on board with the expectations that 
we are setting of the conduct of a Taliban-led government to 
include upholding the basic rights of the Afghan people, to 
include women and minorities, and we have put in place a U.N. 
Security Council resolution setting those expectations.
    More than 100 countries around the world led by our efforts 
to sign onto that, and to the extent that the Taliban is 
looking for any kind of legitimacy or any kind of support from 
the international community, that will not be forthcoming in 
any fashion if it is not making good on those basic 
expectations and on commitments it itself has made.
    So going forward, its conduct will define its relationship 
with the rest of the world.
    Ms. Titus. Thank you. They seek to be legitimate, I know, 
but in the meantime, one of the challenges they are facing, of 
course, is the economy, and that is not new. That existed under 
the Ghani government. But we see Pakistan and China rapidly 
positioning themselves to kind of take advantage of this 
destabilized economy.
    I wonder how that is going to impact the U.S. and U.S.-
international relations, especially in light of the World Bank 
and the International Monetary Fund freezing distributions of 
funds to Afghanistan. Could you maybe talk about that?
    Secretary Blinken. Yes. You are certainly right to point to 
that, and the fact of the matter is, though, that there is a 
Security Council resolution that should also bind Russia and 
China in their conduct going forward.
    The international community over the last years was 
providing every year about 75 percent of the Afghan 
government's budget. Needless to say, that has been frozen.
    Virtually all of Afghanistan's foreign reserves are here in 
the United States. They are frozen. International financial 
institutions are not going forward with their own assistance or 
the ability for Afghanistan to engage in international 
financial transactions.
    And so all of that is on the ledger when it comes to what 
we can do to have the Taliban meet the expectations that have 
been set by the international community when it comes to how it 
conducts itself.
    Ms. Titus. Well, thank you, Mr. Secretary.
    I yield back.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentlelady yields back.
    I now recognize Representative Brian Fitzpatrick of 
Pennsylvania who is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on 
Europe, Energy, and the Environment and Cyber for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Fitzpatrick. Mr. Secretary, just to get to the core of 
what your philosophy is on national and international security, 
sir, do you believe in the maxim and the precept of the 
stronger that we exert ourselves overseas, the safer we are 
here in America, i.e., peace through strength?
    Secretary Blinken. I believe first the stronger we are at 
home, the stronger we are going to be overseas, and that 
requires unity. It requires coming together. It requires making 
investments in ourselves. And I hope we can see those forward 
together.
    Second. To your point around the world, it requires 
absolutely having the strongest military and defense in the 
world, but it also requires using all the tools at our disposal 
to include our diplomacy, to include our economic tools, to 
include political tools, cultural tools. All of that is in the 
mix, and all of that defines our strength in the world.
    Mr. Fitzpatrick. Mr. Secretary, do you believe that what 
the world witnessed over the past several weeks in Afghanistan 
was American strength?
    Secretary Blinken. I believe that what the world witnessed 
was the President ending a war that had gone on for 20 years, 
making sure----
    Mr. Fitzpatrick. But did they witness American strength in 
the past few weeks.
    Secretary Blinken. They witnessed an extraordinary effort 
that no other country could or would have made under the most 
extreme conditions in bringing 125,000 people out to safety, in 
making sure that we stood by our allies and partners and 
helping them to get out as well. And things we have heard from 
allies and partners around the world is no other country could 
or would have done what we did.
    Mr. Fitzpatrick. Mr. Secretary, I recently left Ukraine 
just a few days ago. I returned, and my next step----
    Chairman Meeks. Just hold off 1 second. We are having 
technical problems. I do not see the Secretary that is on. We 
should be able to see him visually. And I want to make sure you 
get all of the time to ask the questions that you are putting 
forward and his response.
    Secretary Blinken. Mr. Chairman, can you hear me?
    Chairman Meeks. We hear you, Mr. Secretary, but we do not 
see you.
    Secretary Blinken. Yes. It looks like the image is frozen 
here, so let's see if we can----
    Chairman Meeks. Yes. Let's see if we can fix that. The 
technical staff is working on that. I want to make sure Mr. 
Fitzgerald gets the--all of the time. Mr. Fitzpatrick. Mr. 
Fitzpatrick.
    Secretary Blinken. How is that, Mr. Chairman?
    Chairman Meeks. Okay. I do not have a visual of the 
Secretary. Now--Okay.
    Mr. Fitzpatrick. I reclaim my time, sir.
    Chairman Meeks. Yes. Let's give Mr. Fitzpatrick--how much 
time when I stopped him?
    Voice. 4 minutes and 10 seconds.
    Chairman Meeks. No, when I stopped--continue the questions 
that you had asked. When I stopped, 4 minutes? Okay. We can 
resume.
    Mr. Fitzpatrick. Mr. Secretary, I just returned from 
Ukraine 2 days ago. My next stop would be Taiwan. Sir, these 
people are scared to death. They are scared to death.
    So can we get you on the record today, sir, to tell this 
committee, this Congress, and our Nation that we will 
unequivocally and unapologetically do whatever it takes, 
whatever it takes to have the backs of our friends in Ukraine 
and our friends in Taiwan?
    Our friends in Ukraine in the event of Russia aggression, 
our friends in Taiwan in the event of Chinese aggression.
    Secretary Blinken. Absolutely. We stand by our commitments 
to both countries.
    Mr. Fitzpatrick. And we will do whatever it takes to defend 
them.
    Secretary Blinken. We will stand by our commitments. We 
will stand by our commitments to Taiwan under the Taiwan 
Relations Act. We will stand by the commitments we have to 
Ukraine, including, by the way, commitments that the President 
and President Zelensky discussed and put out just about a week, 
maybe 2 weeks ago, during----
    Mr. Fitzpatrick. Sir, I can tell you. I just left there. 
They are scared to death, and they question the commitment of 
this country. So I will take you at your word that we will do 
whatever it takes to defend Taiwan and Ukraine.
    Next question. Not talking about the arms and munitions; I 
am talking about the heavy equipment, the tanks, the Humvees, 
the Blackhawk helicopters, the aircraft. Sir, all of this is 
GPS tracked. We can identify this, where it is at. Why did we 
not destroy it or do not we destroy it now?
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you. So let me say this: I know my 
colleagues from the Defense Department, the Joint Chiefs, et 
cetera, will have an opportunity to speak to you, to speak to 
Congress in the weeks ahead. They are the experts on this.
    Since 2004, roughly, something like $80 billion in defense 
articles was provided to Afghanistan, so that goes back over 
the last roughly 16 years.
    Mr. Fitzpatrick. Sir, I am only asking about the GPS 
tracking. We know the location of this equipment that we have 
now seen fall into the hands of terrorists. Are we going to 
destroy it or not?
    Secretary Blinken. So much of this--much of this equipment 
is either inoperable or will soon be inoperable because it 
cannot be maintained. As I've seen it, based on what I have 
heard from my colleagues, there is nothing of strategic value 
that would threaten us or threaten Afghanistan's neighbors. 
Having said that, I am not the expert on this, and I would 
really defer to my colleagues at the Pentagon.
    Mr. Fitzpatrick. Mr. Secretary, do you believe that America 
should ever in any way capitulate to terrorists?
    Secretary Blinken. Absolutely not.
    Mr. Fitzpatrick. Do you believe, sir, that allowing the 
Taliban to run perimeter HKIA with American troops on the 
inside of that perimeter relying on the Taliban to keep ISIS 
out and American citizens, passport holders on the outside the 
perimeter relying on the Taliban to get in, that that is 
capitulating to terrorists?
    Secretary Blinken. The reality is that the government and 
Afghan national security forces collapsed. The reality is that 
the Taliban took over Kabul as well as much of the country. 
That was the reality we were dealing with. And the judgment of 
all of us, starting with our military commanders, including the 
people on the ground, was that our job was to work to get as 
many people out as possible, American citizens, Afghans at 
risk.
    And because the Taliban controlled the city, that required 
some coordination with them to get people through and to the 
airport.
    Mr. Fitzpatrick. Sir, to an 18-year-old Afghani girl who 
may be watching this hearing today, who was born after 9/11, 
who knows nothing of what it is like to live under Taliban 
rule, who had hopes and dreams, who is in school, who wanted to 
be a female journalist, to help women and young girls rise up 
in Afghanistan, who now feels betrayed by the actions of this 
administration, what is your message to her?
    Secretary Blinken. I spoke to a number of young Afghan 
women including 18, 19, 21-year-olds just about a week ago in 
Doha. Actually in Ramstein, Germany----
    Mr. Fitzpatrick. Do you believe their lives----
    Secretary Blinken [continuing]. Where many were relocated. 
And we talked about their futures. We talked about the futures 
of Afghan women and girls who were living in Afghanistan.
    Mr. Fitzpatrick. Under the Taliban.
    Secretary Blinken. And we talked about the ongoing 
commitment that the United States has and countries around the 
world have to do everything we can to support those women and 
girls going forward.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman's time has expired.
    I now recognize representative Ted Lieu of California for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Lieu. Thank you, Chairman Meeks, and thank you, 
Secretary Blinken, for your public service.
    When I served on active duty in the United States Air 
Force, I participated in Operation Pacific Haven where we 
airlifted thousands and thousands of Kurds out of northern Iraq 
because Saddam Hussein was going to go in and kill them. We 
worked with the State Department, other U.S. agencies, and it 
was a very difficult mission.
    So I want to commend you and the State Department and all 
the U.S. personnel who executed an evacuation of over 120,000 
people under immense danger. That was a remarkable feat that 
all of you did, and I also want to honor the 13 Marines that 
gave their lives and service to our country.
    What I would like to ask you about is the document that 
started all of this, the February 29 document, 2020. That 
document was negotiated by the Trump administration with the 
Taliban, correct?
    Secretary Blinken. That is correct.
    Mr. Lieu. The Trump administration signed that document, 
correct?
    Secretary Blinken. That is correct.
    Mr. Lieu. And under that document, it had a very specific 
date for withdrawal of all U.S. forces. Isn't that right?
    Secretary Blinken. That is correct.
    Mr. Lieu. I am going to read you what the document says 
because I think my Republican colleagues need to hear this and 
the American people.
    On the very first page of the February 29, 2020, agreement 
that the Trump administration signed with the Taliban, it 
states, the United States is committed to withdraw from 
Afghanistan all military forces of the United States, its 
allies and coalition partners, including all non diplomatic 
civilian personnel, private security contractors, trainers and 
advisors, and supporting services personnel within 14 months 
following announcement of this agreement.
    That is a very specific timeline, isn't it?
    Secretary Blinken. It is.
    Mr. Lieu. In fact, it gets even more specific. It says that 
in the first 135 days, the United States, its allies, and the 
coalition will withdraw all their forces from five military 
bases.
    Did Donald Trump do that?
    Secretary Blinken. He did.
    Mr. Lieu. In fact, when you read this document, let's just 
be clear. This is a surrender document. Donald Trump 
surrendered to the Taliban, and he said we are leaving 
Afghanistan. We are not coming back, and we are not going to 
fight you any more.
    Now, our Republican colleagues want to say that somehow it 
is conditions based, and did you notice that earlier, they did 
not want you to talk about the conditions because the main 
condition is that the Taliban was going to stop attacking U.S. 
forces. Isn't that correct.
    Secretary Blinken. That is correct.
    Mr. Lieu. Do you know how many U.S. forces died in the 
first year of the Trump presidency in 2017, Secretary Blinken? 
Approximately 14. Do you know how many died in 2018, the second 
year of the Trump presidency, how many U.S. forces died in 
Afghanistan? Approximately 14. In 2019, the third year of the 
Trump presidency, do you know many U.S. forces died in 
Afghanistan? Approximately 21. And the Republican colleagues 
say hey, for a whole year and a half, U.S. forces did not die. 
That is because the Taliban stopped attacking U.S. forces 
because of this agreement. Isn't that right?
    Secretary Blinken. That is correct.
    Mr. Lieu. And if the Biden Administration has somehow said, 
hey, just kidding, we are not leaving Afghanistan. We are going 
to renege on this agreement, the Taliban would have started 
attacking U.S. forces again. Isn't that correct?
    Secretary Blinken. That is correct.
    Mr. Lieu. And, in fact, Donald Trump withdrew over 15,000 
U.S. troops at the height in Afghanistan during his presidency 
down to 2,500 by the time President Biden inherited office. 
Isn't that right?
    Secretary Blinken. Yes, that is about right. I think he had 
about 13,500 when the administration started down to 2,500 when 
the administration ended.
    Mr. Lieu. So Donald Trump executed not only the surrender 
agreement but also 70 to 80 percent of the surrender of the 
withdrawal, and he left you all with merely 2,500 U.S. troops. 
And the Taliban was still meeting their condition of not 
attacking U.S. forces. Isn't that right?
    Secretary Blinken. That is correct.
    Mr. Lieu. They literally put in a box that you had to 
withdraw all U.S. forces, or else they essentially would start 
attacking our forces again. Isn't that right?
    Secretary Blinken. Attacking our forces and engaging in an 
offensive against Afghanistan cities which they had refrained 
from.
    Mr. Lieu. And the reason we know intelligence wasn't 
manipulated is because the Trump administration, in fact, would 
not have agreed to a specific date certain of the withdrawal of 
all U.S. forces if they knew the Afghan government would 
collapse in 11 days after that. Isn't that right?
    Secretary Blinken. That is certainly--it stands to reason.
    Mr. Lieu. In fact, it was a bipartisan, you can call it not 
understanding what is happening in Afghanistan, but it was 
happening over 20 years, isn't that right? That we were gets 
rosy assessments on a bipartisan basis that turned out not to 
be all that accurate.
    Secretary Blinken. I believe that is correct, and certainly 
I saw that from my previous service in government.
    Mr. Lieu. Right. So let's just be clear here. It was Donald 
Trump who signed and negotiated the surrender agreement that, 
by the way, released 5,000 Taliban prisoners. Isn't that right?
    Secretary Blinken. It did release 5,000 prisoners, yes.
    Mr. Lieu. But Donald Trump, the administration signed this 
agreement, negotiated it, executed it, and then President Biden 
completed the withdrawal. That is what happened.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman's time has expired. The 
gentleman's time has expired.
    I now recognize Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee 
for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Burchett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is a picture of 
Staff Sergeant Ryan Knauss in my local paper, the Knoxville 
Focus. I want to read you something that his mama said this 
weekend at the funeral. He was a God loving man. He died 
helping people. He died doing what he loved to do.
    My constituent, Staff Sergeant Ryan Knauss, he was one of 
the 13 souls lost while allowing over 100,000 people to escape 
the Taliban. Sadly, the death of Sergeant Knauss and his fellow 
heroes I feel like was entirely preventable. If your department 
and this administration had a plan and had not been caught flat 
footed in Afghanistan, there would have been no need to surge 
6,000 additional soldiers into the country to secure that 
airport.
    You have repeatedly stated that every contingency was 
planned for, but clearly, the rapid collapse of the Afghan 
government was something that you had not planned for. Their 
blood is on your hands and this administration, sir. I call on 
you to resign.
    And I yield the remainder of my time to Mark Green.
    Secretary Blinken. Congressman--may I respond, Mr. 
Chairman. May I respond, Mr. Chairman?
    Mr. Green. Mr. Chairman, he yielded to me. Can I go ahead?
    Mr. Burchett. I yielded to Mark Green, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Green. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman did yield his time back.
    I now recognize Representative Susan Wild of Pennsylvania.
    Mr. Burchett. No. I yielded----
    Mr. Green. He yielded to me, Mr. Chairman. He yielded his 
time to me.
    Chairman Meeks. Yes. You may proceed.
    Mr. Green. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Secretary, yes or no, and I do mean yes or no. Is the 
Taliban a terrorist organization?
    Secretary Blinken. The Taliban has been designated as a 
terrorist organization. That is correct.
    Mr. Green. And are you aware that the news reports last 
week show that the Taliban has already set up a school to teach 
suicide bombers? Are you aware of that reporting?
    Secretary Blinken. I have not seen that report, but I would 
be welcoming--if you would like it share it, please do.
    Mr. Green. I will absolutely do that. Thank you very much. 
You guys keep talking about, insinuating that you are going to 
make an agreement with the Taliban. If they are a terrorist 
organization, if they have people in their leadership that are 
on the FBI's terrorist watch list, if they have leadership that 
is known to be terrorists, and you here have said they are a 
terrorist organization, what makes it right to even negotiate 
with these people?
    Secretary Blinken. Anything we do, Congressman, will be for 
purposes of advancing the interests of the national security of 
the United States. And those interests, among other things, 
involve ensuring that people can continue to travel freely out 
of Afghanistan, including any remaining American citizens who 
want to leave----
    Mr. Green. And on that note, if I could----
    Secretary Blinken [continuing]. Counterterrorism 
commitment, engage the government, we will do so in a way that 
is fully consistent with our laws.
    Mr. Green. Mr. Secretary, I am reclaiming my time. On that 
note, you have said, and we have said, and your Department has 
said, and the DoD has said to people who are sitting over 
there, now that we are all gone, they should destroy their 
documents because the Taliban are searching them and killing 
them with those documents.
    Now, you say you have got a plan to get those people out of 
there, but they cannot get on an airplane without documents. 
You have nobody over there to print them documents. How are 
they going to get out of there? What is your plan if they have 
no documents? Your people told them to destroy the documents.
    DoD said destroy the documents. We have told them--because 
we are talking to hundreds of them on the phone, U.S. citizens, 
SIVs. What is the plan?
    Secretary Blinken. We did not tell people to destroy 
documents, although I understood--I understand that some people 
did for understandable reasons in many cases.
    Mr. Green. We can
    [inaudible] Bodies. I mean, I can show you the videos that 
friends of mine, former interpreters that I know are videoing 
and sending to me, I can send those to you. They are destroying 
those documents because they do not want to wind up on a dirt 
road bleeding to death.
    So what is the plan to get those individuals who have no 
documents now out of that country.
    Secretary Blinken. The plan is this: First, the Taliban-led 
government has made commitments to recognize documents to exit 
the country to include U.S. passports, to include green cards, 
to include visas. For those who have those documents, we are 
working with other partners, including Qatar and Turkey----
    Mr. Green. I mean for the people who do not have documents, 
Mr. Secretary, that we have--you just said it was 
understandable that they would destroy those documents. So what 
are we doing for the people who do not have documents?
    Secretary Blinken. And we are--we are putting in place 
exactly that, a mechanism to make sure that we can get people 
the documents they need in order to leave the country. And I am 
happy to take that up in a different--in a different setting to 
go into more detail, but the bottom line is that is exactly 
what we are doing.
    Mr. Green. You are insinuating they might be classified. 
Okay. Fine. We can do that.
    Considering that the agreement between the Taliban and 
Afghan governments that the President keeps talking about, 
everybody keeps talking about this, you know, agreement between 
the Taliban and the Afghan governments, and they are just 
following it, we are following the agreement. It looks like my 
time is about to expire. I will see you in a few minutes when 
it is my turn. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you.
    Chairman Meeks. I now recognize Representative Susan Wild 
of Pennsylvania for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Wild. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Secretary Blinken, we just received word in my office this 
past weekend that one of my constituents here in Pennsylvania 
7, an American citizen, has been successfully evacuated from 
Afghanistan and is now safely in Qatar. She is a wife and 
mother, and I want to thank you and the State Department 
officials who worked so hard with my team to ensure the 
successful outcome, and I hope for----
    Secretary Blinken. Glad to hear that.
    Ms. Wild. I hope for many more.
    Mr. Secretary, like all of my colleagues here, I have been 
working with my team to assist vulnerable Afghan allies who 
work shoulder to shoulder with servicemembers from our 
communities. And I have to say that over the course of the 
evacuation, it was beyond heartbreaking to see that in the vast 
majority of cases, the Afghan allies we were trying to assist 
were simply not getting out or receiving any useful information 
even with Members of Congress getting involved.
    Although I will also say parenthetically there may have 
been situations where Members of Congress were not particularly 
helpful or were getting in the way, and I apologize for that on 
behalf of this body. But at the same time, I want to recognize 
the extraordinary efforts behind what was the largest airlift 
in American history. It is a testament to our servicemembers, 
first and foremost, as well as the administration.
    What I want to ask you is what concrete steps is the State 
Department taking now to accelerate processing time for SIV, P-
2, and other applications for vulnerable Afghan allies? And 
what steps is the department taking to improve communication 
with offices here in Congress when it comes to time-sensitive 
cases involving our Afghan allies?
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you. First, let me just again 
thank you personally but also thank so many members of this 
committee who have been working with us on SIVs and other 
Afghans at risk, getting information to us, working to 
followup. We are deeply, deeply grateful for that, and we want 
to make sure that we continue to do that and work on these 
cases.
    As, you know, we have discussed before, in the first 
instance, of course, we inherited a program that was in a deep 
freeze. We got it back up into second and third gear and well 
before the collapse of the government. We went from issuing 
about a hundred visas a week to a thousand. And we were working 
with Congress to try to streamline and make more efficient this 
program.
    As you know, there are 14 steps involving half a dozen 
agencies that are required by law or by the different 
implementing rules that came into place as a result of that 
law.
    However, having said all of that, going forward, a few 
things. We have about 20,000 people in the SIV pipeline. That 
has basically been the number for a long time. It has 
accumulated over many years, and it has stayed more or less in 
that area because more people, even today, continue to start 
the application process.
    But as you know, the most critical moment in the 
application process is what is called chief of mission 
approval. That is the point at which people are found to be, in 
fact, eligible for the program, they meet the requirements. And 
of all the people applying to the program, 40 percent do not 
make it through chief of mission approval because it turns out 
that they do not qualify. Now, some of that is because they do 
not have the necessary documentation required, again, by law, 
to demonstrate their eligibility.
    Much of that is because of the many people applying for 
SIVs, the majority, well over the majority, worked for DoD 
contractors primarily. These are not the interpreters and 
translators. These are folks who worked for contractors or 
subcontractors. Getting a letter demonstrating that they 
provided faithful service can be very, very difficult 
especially if the contractor or the sub went out of business.
    We need to find a way to deal with that and also to work 
with all the other agencies to make sure they have the 
appropriate records.
    But let me just quickly fast-forward to your question. We 
have about 4,000 or so people who are at the chief of mission 
approval stage right now, and we are going to work to get them 
through that in the coming weeks. And then we have another 
roughly 4,000 who already have chief of mission approval. There 
is still a number of other steps mandated by law that go into 
this, including interviews, fingerprinting, et cetera. We are 
looking to see with you how we can expedite all of that, while 
keeping security foremost in our minds, move people to third 
countries to finish whatever processing is necessary and then 
bring them to the United States.
    But we need to come to you, I think, to work on ways that 
we can make this program even more efficient and more 
streamlined beyond even what we were able to do over the last 9 
months.
    Ms. Wild. Thank you so much.
    Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentlelady's time has expired.
    I now recognize Representative Mark Green of Tennessee, who 
is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on the Western 
Hemisphere, Civilian Security, Migration, and International 
Economic Policy, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Green. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And, Secretary Blinken, your credibility, I think, would be 
a lot greater if you would at least own something. Something. 
X, Y, Z. Something. Yet you follow the lead of your President 
and you blame everybody else. It is not your problem, it is 
Trump, it is somebody else.
    You would have credibility--let me give you an example. 
HKIA, you had no plan, or a horrible plan, to get people into 
the gate, just get them through the gate. My colleagues and I 
had hundreds of people on the phone that were U.S. citizens 
sitting at the gates and they couldn't get in. That is a 
failure on you, either to plan or--you had a horrible plan, but 
those U.S. citizens couldn't get through the gate. Just own it. 
Get some credibility. Own it.
    You keep telling us that the DoD and President Biden had no 
idea that the Taliban would be so successful, the collapse of 
the Afghan forces. And then you want us to believe you when you 
say the Russians and the Chinese aren't empowered by this. That 
kills your credibility by saying, hey, we failed to predict 
that this would happen. Nobody had an idea that they would 
collapse like that. And then you say, oh, but I assure you, the 
Russians and the Chinese aren't empowered by this, and we are 
supposed to believe you.
    I have already talked about the documents.
    The United Kingdom. I am sure you are familiar--it went 
viral--a member of Parliament in the United Kingdom on the 
floor of the House of Commons, Tom Tugendhat, basically called 
the withdrawal--President Biden's withdrawal shameful, and said 
that the U.K., our greatest ally, should reconsider how 
dependent they are on the United States.
    Yet you sit here today and tell us that NATO was completely 
fine with everything, you all coordinated everything with NATO, 
and it was all good. That is what you have communicated to me 
at least--or here today. And yet a member of Parliament is 
saying it was a shameful withdrawal on the floor of the House 
of Commons, our greatest ally.
    The headline of The Economist a few weeks ago, I do not 
know if you saw it, but it said, ``Biden's debacle.'' I am not 
so sure NATO will agree with you that they were all in on this 
together.
    Now, I will say this, it is against the law, the United 
States law, to give material aid to a terrorist organization. 
You said earlier when I asked you before if the Taliban was a 
terrorist organization, you said yes. $85 billion, I would 
consider that material aid to a terrorist organization, Mr. 
Secretary.
    And yet, here we are, oh, well, but wait, you admitted we 
had no idea that the Taliban would be so successful. We had no 
idea that, you know, the Afghans would fail like this. Well, 
that is your fault. That is your administration's fault. I 
guess maybe it is the intel community's fault. That is what you 
are really saying. Hey, CIA, and all you other guys, you failed 
to give us good intel here, we had no idea this was going to 
happen.
    But we are supposed to trust you when you tell us other 
things about the Chinese and the Russians.
    Considering rumors of ISIS' support for the--I am sorry--
ISI's support for the Taliban, have you guys reached out to 
India as a possible staging area for the Over the Horizon 
Forces? And I am talking northwest India as a potential. 
Because we all know Qatar--or Doha, the other places, are just 
a little bit too far, Kuwait, all that.
    What about northwest India, and have you reached out? Have 
you thought about that?
    Secretary Blinken. Let me just say generally, Congressman, 
we are deeply engaged with India across the board. With regard, 
though, to any specifics about Over the Horizon capabilities 
and the plans that we have put in place and will continue to 
put in place, I would rather take that up in a different 
setting, and I think the chairman referenced that at the start 
of the hearing.
    Mr. Green. I think that is very fair, and I appreciate you 
saying that. And I am glad to at least know that there is an 
opportunity to talk about that, because I think that, from my 
standpoint, is an opportunity we should seize.
    I would like to go back to the documents and give you a few 
seconds to talk about that, because I do want to hear your plan 
for those individuals, if you can today. And if you cannot, 
then fine, we will talk about it behind closed doors. But I am 
very concerned about people who destroyed documents. Can you 
elaborate at all on that?
    Secretary Blinken. And I really appreciate that. And I just 
want to assure you, but I would rather have this conversation 
in a different setting, that we are putting in place plans to 
make sure that people can get documents that they need and 
documents that the Taliban says it will recognize to allow them 
to leave the country. I would be happy to pursue that 
conversation.
    Mr. Green. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman's time has expired.
    I now recognize Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota 
for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Phillips. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Secretary, I am one of 20,000 Gold Star Children from 
the Vietnam war and now joined by 5,000 more Gold Star Children 
from both Iraq and Afghanistan. And I just want to acknowledge 
all of my brothers and sisters who have had to watch the events 
of the last month that so sadly look so strangely familiar as 
it relates to the fall of Saigon, of course, 50 years ago.
    And I also want to honor the service of many of my 
colleagues, many of whom serve on this very committee, 
including my friend Brian Mast, who just about gave his entire 
life to our country, and I honor all of you. I want to start 
with that.
    And let me assure you, it has been difficult, 
heartbreaking, and disappointing to watch the last number of 
years, and, of course, the last month, but I also have to say I 
am terribly disappointed in my colleagues, some of them, on 
this committee today.
    I think it is embarrassing, I think it is 
counterproductive, and I think it is shameful, frankly, because 
I do not hold Republicans accountable for my father's death, 
even though he died in a Republican administration. I hold John 
Kennedy, I hold Lyndon Johnson, I hold Richard Nixon, I hold 
Congress accountable as well and many other individuals. And I 
just ask that the spirit of this committee return to our core 
job.
    With that, Mr. Secretary, you have spoken about lessons 
learned for both our country, not terribly specifically. I 
would welcome you to cover that again. What specifically did we 
learn? What should we have learned collectively and also 
personally? What have you learned? What might you do 
differently as you look back over the last number of months in 
preparation for this exit?
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you very much. Thank you for what 
you said, and thank you for the question.
    I think we all have to take stock of the last 9 months--and 
the last 20 years--because to reach the point that we have 
reached today, it is an accumulation of decisions, strategies, 
plans over 20 years, as well as over the last 9 months, and all 
of that has to factor in.
    Look, my biggest takeaway is that when it comes to using 
force, we are very good and very effective at doing that to 
deal with the terrorist threat to this country, as we have 
demonstrated time and again and as we demonstrated after 9/11. 
And we need to make sure that we always have the capacity to be 
the most effective country on Earth when it comes to that.
    At the same time, I think one of the hard lessons, at least 
to me, of Afghanistan is, even the best intentions--and these 
were really good intentions--to try to remake a society, remake 
a country in an image that looks a little bit more like what we 
believe is right, may be beyond our capacity. And inserting 
ourselves into the middle of a civil war and staying there, 
with no prospect of actually creating a decisive effect, also 
is something we need to think really, really hard about.
    I think we got to a point in Afghanistan not when it comes 
to counterterrorism, where, thanks to the extraordinary 
courage, bravery, and success of generations now of men and 
women in uniform, as well as the diplomats and intelligence 
officials who worked with them, they did a remarkable job in 
dealing with the people who attacked us on 9/11.
    But when it came to this much more expansive effort to 
defeat the Taliban and to remake Afghanistan, that was a 
different story. And I think we got to the point where, 
arguably, we knew how not to lose, but we were not capable, in 
that frame, of winning. And the reason was----
    Secretary Blinken. Mr. Secretary, I have got about a minute 
left. I just want to reclaim a little bit of time. I am sorry.
    Secretary Blinken. Please, go ahead. Thank you.
    Mr. Phillips. I also want to salute our staffers, staffers 
in Democratic offices, Republican offices, many of them very 
early career staffers who have done yeomen's work to help 
people evacuate from Afghanistan. I want to celebrate them.
    Secretary Blinken. Yes.
    Mr. Phillips. But what I have heard from many, Mr. 
Secretary, is that the coordination of this effort was very 
challenging.
    Very quickly, what grade would you give the United States 
of America for its whole-of-government planning and execution 
of the withdrawal plan, what grade?
    Secretary Blinken. I cannot give it a grade, but here is 
what I can say. I think that you are right. We, you know, in 
this extraordinary situation, had to do a tremendous amount of 
work to get to a better place, especially when it comes to 
coordination. And there is a lot of work yet to be done, 
learning from what we did and what we did not do, going forward 
to put us in a better place.
    And so I think--I think, from my perspective at least, it 
definitely improved, but it did not start from a great place, 
largely because of the exigency of the situation that we were 
in.
    But here is the question that I think--I hope we can work 
on together. Knowing that, how do we put ourselves in a better 
position going forward so that we can get that kind of 
coordination, cooperation, stood up much more quickly.
    Mr. Phillips. I appreciate your candor.
    And I yield back. Thank you, sir.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman's time has expired.
    I now recognize Representative Andy Barr of Kentucky for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Barr. Mr. Secretary, let me return to the dissent 
cable. You said you read the July 13 dissent cable prepared by 
the career diplomats at the Kabul Embassy. You said you were 
very proud of that. Is that, again, correct?
    Secretary Blinken. That is correct, yes.
    Mr. Barr. And that warning came over 1 month before the 
fall of Kabul, right?
    Secretary Blinken. The cable was, I believe----
    Mr. Barr. July 13.
    Secretary Blinken [continuing]. On July 13, yes.
    Mr. Barr. July 13. So over a month. And the cable warned 
that the Afghan Government was at risk of collapse. And your 
response was, quote, the thoughts of the drafters reflected 
much of the thinking of the Department, unquote.
    And you still maintain that to be the case?
    Secretary Blinken. The cable did not predict that the 
government or security forces would collapse before we 
departed----
    Mr. Barr. But the cable did say the Afghan Government was 
at risk of collapse, and you said that the thoughts of the 
drafters reflected much of the thinking of the Department.
    By the way, at the exact same time, the Bureau of 
Intelligence and Research in the Department was briefing this 
committee that the Taliban was moving quickly toward a takeover 
of the country. You presumably had access to that same 
intelligence from I&R, which corroborated the dissent cable and 
was alarming to many members of this committee.
    Do you dispute that?
    Secretary Blinken. As we have had an opportunity to discuss 
throughout these many months, there were ongoing intelligence 
assessments about the durability and resilience of the Afghan 
Government----
    Mr. Barr. Well, look, I mean, let's just be honest, Mr. 
Secretary. These were alarming cables. They were warnings. They 
were warnings to you. You say they reflected the majority 
position of the Department.
    Did you share this intelligence with the President of the 
United States?
    Secretary Blinken. Two things on the cable, Congressman. 
First, the main focus of the cable was on taking steps to 
expedite the efforts we were making to bring out the SIV 
applicants and others from Afghanistan----
    Mr. Barr. [Inaudible] The collapse was imminent. Did you 
share that intelligence with the President?
    Secretary Blinken. It did not say that the collapse was 
imminent. It expressed----
    Mr. Barr. Well, why did you accelerate the process?
    Secretary Blinken. Because it expressed real concerns about 
two things.
    Mr. Barr. Because we got it too. We saw it too. We knew 
this was totally avoidable.
    Did you share that intelligence with the President? Did you 
advise him for a shift in strategy as a result of this 
intelligence?
    Secretary Blinken. Again, this is not--first of all, it is 
not intelligence. It is information analysis assessment that is 
very important----
    Mr. Barr. Okay.
    Secretary Blinken [continuing]. Coming from our embassy.
    Mr. Barr. I know it is intelligence. And the cable was 
analysis. Did you share it with the President?
    Secretary Blinken. The Dissent Channel, which is an 
important--very important tradition in the State Department, 
under its regulations, is shared only with the senior 
leadership of----
    Mr. Barr. You are not answering the question. You are not 
answering the question. But I want to know if you had a shift 
in policy; and if not, why not.
    I want to know if the President contemplated shifting any 
part of this strategy when it was very apparent that this 
strategy of unconditional retreat was failing. And it was 
failing over a month before the fall of Kabul.
    Let me move on to Bagram, real quick. In April, I warned 
you not to abandon Bagram. Little did I know the Biden 
Administration would abandon it even before evacuating all 
Americans, our allies, and advance military equipment, leaving 
the world's most dangerous airport, HKIA, as the exclusive 
point of extraction.
    Who made the decision to abandon Bagram at that time?
    Secretary Blinken. Congressman, as you know, the military 
was engaged in a drawdown from Afghanistan, and part of that 
drawdown was moving out of different positions, to include 
Bagram Airbase, which was given to the Afghan security and 
defense forces.
    Mr. Barr. You are telling me that the military--the 
military--advised evacuating Bagram before you extracted all 
Americans and the equipment, or was that a State Department 
decision?
    Secretary Blinken. We certainly did not make a decision 
about Bagram. The military is charged with doing the planning 
and the work in any drawdown, and they make decisions--they 
make decisions based on force protection and the security of 
our men and women in uniform
    [inaudible].
    Mr. Barr. Okay. You say that there is nothing the Chinese 
would have wanted us more than to stay in Afghanistan. Is it 
your testimony that the Chinese wanted the United States to 
remain in the only airbase in the country with a physical 
border with China? You think that that is the Chinese position, 
that they wanted us to keep Bagram?
    Secretary Blinken. I think the Chinese would have liked to 
have seen us remain in a re-upped war in which----
    Mr. Barr. Oh, so----
    Secretary Blinken [continuing]. Under attack in which we 
were putting more and more forces into Afghanistan and which 
were----
    Mr. Barr. You think the Chinese are celebrating us--you 
think the Chinese are celebrating us abandoning an airbase, the 
largest airbase on their border? Come on.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Barr. Just be honest. Just be honest.
    I yield back.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman's time has expired.
    I now recognize Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who 
is the vice chair of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, 
and Global Human Rights, for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Omar. Thank you, Chairman.
    Mr. Secretary, I know it is harder to end a war than start 
one in this town, so I thank you and the President for ending 
our longest war.
    Over the weekend, both The New York Times and Washington 
Post reported the August 29 drone strike that supposedly 
prevented a car bomb attack at the airport in Kabul, instead 
killed Zemari Ahmadi, an aid worker, and his family.
    The strike happened when there was a lot of eyes on Kabul, 
but it is not unusual for U.S. drone strikes to kill civilians. 
It is not unusual for the U.S. Government to claim it killed 
terrorists instead.
    And this is coming on the heels of reporting that DoD 
failed to spend a single dollar of the redress payments that 
Congress has provided for civilian casualties.
    As Congress considers the continuing utility of the 2001 
AUMF, how can you possibly ensure us that our drone strikes and 
Over the Horizon capabilities will actually reach their 
targets?
    Secretary Blinken. First, when it comes to moving forward, 
I hope that we can, again, take this up in a different setting 
and different session.
    I know with regard to the drone strike that you are 
referring to, that is being looked at very, very, very 
carefully by others in the administration so that we understand 
exactly what happened or what did not happen.
    And no country on Earth, no government takes more effort, 
takes more precautions to try to ensure that anyone other than 
the intended terrorist target is struck using a drone or by any 
other means. But certainly we know that in the past, civilians 
have been hurt and have been killed in these strikes. And we 
have to make sure that we have in place every possible measure 
to allow us to continue to use the tool to defend and protect 
ourselves while avoiding anyone on the civilian side from being 
hit.
    And we also need to look, as you have rightly said, at the 
authorizations going back to 2001 and 2002. We strongly support 
that. Those need to be updated to reflect present realities, 
not reality as it was in 2001 or 2002.
    Ms. Omar. And, Mr. Secretary, from the State Department's 
point of view, what is the impact of the unaccountable--
uncountable and accountable civilian harm on our 
counterterrorism goals?
    Secretary Blinken. It certainly runs counter to those 
goals, whenever there are civilian casualties, whenever there 
are unintended injuries or deaths. It does not advance what we 
are trying to do. And so that is besides the moral obligation 
we have to do everything we possibly can to make sure that 
civilians are not harmed or killed.
    It is also true that in terms of the mission itself, we 
want to make sure that that does not happen, because if people 
lose faith and confidence in it, if they--and particularly in 
the countries in question, if people see it as a tool to do 
harm to innocent civilians as opposed to terrorists who are a 
threat to everyone, that will undermine support for what we are 
doing.
    Ms. Omar. And in your role and previous roles in other 
administrations, how much of an analysis is being done to look 
at whether our counterterrorism efforts are actually being 
counter to the work that we are trying to do in ending 
terrorism around the world?
    Secretary Blinken. I would call it very, very significant. 
Certainly in the Obama Administration we spent a tremendous 
amount of time looking at, reviewing, and modifying all of 
these procedures, all of the safeguards, all of the criteria 
that went along with using these tools. And we have been in the 
midst of conducting just such a review in this administration, 
to make sure, to the best of our ability, that when we take a 
strike, we get the intended person and no one else.
    Ms. Omar. Thank you, and I yield back.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentlelady's time has expired.
    I now recognize Representative Greg Steube of Florida, who 
is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on the Middle East, 
North Africa, and Global Counterterrorism, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Steube. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Blinken, even in your opening statement, you cannot be 
honest with the American people. You stated, and I quote, that 
by January 2021, the Taliban was in its strongest military 
position since 9/11.
    I am pretty sure their strongest military position has been 
during your entire administration, not prior to it.
    In fact, their strongest military position since the towers 
were hit in 2001 was this past September 11th, the 20th 
anniversary, all of which happened on your watch, not your 
predecessor's.
    In fact, on April 27 of this year, days before the original 
deadline negotiated by the Trump administration, that you and 
the Biden Administration violated, the Taliban controlled 77 
districts in Afghanistan, the Afghan Government controlled 129, 
and there were 194 contested districts.
    By August 15, while you and Biden were on vacation, the 
Taliban had taken and controlled 304 districts, and the 
government only controlled 37.
    From May to August of this year, while you, the Department 
of Defense, and the President did absolutely nothing, the 
Taliban gained 227 districts in Afghanistan in just 4 months.
    You cannot claim ignorance to what was going on there, and 
you cannot blame the Trump administration for your failure.
    I served in Iraq and I am well aware of our capabilities. 
Your administration and the White House was seeing in real time 
what was happening in Afghanistan, and you did absolutely 
nothing to stop it.
    In fact, you did what you could to conceal the facts. 
Biden, himself, tried to get President Ghani to lie about what 
was happening on the ground. Biden told Ghani that, quote, the 
perception around the world and in parts of Afghanistan I 
believe, is that things aren't going well in terms of the fight 
against the Taliban, and there is a need, whether it is true or 
not, there is a need to project a different picture.
    That was on July 23, before all of you went on vacation. So 
you knew exactly what was going on there and did nothing to 
start moving our people out or our SIVs out until it was too 
late and the Taliban controlled the entire nation.
    You earlier stated under questioning today, and I quote, we 
inherited a deadline, not a plan. Yet you did not even follow 
the deadline that you cascade as something you couldn't do 
anything about. This whole blaming the Trump administration for 
everything that has happened in Afghanistan is a disgrace.
    You are the Secretary of State, and Biden has been the 
Commander in Chief since January. Not Trump. You and the 
administration saw what was happening in Afghanistan, and you 
had the ability to deal with it. Not Trump. You were 
responsible for the assets on the ground, and you were 
responsible for getting our people out.
    So I know how you, Biden, and other Democrats want nothing 
more than to blame Trump for all of the problems that you have 
created, but the responsibility for all of this lies squarely 
on your shoulders and in the lap of President Biden.
    Then after Kabul fell, your leadership completely and 
utterly failed, not only our citizens on the ground, but our 
allies that we have worked with for 20 years.
    First your direction was shelter in place. Then it was, 
make your way to the airport, but we cannot guarantee your 
safety on the way there. Then it was, shelter in place. Then it 
was, come to the gates. Then it was, leave the gates.
    While all of this was happening, you are handing our list 
of citizens and Afghan SIVs to the Taliban, a globally 
recognized terrorist organization because you were unwilling to 
go in and get the citizens and SIVs stuck behind enemy lines 
out.
    And as we sit here today, we still have citizens and SIVs 
stuck in Taliban hands, despite Biden promising to stay and get 
them all out. And thanks to you, our enemy knows exactly who 
they are and how to find them.
    And you describe this, and I quote, as an extraordinary 
effort. I would certainly not describe the deaths of 13 U.S. 
servicemembers, the deaths of hundreds of Afghans, and the fact 
that we still have citizens and SIVs stuck behind enemy lines 
while the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and ISIS-K go door to door hunting 
them down, as an extraordinary effort.
    And if all that wasn't bad enough, you spit in the eye of 
every single servicemember who served on the war on terror for 
the last 20 years, by even considering recognizing the Taliban 
who we have fought against for 20 years, as a legitimate 
government, and not only recognize them but do absolutely 
nothing while the Taliban takes control of $90 billion worth of 
military aircraft, Humvees, weapons, night vision goggles, 
uniforms, ammunitions, and Blackhawks.
    And after we have rolled over and handed all that to them, 
you announce today, with great fanfare and great pride, that 
you are providing $64 million in humanitarian assistance to the 
people of Afghanistan.
    You cannot even get our people out of the country, but we 
and the American people are to believe that $64 million of our 
tax dollars that is to be sent to Afghanistan will not fall in 
the hands of the Taliban or other terrorist organizations who 
you were relying upon to get our people out of the airport.
    Your legacy will be the Taliban flying our Blackhawk over 
Kabul while someone, maybe a U.S. citizen, hangs from a rope by 
his neck. And while this is happening, you are saying that you 
are working diplomatically with the Taliban to get our people 
out.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman's time has expired.
    I now recognize Representative Colin Allred of Texas for 5 
minutes.
    Mr. Allred. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I respect my colleague who was just speaking's service. I 
think much of what he said was not accurate.
    Mr. Secretary, would you like to respond to--I will give 
you any time you would like to have to respond to him.
    Secretary Blinken. It would take too long. And I very much 
respect his service as well. I respect the service of everyone 
on this committee, Republican, Democrat, whether they agree 
with what we did or vehemently disagree with it.
    Regardless of any of that, I deeply respect the service. I 
deeply respect the loss of those extraordinary men and women, 
the 13 Marines and others who lost their lives so that others 
could live their's in the terrorist attack by ISIS-K. And I 
also deeply respect the loss of the 2,641 servicemembers who 
gave their lives in Afghanistan over the last 20 years.
    And I would simply say--and I apologize for taking your 
time--but I would simply say that I believe the most important 
legacy we can leave is to have ended America's longest war, to 
make sure that a third generation of Americans does not have to 
go fight and die in Afghanistan, as well as having brought 
125,000 people to safety under the most extraordinary 
circumstances, made good by our commitments to work to get 
every American out and to continue to do that with the few that 
remain in Afghanistan, as well as to deal with the ongoing 
challenges that it poses. So I believe that will be the legacy 
that we are talking about.
    I apologize, Congressman, for taking your time. Thank you.
    Mr. Allred. No, thank you, Mr. Secretary. I mean, it is 
extremely difficult to end a 20-year conflict, and I think we 
are seeing that and, of course, you know, tempers are running 
high, and I know it has been a long day.
    But I want to thank you and the State Department personnel 
for helping my office evacuate the Afzali family from Kabul to 
be reunited with his brother who actually lives here in my 
district.
    Mr. Afzali worked with our embassy, and not only did he 
evacuate his wife and two kids, he got four unaccompanied 
children, whose mother was already in New York, out of Kabul as 
well. And so I want to thank your team for that success story.
    And as a member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, as well 
as this committee, I want to speak to the many veterans of the 
Afghan war and their families who live in my district. And just 
to quote, President George W. Bush, who is actually my 
constituent, this weekend said that the causes you pursued at 
the call of duty is the noblest America has to offer. You have 
shielded your fellow citizens from danger. You have defended 
the beliefs of your country and advanced the rights of the 
downtrodden. You have been the face of hope and mercy in dark 
places. You have been a force for good in the world. End quote.
    And I want to thank all those who have served as well.
    You know, Mr. Secretary, in the time I have remaining, I 
want to say, 2-1/2 years ago, your predecessor, Secretary 
Pompeo, appeared before this committee. And I know it is not 
very satisfying to look to the past and sometimes maybe even 
think that you are pointing fingers, but at that time, I 
questioned him about the conditions of our withdrawal from 
Afghanistan that he was negotiating in real time with the 
Taliban.
    I asked Secretary Pompeo why he had abandoned previous U.S. 
policy regarding negotiations with the Taliban, such as 
insisting that they agree to respect the Afghan Constitution, 
including its protections for women and minorities, and of 
course as my other colleagues have said, most egregiously, 
excluding the Afghan Government from those negotiations almost 
entirely, undermining that very government in its own country.
    At the time, Secretary Pompeo was fairly dismissive, I 
think it is fair to say, of my concerns.
    But, Mr. Secretary, I want to draw your attention to the 
screen here showing an excerpt of the Trump administration's 
deal. It notes that the deal did not require the Taliban to 
disavow al-Qaeda and did not include a commitment to not attack 
Afghan security forces, which has also been discussed today.
    And I want to ask you, Mr. Secretary, based on your 
experience, what aspects of the deal that you inherited would 
you have handled differently based on past U.S. policy and the 
best diplomatic tools that at our disposal?
    Secretary Blinken. Well, look, hindsight is always 20/20, 
whether it is for us, whether it is for the previous 
administration, or the ones before.
    But I would say that to the extent there was conditionality 
in that agreement imposed on the Taliban, ideally, it should 
have gone further. Yes, very good to make sure that our forces 
were not being attacked during the pendency of the agreement 
until we withdrew all of our forces, but there was very little 
in that agreement that really compelled the Taliban to 
negotiate and get to an agreement with the Afghan Government 
about the future of Afghanistan, a future in which these basic 
rights and principles were upheld. That wasn't there, and I 
think that is unfortunate.
    Similarly, we can talk about the forces that we withdrew, 
you know, in the last few months, but in reducing, to the 
extent that we did, the leverage that we had by going from 
roughly 13,500 forces down to 2,500 forces by the end of the 
last administration, that made it very, very challenging to 
leverage the Taliban to even make good on what little there was 
in the agreement to begin with, never mind doing more.
    So, again, in fairness, you know, all of this is 20/20, and 
I hope we engage in that 20/20 hindsight, not just for the last 
9 months, but for the last 20 years, because there is a lot 
that we need to look at.
    Mr. Allred. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman's time is expired.
    I now recognize Representative Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania 
for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Meuser. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Secretary, you are a long-standing, experienced 
American diplomat. Your service is to be commended to our 
country. Past hearings, you have been fair and informative.
    I, however, must State that I am very disappointed in your 
written testimony, your opening comments, and answers today, 
which really seem to me, sir, as a series of rationalizations.
    You are, in fact, blaming everyone but yourselves and the 
Taliban, which is interesting, for this disaster, and yet you 
seem to continue to be victimized by wishful thinking.
    Blaming the Trump administration, frankly, is equivalent to 
me planning a fishing trip months in advance, the day comes to 
leave, a hurricane comes in, you go anyway, and blame me for 
things going badly.
    The fact is, these epic mistakes and the ignoring of intel 
has left a country--OK, these are the facts, this is the 
reality of today--under a brutal terrorist regime, and the 
world is a more dangerous place. Massacres, murders continue.
    I just informed a newspaper of a horrific scene I heard of 
this morning, somebody being pulled out, an interpreter, 
murdered, in front of their children, the children taken. Okay? 
This are results of these incredible mistakes.
    Thirteen Americans tragically--tragically killed. 124,000 
Afghanistanians desperately fleeing for their lives, some 
falling off of airplanes as they leave, as they desperately try 
to get out.
    We have billions in American military equipment and pallets 
of cash, I understand, left behind in Taliban hands. Yet, sir, 
you sit and tell us that you did the right thing. Okay. That, 
frankly, makes us--kind of scares the hell out of us as to what 
decisions might be made next.
    So I will start with my first question. Are there any 
conditions where we provide pallets of cash to the Taliban?
    Secretary Blinken. None that I am aware of.
    Mr. Meuser. All right. Thank you.
    Intel said Taliban would likely overrun Afghanistan and all 
the cities, as it did. Of course, you mentioned General Milley 
a number of times, stating how, no, there was no intel stating 
11 days.
    What was the likely scenario that you all, your department 
and the Biden Administration, believed was going to occur after 
our retreat?
    Secretary Blinken. So, Congressman, throughout the spring 
and into the summer, if you look back at the intelligence 
assessments and collective assessments that were made--and 
typically you would have a worst case scenario, a best case 
scenario, some scenarios in between--it went from in the winter 
and spring to worst case scenario, the Taliban takes over the 
country in 18 months to 2 years after our withdrawal, to in 
July, the end of the year, the end of this calendar year.
    And even right up to the very end, as I have said before, 
to my knowledge at least, no one was predicting the collapse of 
the government and the security forces in 11 days. So, yes, it 
got narrower, the worst case scenarios, but it went from 18 
months to 2 years, to the end of this year.
    Mr. Meuser. Okay. That is getting it very wrong, regardless 
of the information available.
    Will the Biden Administration secure our southern border 
now that we have this serious additional crisis and terrorists 
on the loose worldwide?
    Secretary Blinken. We have been working assiduously to 
secure that border from day one. And we have also, as we talked 
about a little bit earlier, with regard to Afghans coming in to 
the United States, as you know, there are very significant, 
rigorous vetting procedures in place with Customs and Border 
Patrol, NCTC, FBI, CIA, et cetera, that are done initially in 
these transit countries before anyone comes to the United 
States and then continue on military bases here, which is 
usually the first point of landing after Dulles Airport for 
people coming from Afghanistan.
    Mr. Meuser. Thank you, Secretary.
    Just last, do you believe, and the Biden Administration 
believe, terrorists respond to strength and the willingness to 
use it?
    Secretary Blinken. Terrorists respond to effective 
counterterrorism, absolutely.
    Mr. Meuser. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman yields back.
    I now recognize Representative Andy Levin of Michigan, who 
is the vice chair of the Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, 
Central Asia, and Nonproliferation, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Levin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And thank you, Mr. Secretary, for helping the President end 
our longest ever war, which was the right thing to do; for your 
Department's efforts to airlift out so many tens of thousands 
of Americans and Afghans when the Afghan Government and Armed 
Forces fell so precipitously; and for your patience and 
steadfastness here today.
    Obviously, you have heard a lot about our concerns today 
regarding Afghans seeking refuge in the United States and 
elsewhere, and I want to start there. What commitments has the 
administration secured from third countries to host Afghans for 
a sufficient duration to allow the administration to process 
their SIV P1 and P2 visas or humanitarian parole requests? 
Where are we at with that.
    Secretary Blinken. So we have secured a number of 
agreements that would allow us to, as Afghans come out of the 
country, and these would be SIV applicants, these would be 
potential refugees, with several countries where they could go 
to those countries. We could engage in the processing, 
especially with regard to SIVs, as you know, with a 14-step 
process, very hard to complete that. There are parts that we 
could not possibly complete remotely in Afghanistan. So we do 
need to get them to third countries where we can complete that. 
And we have----
    Mr. Levin. Do we have enough? I mean, is the capacity 
enough, basically, I guess that is the question. Or do we need 
more?
    Secretary Blinken. I am sorry?
    Mr. Levin. Is the capacity enough or do we need more, I 
guess----
    Secretary Blinken. I think the current capacity is enough, 
but that is something we are going to look very carefully at. 
And, of course, much depends on the ongoing ability of people 
to leave Afghanistan and to get to these countries.
    Mr. Levin. Okay. All right. Well, let's stay on the topic 
of Afghans who need protection right now. U.S. officials stated 
our commitment to Afghans at risk, such as civil society 
workers, human rights defenders, women's rights activists, 
journalists, and others, and that that commitment did not end 
with the withdrawal of U.S. personnel. Deciding where to draw 
these lines is super difficult.
    Who else specifically is the Biden Administration defining 
as at risk, and how does the State Department intend to support 
them?
    Secretary Blinken. Yes, you are right, it is very 
challenging. In the summer, we put in place, besides the SIV 
program, we put in place the so-called P2 category for people--
for Afghans who did not meet the requirements of the SIV 
program but who would nonetheless work, for example, for NGO's, 
for American news organizations, other institutions but not 
directly for the U.S. Government so that they could qualify for 
the SIV.
    Of course, the general refugee program is available to 
people. So if they can get out of Afghanistan, which is 
obviously--which is what we are working on, they can go to a 
third country and apply for refugee status.
    But we are particularly focused on Afghans at risk, and the 
ones most at risk are people who, by what they have done or 
what they have said or who they are, could be at real threat 
from the new government.
    Mr. Levin. All right. Finally, let me return to the 
question of the drone strike, the U.S. drone strike in Kabul on 
August 29, which reportedly killed at least 10 civilians, 
including 7 kids. Just going from media reports.
    What I want to ask is, what role is the State Department 
playing in helping to investigate any civilian harm caused in 
this strike? Does the State Department have a role in this or 
is it purely military or intelligence officials?
    Secretary Blinken. Well, without going into too much detail 
here, in the first instance, military intelligence is focused 
on reviewing everything that we did. They do that as a matter 
of course, and of course they are doing that in this instance. 
To the extent that we have any information that comes to us 
that is relevant to this, of course, we would feed it into that 
review process.
    Mr. Levin. All right. Well, I hope we can take this up when 
we have a classified discussion because, you know, it is just--
it happens a lot and we have to do everything we can to stop 
it.
    With that, Mr. Chairman, thank you so much, and I yield 
back.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman yields back.
    I now recognize Representative Claudia Tenney of New York, 
who is the vice ranking member for the Subcommittee on 
International Development, International Organizations, and 
Global Corporate Social Impact, for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Tenney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to get 
right to it.
    My son served in the Marine Corps for 8 years. I spent the 
weekend with marines and Gold Star families. There is nothing 
worse than having someone show up at your door to tell you that 
your son or daughter was killed in action. I know you know 
that.
    I just want to say to some of our colleagues on this call 
who do not understand the anger and the anguish that many feel, 
you know, referring to this as histrionics and--by this side. I 
feel the pain of these people. I spent the weekend with them. I 
have been with my Gold Star families for many, many years, and 
I know you understand that.
    But my question to you is--and I want to reference back to 
something that Representative Issa had referred to. He referred 
to communications that our American citizens and others had 
received that said, make contingency plans to leave when it is 
safe to do so that do not rely on the U.S. Government for 
assistance, notify a trusted person of your travel and movement 
plans.
    This communication was given by the State Department to 
U.S. citizens, along with legal permanent residents and SIV 
applicants and holders. My question to you is, can you tell us 
that these people who--and I appreciate those who have been 
able to get out successfully--who have not been assisted, who 
are there in harm's way, will you give us a commitment that our 
American citizens and our legal permanent residents and others 
will be out safely?
    Secretary Blinken. Absolutely. But just to clarify--and, 
again, I invited Congressman Issa to share that with me.
    Here is my understanding. Starting in March, we issued 19 
separate----
    Ms. Tenney. Let me just----
    Secretary Blinken. No, no. But it is important--no, no, it 
is important. I do not want to take your time, but it is 
important to talk to this, if I could. No, no----
    Ms. Tenney. [inaudible] Briefly.
    Secretary Blinken. Yes, no, no. So here is the--just to be 
clear, and I believe this is what this refers to, but if it is 
not, we will take that up. In the----
    Ms. Tenney. The question is, can you just make the 
assurance that these people will be out safely? Because I how 
have an American citizen, a family of seven, a 2-year-old is an 
American citizen, and they are still stranded in Afghanistan. 
They were told by the State Department in a letter, only one 
parent can accompany the family home--or this 2-year-old home, 
which means the other five are going to be left in Afghanistan.
    Secretary Blinken. Yes. That----
    Ms. Tenney. I would like your assurance that all of that 
family will be kept intact and be brought home and will not be 
separated at the Afghan border.
    Secretary Blinken. First of all, Congresswoman, we are 
committed to bringing any remaining--any remaining----
    Ms. Tenney. Can I just----
    Secretary Blinken. I would be happy to address the question 
if I could, please.
    We are committed to bringing any remaining American 
citizens in Afghanistan out who wish to leave, and we are 
working on that every single day. Under the law----
    Ms. Tenney. Let me just--this is the question, though. We 
have an American citizen who has six family members who are 
legal permanent residents. We were told by the State Department 
only one gets to accompany the American citizen.
    These aren't people that do not want to leave Afghanistan. 
These are people that aren't going to abandon their children. 
So I just want to be sure that----
    Secretary Blinken. Under--let me be clear. Could I please 
answer the question? Because it is an important one and it 
deserves----
    Ms. Tenney. I just want a yes or no answer. It is really 
simple, because you are taking up my time, and I have a couple 
issues I want to get to.
    Secretary Blinken. Well, look, I am really happy to address 
because you raise a very important question. Just to be very 
clear, any American citizen, their spouse and their minor 
children, we are committed to bringing out. That is what the 
law provides under the Immigration and Naturalization Act. It 
is also what the other laws provide for.
    If we want to be more expansive than that, we invite 
Congress to change the law.
    Ms. Tenney. [Inaudible] Question. Thank you. I appreciate 
that.
    Mr. Secretary, would you agree that it would have been 
safer to evacuate these people had the U.S. and allied troops 
remained in Afghanistan?
    Secretary Blinken. Had we remained in Afghanistan?
    Ms. Tenney. No. The question is, do you think it would have 
been safer to evacuate the----
    Secretary Blinken. No. No. I highly doubt that, because had 
we remained in Afghanistan beyond May 1, we would have been 
back at war with the Taliban not only firing on our forces but 
also
    [inaudible] Cities.
    Ms. Tenney. [Inaudible] Would it have been safer if U.S. 
servicemembers, allied troops were in Afghanistan while we were 
evacuating these people? Do you agree that that would have 
been--it would have been safer?
    Secretary Blinken. I apologize, I missed the last part. 
Could you repeat it, please?
    Ms. Tenney. Yes. I said, do you agree that it would have 
been safer to evacuate the people that I described--American 
citizens, green card holders, and others--had we kept the U.S. 
troops and allied troops there first and evacuated them later?
    Secretary Blinken. Oh, I see. Again, if the Defense 
Department, the government as a whole engaged in the drawdown 
from Afghanistan. But the single most important factor was the 
collapse of the Afghan security forces and the Afghan 
Government in 11 days. That is what radically changed the 
situation.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentlelady's time has expired.
    I now recognize Representative Abigail Spanberger of 
Virginia, who is the vice chair of the Subcommittee on Europe, 
Energy, and Environment, and Cyber, for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Spanberger. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
    And, Mr. Secretary, thank you for being with us today. My 
first question is specific to Afghan allies. And for those of 
us who have been working directly with people on the ground 
trying to get folks out, as I know you have, it has been a 
really challenging time.
    And I think one of the lessons here, one of the takeaways 
for me is that we must always plan for the worst case scenario, 
because I think we saw a confluence of worst case scenarios 
come to fruition.
    So, on that end, I would note that in your opening remarks, 
you stated that we expect the Taliban to ensure freedom of 
travel, make good on its CT commitments, uphold the basic 
rights of the Afghan people, including women, girls, 
minorities, and name a broadly representative permanent 
government.
    But I have also seen videos of women and girls being beaten 
by the Taliban. I know there have been night letters that have 
been posted on doors, marking people for interrogation or 
assassination. I have received photos and written testimoneys 
of some of the beatings and targetings that have occurred, and 
murders and beatings have been documented against those who 
have helped the United States.
    And so, sir, I would begin by asking, have you seen any of 
these videos? Have they made their way to you as well?
    Secretary Blinken. Yes, I have seen videos. I have seen 
reports. I have read news accounts. Yes. And these incidents 
are deeply, deeply disturbing.
    Ms. Spanberger. So looking toward the future, recognizing 
that perhaps we should hear your plan for the absolute worst 
case scenario, is the Department talking through what the 
contingencies are in the scenario in which the Taliban does not 
do the things that you stated are our expectations and hopes?
    Secretary Blinken. In short, yes.
    Ms. Spanberger. Okay. And thank you for that. And I also 
just want to thank every person on the ground, every person who 
has been so helpful.
    I represent many, many in the veterans community who have 
focused exclusively on ensuring that those who helped keep them 
alive and those who worked side by side with them would have a 
chance at a better life in the future. And so I am grateful for 
their service and their work.
    I recently sent a letter to you, sir, focused on border 
crossings. And I know there has been some progress toward 
working with border nations about the possibility of them 
opening the borders. Could you just briefly comment on what the 
status is related to the ability to exfiltrate people or allow 
people to cross at borders?
    Secretary Blinken. Yes. Thank you. And I saw the letter, 
and I thank you for it.
    We have been working with a number of countries, including 
Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, to ensure that, ideally, 
their borders will remain open overall, but certainly that they 
would remain open to American citizens, green card holders, 
visa holders, who seek to leave and who are assisting in 
leaving. And we have basic agreements with all three countries 
that that will be the case.
    And so the work now is to be able to see people start, as 
we saw last week with the flights that left Qatar--left, excuse 
me, Kabul for Qatar, that started to happen.
    Ms. Spanberger. Thank you so very much, Mr. Secretary. And, 
please, if any of that changes, I ask that you keep us apprised 
so that we can be helpful as possible.
    And last week I visited Fort Pickett, which is in my 
district, to see Operations Allies Welcome firsthand, and I saw 
thousands of Afghan children, women, and men who made it out of 
Afghanistan. It is a testament to a whole-of-government 
approach--public servants, U.S. servicemembers, NGO workers and 
volunteers standing up an incredible effort on very, very short 
notice.
    On behalf of the community that I represent, I would just 
want to reiterate the importance of really ensuring that the 
interagency team engages and communicates with local 
government.
    I was very happy to learn about the health screenings on 
the ground and the initiation of English language classes that 
have begun onsite. I hope that continues.
    But I am curious, how long do you anticipate Operations 
Allies Welcome will continue to utilize military installations 
across the United States, including the one that is in my 
district?
    Secretary Blinken. Well, thank you. And I am really 
grateful for that support, the engagement of the community. It 
makes all the difference. And I want to make sure too, like 
you, that we have the right, you know, connectivity, that we 
are talking and coordinating with the local community.
    We have to make sure that we have the ability to put people 
into the resettlement process with resettlement agencies across 
the United States. We are determined to move them as 
expeditiously as possible. Let me come back to you with a 
better timeframe, because we also have to do it mindful of 
making sure we complete any security checks that are necessary.
    Ms. Spanberger. And I do appreciate the robust security 
provisions that I witnessed when I was visiting.
    And I have run out of time, though I have many more 
questions. I appreciate your time, Mr. Secretary.
    I yield back.
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentlelady's time is expired.
    I now recognize Representative August Pfluger of Texas, who 
is the vice ranking member for the Subcommittee on Europe, 
Energy, the Environment and Cyber, for 5 minutes.
    You are muted, Mr. Pfluger. Please unmute.
    We will come back to Mr. Pfluger.
    I now recognize Representative Nicole Malliotakis of New 
York, who is the ranking member for the Subcommittee on 
International Development, International Organization, and 
Global Corporate Social Impact, for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Malliotakis. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And thank you, Secretary, for being with us today and 
answering our questions and concerns.
    You said that the Afghanistan mission was, quote, 
successful. You know, I speak for millions of Americans when I 
say that it was a kick in the gut to see our American military 
vehicles parading in the streets with the Taliban flags.
    You know, this has been a real hasty withdrawal; U.S. 
citizens unable to get through the gates, the SIV process was a 
mess. Our offices had to work with veterans on the ground 
because you couldn't get responses in some cases from the State 
Department. And we still have a hundred American citizens still 
behind enemy lines, which is the same number that it was 2 
weeks ago. And, of course, the 13 soldiers who were killed. So 
I do not know how anyone can call that a success. But then 
again, it is coming from an administration who has misled the 
American people throughout this entire withdrawal.
    Today you said the Taliban is committed to not allowing 
Afghanistan to be used as a base for terrorism. You know, the 
Taliban, as you said, is a designated terrorist organization 
itself. It harbored al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden leading up to 
9/11.
    And the U.S. Government has also designated the Haqqani 
Network a foreign terrorist organization. Mr. Haqqani, as you 
know, is now one of the Taliban's new cabinet members. He is on 
the FBI Most Wanted list. We have a $10 million reward for 
information leading to his arrest.
    I fear that this is a type of weakness, incredulity that 
has gotten us in the situation that we are currently in.
    The FBI still has even questions for the Haqqani Network, 
the January 8, 2008 attack at a Kabul hotel that killed 1 
American and 5 others, a 2011 suicide truck bomb in Wardak 
province that wounded 77 American soldiers.
    You know, now that we have no presence on the ground in 
Afghanistan, how is the administration working to ensure that 
these same terrorists do not attack Americans again just as 
they did at the Kabul Airport? And you know, how can we trust, 
how can you trust the Taliban to say that they are going to do 
this and actually work to prevent terrorism when they are a 
terrorist network themselves? And what have they told you about 
rooting out ISIS-K, who is responsible for those 13 soldiers' 
deaths?
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you, Congresswoman. First of all, 
it is not about trusting the Taliban at all. It is about 
holding them to the commitments they made not just to us but to 
the international community when it comes to not allowing 
Afghanistan to become a haven for outwardly directed terrorism.
    There are two groups that you pointed to that are very 
important in this. One is ISIS-K, the group that killed our 
servicemen and women just a couple of weeks ago in Afghanistan. 
As it happens, one thing one could say about the Taliban is 
that they and ISIS-K are sworn enemies, and the Taliban has 
spent the last 5 years, even as it has relentlessly been moving 
to take more territory, to also take territory away from ISIS-K 
as it sought to implant itself in Afghanistan, and they remain 
very much at odds.
    And I think the greater question with regard to ISIS-K is 
less whether the Taliban has the intent and more whether it has 
the capacity to effectively deal with it. But over the last 5 
or 6 years, it took away virtually all of the territory that it 
held.
    Then you rightly point to al-Qaeda, the ability of that 
group to engage in outwardly directed, homeland-focused 
terrorist attacks has been dramatically degraded. And the 
assessment of the community right now is that they do not 
currently have that capacity. Having said that, we will remain 
extremely vigilant to detect any reemergence of that 
capability, and of course, take action against it if it 
reemerges.
    And as we were talking a bit earlier, we would welcome the 
opportunity to go into more detail about that in a different 
setting.
    Ms. Malliotakis. I would appreciate that because I am very 
concerned that, you know, the government is relying on the 
Taliban for counterterrorism, and that should not be something 
that we should even be flirting with.
    But in addition to that, you know, just while we were in 
this hearing, $64 million is being reported in additional aid 
to Afghanistan. And how do we know and how can you guarantee 
the American people that this isn't going to end up in the 
hands of the Taliban just like our military equipment and 
vehicles and weapons did?
    Secretary Blinken. Yes. It is an important question, 
Congresswoman, and here is what I would say. That money and any 
other assistance we provide, humanitarian assistance we 
provide, will not be provided to the government of Afghanistan. 
It is provided to NGO's that we have worked with for many, many 
years and to U.N. agencies that we have worked for many, many 
years. And they have tried and true mechanisms in place to make 
sure that the assistance gets to the people who need it, not to 
the government.
    Ms. Malliotakis. Well, I mean, I still question that. I 
think that we have to be--you know, I do not agree with this 
decision at this time. I do believe that we need to be 
concerned even about NGO's that are doing work on the ground 
and making----
    Chairman Meeks. The gentlewoman's time has expired.
    Ms. Malliotakis. And child brides. If you could touch on 
that, just where the status----
    Chairman Meeks. The gentlelady's time has expired.
    I now recognize Representative Chrissy Houlahan of 
Pennsylvania for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Houlahan. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. 
Secretary. I know that most Americans are still supportive of 
the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and I also know that the 
airlift was remarkable and historic in its scale, but I do 
think that this process was not without its missteps, and now 
we do have some opportunities from which to draw on these 
lessons and hopefully have the ability to together steer 
ourselves more positively into the future.
    So I do have some questions, and I think it is important to 
point out that it is appropriate within Congress' 
constitutional role and responsibility of oversight to ask 
these questions. I really do this in the spirit of my 
responsibility, not in the spirit of whether a D or an R is in 
the White House. In the 20 years that this war has happened, 
there has been ample opportunity to spread blame all around.
    And I can also say that both Rs and Ds on this committee 
have personally served themselves, and I can personally 
understand the pain and anxiety that many of us are feeling 
during this very important and contentious discussion. Our pain 
and anxiety knows no party, and no party owns patriotism.
    That said, here is my first question, Mr. Secretary. In 
July, the U.S. military left Bagram Air Field, and on August 
15, the State Department made the decision to close the embassy 
chancery and evacuate to the airport. What drove that decision 
to withdraw from Bagram and a few weeks later to close the 
embassy? Sir, I know that you reflected that it was largely the 
DoD's decision to vacate Bagram, but it certainly was your 
decision and responsibility with the embassy.
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you, and I very much appreciate 
the spirit with which you are asking these very important 
questions as well as the oversight role that the Congress 
plays. It is central to our system.
    With regard to Bagram, this was part of the drawdown plan 
for the military. Again, the base was handed over to the Afghan 
national security and defense forces I believe on July 2. I 
leave it to my colleagues to get into the details of that. But, 
in essence, as we were drawing down, force protection is job 
one. It would have taken very significant forces remaining in 
place to defend Bagram.
    And in terms of departures from Afghanistan, and this was 
before the collapse of the government and the security forces, 
the airport in Kabul was a much better place to do that from. 
Bagram, as you know, is about 40 miles outside of the city. So 
getting there is a challenge, and at the end of the day, any--I 
am sorry. Go ahead.
    Ms. Houlahan. If it is okay, I would like to kind of lead 
into my question because I think it relates to that. I do want 
to understand something that many of us remain unclear on which 
is the timelines that were laid out both publicly and privately 
for withdrawal. It may have something to do with the decision 
to vacant Bagram and the embassy.
    I empathize that you were given an agenda and not 
necessarily a plan from the prior administration, but as far as 
I can tell, September 11 was announced publicly as a date 
certain by which we needed to be gone as was August 31 later 
on. And I was always led to believe that that telegraphing, let 
alone speaking out loud the dates that you were planning on 
doing things was something you should not signal to your enemy. 
Why did we do that? Can you help me understand that? And was 
that somehow--did that somehow drive the Bagram decision and 
the embassy decision.
    Secretary Blinken. Sure. No. This all goes to the fact that 
as we have been discussing earlier, we inherited an agreement 
that required us to leave Afghanistan by May 1. And had we not 
made good on that agreement, then we would have seen a 
resumption of the war with Taliban forces firing once again on 
us and our partners and seeking over to take over the cities 
which would have required us to put in more forces and restart 
the work. But having said that----
    Ms. Houlahan. There was some magic to September 11 that I 
just do not understand, so----
    Secretary Blinken. So we--so in doing our work on how to 
deal with May 1, the military told us that in order to, as they 
put it, retrograde in an orderly and safe manner, they needed 3 
to 4 months to do it the right way. And so the President took a 
risk in pushing past the May 1 deadline in terms of actually 
getting everyone out but making it clear that we were doing 
that to meet the commitment that his predecessor had made.
    And the--you get to September by those 3 to 4 months that 
the military said it needed to retrograde in a safe and orderly 
manner.
    Ms. Houlahan. Sir, with my remaining time, once September 
11 had been decided, it was also clear that we were on a very 
much more rapid path than September 11 which left us--we pulled 
out troops that could been around longer, and then we ended up 
having to bring back troops. Was that--why did we decide a date 
and then escalate the date and make it even more rapid?
    And I am sorry. I only have 7 seconds of my time, so I will 
have to take it for the record.
    Secretary Blinken. Sure, I am happy to come back to you, 
but in essence, everything changed when the government and the 
Afghan national security forces collapsed over 11 days in 
August. And then we moved into an emergency evacuation 
situation. And what was critical in order to do that, to get 
American citizens out, to get Afghans at risk out, was to make 
sure that we had control of the airport.
    And to do that as effectively as possible, the President 
had forces on standby for exactly this kind of emergency or 
contingency to make sure that we could go in, secure the 
airport which we did in 72 hours, and get flights moving out of 
the airport.
    So that is why those forces on standby went back in to 
secure the airport so we could do the evacuation.
    Ms. Houlahan. Sure. I have run out of time. I yield back.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentlelady's time has expired.
    And I will again reach out to Representative August Pfluger 
of Texas for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Pfluger. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can you hear me?
    Chairman Meeks. Yes, we hear you. You are breaking up, Mr. 
Pfluger. You are breaking up.
    Secretary Blinken. I am sorry, Mr. Chairman. I could not 
hear the Congressman.
    Chairman Meeks. I could not hear either.
    Mr. Plfuger, we could not hear you. You broke up.
    Mr. Pfluger. Okay. Can you hear me now.
    Chairman Meeks. We can hear you better.
    Mr. Pfluger. Okay. I would like to start by saying thank 
you to Ambassador Rosenblum and also to Deputy Secretary 
Viguerie for their help in getting the Afghan pilots out of 
Uzbekistan and to their onward destination.
    I now want to ask a very pointed question, Mr. Secretary. 
Are there any American hostages being held in Afghanistan?
    Secretary Blinken. Mark Frerichs who is of great concern to 
me and to the entire administration who has been hostage there 
going back a couple of years and who we work on every single 
day to bring back home.
    Mr. Pfluger. Are there any other American hostages being 
held?
    Secretary Blinken. To the best of my knowledge, no.
    Mr. Pfluger. Are we going to bring Mark Frerichs home now 
that we have left Afghanistan?
    Secretary Blinken. We are doing everything in our power as 
we have been and as the previous administration was doing.
    Mr. Pfluger. Who is holding Mark Frerichs right now?
    Secretary Blinken. I would be happy to take that up in a 
different setting.
    Mr. Pfluger. So would it be fair to say that this is going 
to be very difficult to bring him home now that we have left 
Afghanistan?
    Secretary Blinken. It was obviously extremely difficult 
since it did not happen over the last couple of years, and we 
are determined to see that through.
    Mr. Pfluger. Have you received any classified briefings on 
the situation as it relates to the terror threat inside 
Afghanistan, classified briefings recently?
    Secretary Blinken. We get briefings, yes, on a regular 
basis on----
    Mr. Pfluger. Would you character those as positive, like 
the world is a safer place, or negative, like the threat is 
rising?
    Secretary Blinken. Well, needless to say, I do not want to 
get into any details in this setting. Again, happy to come back 
to you, but it very much depends on what you are looking at. If 
you are looking at outwardly directed threats against the 
homeland and against others outside of Afghanistan, the basic 
assessment is the groups in question currently do not have that 
capacity. But that could change, and that is why we are being 
extremely vigilant to see if it reemerges and to do something 
about it if it does.
    Mr. Pfluger. At the 9/11 museum in New York City, and I 
will read, in the Bin Laden museum, the al-Qaeda, with 
Taliban's permission to operate in Afghanistan, pursued its 
campaign against the U.S. and its allies. The Taliban provided 
al-Qaeda members with passports and stamps, allowing them to 
travel freely, and import vehicles, weapons, and money.
    I find it hard to believe that so much has changed in the 
20-year period that now that threat has been mitigated. How 
many evacuees have met criterias of known or suspected 
terrorists at this point in time at our lily pad locations?
    Secretary Blinken. Known or suspected? I do not--I do not 
have that information. We are engaged in a--in an extremely 
vigorous verification process involving multiple agencies, law 
enforcement, intelligence, security. No one--no one will get to 
the United States who----
    Mr. Pfluger. Where are they going when they pop on either 
KST or some other similar list? Where are they going? What are 
we doing with them?
    Secretary Blinken. So we have a number of countries I 
think, as you know, where we are transiting anyone coming out 
of Afghanistan. That is where the initial checks are done.
    And if we need more time on those checks to verify 
something, they stay in place, or they move to another location 
where we have arrangements to make sure that we have the time 
we need to go through all of the checks before they get to the 
United States.
    Mr. Pfluger. Thank you. And we have requested in a 
bipartisan manner to conduct oversight and have been denied 
that ability at the lily pads. We will continue to press. It is 
not right to be denied that oversight.
    Mr. Secretary, did the President follow military, best 
military advice to the letter, on the execution of the 
withdrawal as he stated in a speech recently?
    Secretary Blinken. Yes. And when it comes to, for example, 
the question of August 31, it was the unanimous recommendation 
of the military, starting with the Chairman of the Joint 
Chiefs, the Secretary of Defense, all of the commanders on the 
ground to move forward with getting out by the 31st because as 
they said, if we did not do that the risk to force and the risk 
to mission would be exponentially high.
    Mr. Pfluger. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Do you feel that the 
United States of America has abandoned our citizens?
    Secretary Blinken. No. Absolutely not. On the contrary. On 
the contrary.
    Mr. Pfluger. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. I 
appreciate your responses. And with that, I yield back.
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you, Congressman.
    Chairman Meeks. I now recognize Representative Tom 
Malinowski of New Jersey who is the Vice Chair of the full 
committee for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Malinowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Secretary, as someone who was screaming about this from 
the rooftops at the time, I can count on one hand the number of 
my colleagues from the other side who joined in expressing any 
concern about the former President inviting the Taliban to Camp 
David or the shameful surrender agreement that undoubtedly set 
us on the path to this tragedy.
    And if anybody believes that the previous administration 
would have evacuated any Afghans to the United States, much 
less tens of thousands as President Biden did, I would suggest 
that they ask the Kurds their opinion of that.
    That said, those of us who have been consistent about this 
I think are entitled to say that it was also a mistake for this 
administration to pick up where President Trump left off. It is 
certainly true that we were never going to be able to fix what 
was wrong with Afghanistan. That does not mean that we were 
obliged to sacrifice everything that was right with 
Afghanistan. And the sacrifice, I think, is profound.
    An extremely important counterterrorism partnership was 
lost, and a terrorist State is now upon us. Enormous gains for 
women, for the rule of law, for democracy, for human rights, 
mass displacement. The Afghans remade their society. We did not 
do it. They did it. It was our withdrawal, I am afraid, that 
has unmade their society.
    And what have we gained for this? Our troops are not coming 
home. We need to be honest about that. They are merely moving 
to other bases in the same region to conduct the same 
counterterrorism missions, including in Afghanistan, but from a 
longer distance with no partners on the ground, no NATO allies 
on the ground, presumably more civilian casualties. That drone 
strike in Kabul was not the last act of our war. It was 
unfortunately the first act of the next stage of our war.
    Now, I do not want to ask you to respond to all of that. I 
think this is just a philosophical difference that will have to 
rest. I do want to ask you, Mr. Secretary, about the next stage 
of this evacuation to which I know you are committed.
    There was one Afghan woman in particular that I worked to 
get out, one of many, an activist. I will not name her. She was 
on social media, interviewed by the international media a lot, 
tremendously at risk. Tried to get to the airport several 
times. Once got on a bus that a third country had organized, 
was taken off that bus. And, again, to be honest, in the very 
short time we had before August 31, we were never able to make 
the evacuation of those Afghans at risk a priority.
    The message that we got from the State Department was if 
they got to HKIA, we would try to evacuate them, but they were, 
in effect, on their own to get there or dependent comment on 
private groups to get there.
    My question for you today, very practically, is whether 
with this new phase with most Americans out, with the airport 
restarting operations, whether the State Department will 
proactively prioritize trying to get individuals like that 
women's rights activist out.
    And let me say what I mean by that specifically. Will the 
State Department, for example, reach out to all the private 
groups and NGO's that have been working on this to try to 
consolidate and rationalize these lists that they have and that 
you have?
    Will you work to try to proactively contact these people to 
get them visas either to the United States or visas that we can 
encourage third countries to give them? And would we work, 
then, proactively with countries like Qatar that are still in 
place to try to arrange for safe rides to the airport?
    Secretary Blinken. Congressman, in short, yes, and I think 
we do have to do everything we can to bring some of these lists 
together to the extent that has not happened and ultimately to 
prioritize those who are most at risk.
    Our priorities going forward are, of course, on any 
remaining American citizens who wish to leave as well as on the 
special immigrant visa applicants who worked side by side with 
us over the years and Afghans at risk.
    And I think we do need to make sure that we are looking at 
everything that different organizations are providing, Members 
of Congress are providing so that we can identify those who we 
believe to be at the highest risk and we can focus on that 
population.
    Mr. Malinowski. Thank you. What I am hoping is that you are 
very proactive about this rather than putting the burden on 
them to find a way out of the country first.
    And then finally, very quickly, I know you have served all 
kinds of personnel to Germany and to other places where people 
we evacuated on our planes came out. Are you willing to do the 
same for Afghans who were brought by private groups to 
countries like Albania?
    Secretary Blinken. We want to make sure that we have in 
place, wherever necessary, the personnel required to help 
process people and to make sure that we can do what checks are 
necessary and also to support their efforts to move from their 
initial landing place to an ultimate destination.
    Mr. Malinowski. Thank you. I yield back.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman's time has expired.
    I now recognize Representative Peter Meijer of Michigan for 
5 minutes.
    Mr. Meijer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. 
Secretary, for coming before us today. I just want to do two 
quick clarifications on some of the questions that my 
colleagues asked.
    No. 1. Congressman Green asked whether or not the Taliban 
was a terrorist organization. You said yes. I am assuming you 
are referring to their listing as a specially designated global 
terrorist?
    Secretary Blinken. That is correct.
    Mr. Meijer. They are not on the foreign terrorist 
organization list.
    Secretary Blinken. Yes. Thank you for clarifying that. That 
is correct.
    Mr. Meijer. And then Congresswoman Houlahan had asked 
earlier, and you had answered part of this question, but you 
did not get to one component of it. She was asking about why 
the deadline had been changed from September 11 which it 
appears the Taliban had consented to and had acknowledged to 
August 31, and I did not hear a response from you on that 
front.
    Secretary Blinken. The deadline that the Taliban repeatedly 
made clear that they were looking to was August 31, and we got 
that in various ways, in various communications. And so one 
risk, and you have to assess it, is had we pushed beyond that, 
what actions might they take.
    Mr. Meijer. Mr. Secretary, I certainly understand the risks 
of pushing for that August 31 deadline. I had initially 
believed that that was necessary and understood that the 
position we were in would not allow for that.
    But I want to also get at something that we had discussed 
earlier. You had mentioned several times these emails that the 
State Department had sent to Americans who were in 
Afghanistan----
    Secretary Blinken. Yes.
    Mr. Meijer [continuing]. Warning them to leave. As somebody 
who was a civilian in Afghanistan, I remember getting alarmist 
emails from the State Department all the time, so I can also 
understand if they had a little bit of fatigue in being told 
the sky was falling. And I am also sure there was maybe some 
changes to verbiage that maybe did not come across as much. But 
I guess I am a little bit challenged to square that with the 
delay that we saw.
    As a member of the Honoring our Promises Working Group on 
special immigrant visa applicants, you know, we had reached out 
to the administration on April 21, you know, imploring, urging 
to clear the backlog, and I understand some logistical hurdles 
there. We worked to expedite and streamline the processes.
    But still, if we were so concerned that we are sending 
these grim emails that Americans should have received and left 
the country immediately, how come we weren't moving more 
quickly? Why did it take 99 days before the first charter 
flight took special immigrant visa applicants out.
    Secretary Blinken. Yes. So two things. Of course, as you 
know Congressman, because you know this so well, it is a 
complicated process, but two things very quickly.
    First of all, with regard to the Americans citizens that 
were there. The warnings were increasingly explicit, and we 
wanted to make sure to the best of our ability because we were 
in a very volatile security situation, and we had an 
obligation, first and foremost, to any American citizens who 
were there to put them on notice and to strongly urge them to 
leave while, you know, there were clearly commercial means to 
do so.
    With regard to the special immigrant visas, and I know your 
commitment to this which I deeply, deeply appreciate. Again, we 
were in a massive acceleration of the program starting from 
February, not from, you know, when things--when the government 
and the security forces imploded.
    And we had a program, as we discussed, that was pretty much 
in a dead stall. We had an executive order from the President 
on February 4 ordering us to improve it. We went from 100 
visas, 100 visas a week to 1,000 a week from March to late 
July, so we were in the process of doing that.
    And then, of course, we put in place something that is not 
even called for which was Operation Allies Refuge which 
actually flew people out which, as you know, is not part of 
the----
    Mr. Meijer. My deep regret is that it just--it took so long 
because obviously, we had that concern, expressing it to 
citizens. But, you know, talking with folks behind the scenes 
and still understanding some of the procedural and logistical 
impediments, I just--I wish we would have had that task force 
appointee earlier.
    Secretary Blinken. This is something I hope we can keep 
working on together going forward.
    Mr. Meijer. Mr. Secretary, I want to touch upon something 
that you mentioned multiple times, that some of the folks who 
were left behind are dual nationals. Do you make a distinction 
for prioritization between native born American citizens by 
birth and those who are naturalized citizens?
    Secretary Blinken. We do not. It is really by means of 
explanation of why this decision is so hard for so many--for 
some people, which is to say that especially in the case of 
dual nationals, often, it is people whose entire life has been 
in Afghanistan. That is really what they know as home. And that 
just explains why literally people have been going back and 
forth; do we want to leave, do we not want to leave.
    Mr. Meijer. Well, and Mr. Secretary, in some of these 
cases, some of those individuals have maybe not a direct 
dependent, maybe not a wife or husband, maybe not a son or 
daughter, but they might have a brother or sister who is an SIV 
eligible or has had that approved, and those flights are being 
delayed. So please work to free the planes in Mazar-e-Sharif, 
and I yield back my time.
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you.
    Chairman Meeks. I now recognize Representative Andy Kim of 
New Jersey for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Kim of New Jersey. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    And, Mr. Secretary, I wanted to drill down on some elements 
that you talked about. You talked about the challenge that we 
faced a month ago as the collapse of the Afghan security forces 
as well as the Afghan government, and I want to unpack that a 
little bit.
    From your assessment now that we have a month behind us, 
was this a situation where the Afghan security forces did not 
fight, or was this a situation that they were not given the 
orders to fight or given a strategy to actually implement? I 
wanted to see if there was a greater sense of granularity that 
you have on that.
    Secretary Blinken. So I think it was a combination of both 
factors, and you are right to point to them. But I think that 
to some large extent, those security forces were ill served by 
the leadership that they had in giving them a coherent plan.
    We--throughout the summer, we were pressing, and obviously, 
the experts were pressing, our military leaders and other 
experts. But also me, in conversations that I had with then 
President Ghani and others to put in place an effective plan, 
and in particular, to make sure that they were consolidating 
their forces to most--to more effectively defend the major 
cities, Kabul, and the large provincial capitols.
    And so in the absence, despite extensive efforts to get 
them to adopt those plans, I think that made it a lot harder on 
the security forces that wanted to fight.
    Mr. Kim of New Jersey. Yes. No, I think so. And I think, 
look, this is going to be one of the most important questions, 
you know, when we look back at this and try to understand and 
diagnose where the problem was.
    A related element to this is a question I have actually 
asked to some State Department staff and senior staff before, 
but I wanted to get your take on it.
    Mr. Secretary, did former President Ashraf Ghani secure 
anything for his people with his departure, or did he flee as a 
coward?
    Secretary Blinken. Look. I do not want to characterize his 
departure other than to say that that combined with as an 
institution, the Afghan security forces, not putting up 
resistance, and all of this taking place in the space of 11 
days obviously is what put us into this emergency evacuation 
situation.
    Mr. Kim of New Jersey. Did you have any prior knowledge 
that he was going to flee, or did you hear about it when he 
announced it on social media?
    Secretary Blinken. I spoke to President Ghani on Saturday 
night, and this was when we were in the process of working in 
Doha to try to organize a transfer of power and to have a--
toward a representative government and to see that he would 
participate in that, and what he told me in that conversation 
was that he would.
    He would go along with that effort but if the Taliban 
wouldn't, he would, and I paraphrase, fight to the death. That 
was Saturday night. He left the next day. I had no advance 
warning of that.
    Mr. Kim of New Jersey. Mr. Secretary, I wanted to ask you. 
Have you personally spoken to any Taliban leadership?
    Secretary Blinken. I have not.
    Mr. Kim of New Jersey. I guess the question is are you 
actively choosing not to speak to them? Is this a point of 
leverage and legitimacy in your mind? And if that is the case, 
who is the most senior person in U.S. Government right now 
talking directly to the Taliban? And who is their counterpart 
on the other side?
    Secretary Blinken. We have made very clear to the Taliban, 
as have countries around the world with our leadership and 
organization, that any legitimacy that they may seek from the 
international community, any support that they may be looking 
for is going to be contingent on their actions, and basically 
the nature of the relationship that they might have with us or 
anyone else will be defined by what they do.
    Mr. Kim of New Jersey. So just--just in terms it of what is 
happening right now----
    Secretary Blinken. So we have had--yes. We have had a--we 
have had a political channel with them going back to the 
previous administration with a team that does engage them 
politically, and Ambassador Khalilzad has been leading that 
effort but with other members of the team. They are ones as 
well our mission in Doha.
    The Afghanistan affairs mission, once the embassy shut 
down, was moved to Doha. Ian McCary who runs that is also 
engaging with their political commission members in Doha.
    Mr. Kim of New Jersey. Yes. And just a final question here, 
you know. There is a lot that we need to unpack over the course 
of 20 years, and certainly, these different committees we are 
on in Congress will see different elements. We have the 
political side, the diplomatic side, the military intelligence, 
et cetera, but I wanted to ask you.
    Would the administration support a 9/11-like independent 
commission that would look across all of these different 
pillars to try to assess an analysis of what happened?
    Secretary Blinken. I cannot speak for the administration on 
that. All I can say is that as others have said, we are all 
going to do our hot washes, to use the vernacular, on the last 
9 months since we have been in office. And I hope and expect 
that all of us will engage in a review of the last 20 years.
    Mr. Kim of New Jersey. Great. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman's time has expired.
    I now recognize Representative Ronny Jackson of Texas as 
the Vice Ranking Member for the subcommittee on Africa, Global 
Health, and Global Human Rights for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Jackson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Secretary, how many members of the State Department 
were killed in the recent evacuation efforts in Kabul?
    Secretary Blinken. Members of the State Department killed? 
None.
    Mr. Jackson. Okay. Mr. Secretary, in your earlier 
testimony, you stated that members of the State Department ran 
into the airport and were serving side by side with the Marines 
at that gate. Although I deeply appreciate any and all efforts 
of the State Department personnel on the ground to rescue 
American citizens, for you to try and ride the coattails of the 
13 brave servicemembers that gave their lives in this effort is 
absolutely shameful in my mind, and it really shows the 
American people how out of touch you continue to be.
    Secretary Blinken. I am not riding anyone's coattails, 
Congressman. For your information, the men and women of my 
department----
    Mr. Jackson. It was a statement, not a question. It was a 
statement, not a question.
    Secretary Blinken, exactly 1 week ago, four of my 
constituents escaped Afghanistan, the first known to leave the 
country since your administration abandoned American citizens 
in Kabul on the 30th of August. Your officials left this young 
mother and her three children behind. The youngest was 2 years 
old. The family remained hidden and terrified for 12 long days 
until my team and a group of brave patriots on the ground 
facilitated their evacuation.
    During this time, the State Department did nothing to help 
this family. Instead, you directed them to go to the Taliban 
checkpoints repeatedly where the mother eventually had a pistol 
placed to her head and then told them to stay in their homes as 
the Taliban went door to door searching for American citizens 
and Afghan allies, all while you were vacationing in The 
Hamptons and your diplomats were safe in Doha.
    Then miraculously, after their safe arrival, the State 
Department jumped in to claim full responsibility for what had 
happened. The response from your team is revolting. It takes 
credit from the brave patriots who risked their lives to 
actually bring my constituents home safely.
    Mr. Secretary, did you even know of this family's existence 
until you wanted to take credit for their harrowing journey? 
Also, can you explain to what your team--exactly what your team 
did to help them escape Afghanistan?
    Secretary Blinken. My team has been working 24/7 around the 
clock and around the world to get every American citizen who 
wishes to leave Afghanistan and their families out. They have 
been putting themselves on the line. They have been putting 
everything on the line to do that.
    I very much applaud the efforts that people, including 
yourself, have engaged in to do the same thing, to help bring 
people out. And I am glad that we are able to work together to 
do that including in this case, where to the best of my 
knowledge, we facilitated their departure from Afghanistan, 
including making sure that we worked to get the Taliban to 
allow them to leave as well as working at the border with 
consular officials to make sure that they could be received 
when they got to Uzbekistan and cared for. So I am glad that we 
were able to do that together.
    This is not about taking credit. I applaud the work that 
has been done, including by you, and I hope going forward we 
can continue to do even more of that in closer cooperation and 
coordination to get any remaining American citizens who wish to 
leave out.
    Mr. Jackson. Mr. Secretary, while I do thank you--I do 
thank you for coming to this committee meeting today. I do 
thank you for staying the extra time so that you could actually 
hear my statement and my question, I do have to say that I am 
deeply disappointed in your administration's action and what I 
consider to be your gross incompetence.
    Not only did you risk countless American lives by 
prematurely and haphazardly withdrawing from Afghanistan, but 
in the aftermath, you have tried to act as if you have made 
zero mistakes, and there has been a continuous effort in the 
State Department to pat yourselves on the back which most 
Americans at this particular point do not appreciate.
    Your tone deaf approach and your attempts to spin the truth 
and claim victory from this clear blunder is deeply disturbing. 
This includes your disgusting attempts to seize credit for this 
evacuation of my constituents.
    We will find out later which I think you had very little, 
if anything to do with. You and the rest of Biden 
Administration owe the American people an apology. You have 
ruined any trust we have with our allies and any credibility we 
have on the world stage.
    With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman yields back.
    I now recognize Representative Sara Jacobs of California 
who is the vice chair of the Subcommittee on International 
Development, International Organizations, and Global Corporate 
Social Impact for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Jacobs. Well, thank you so much, Mr. Chair, and thank 
you, Mr. Secretary, for answering our questions and for staying 
so that some of us more junior members get a chance to ask you 
questions as well.
    I first wanted to say that while I have been publicly 
critical of many of the positions made around the evacuation as 
a member of the working group that, as you know, I used to work 
at the State Department, and I have talked to so many former 
colleagues and friends who were on the ground in Kabul who were 
working tirelessly, night and day, no sleep for weeks on end, 
trying to get people out.
    And I think it is an incredible disservice to our 
diplomatic corps and to the brave people who work there every 
single day to say that they are not deserving of praise. I 
disagree with some of the things that were made, but the people 
doing the work around the clock deserve to be praised.
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you.
    Ms. Jacobs. Now I want to raise a letter I sent with 
Senator Merkley and many of my colleagues. While I remain 
committed to working to get people out of Afghanistan with my 
colleagues, I also want to make sure that we are doing 
everything we can to deliver humanitarian assistance and, you 
know, urging the Treasury Department to issue an OFAC general 
license.
    So I look forward to working with you and the 
administration to make sure that the 18 million Afghans that 
are in need are provided support. I think we heard just today 
from the U.N. how dire that that need is.
    I also think, you know, we talked a lot about policy 
failures in the last few months, in the last 20 years. And I 
know you are still observing the lessons of the past 2 decades, 
and I look forward to working with you on that and on the 
lessons learned, especially as someone who has done a lot of 
work on--and complex stabilization.
    I wanted to followup on something you addressed with my 
colleague, Mr. Phillips, on a very specific failure we 
encountered over and over again in Afghanistan, and that is on 
corruption. Why was the State Department unable to address this 
issue over 20 years? And what can we do to make sure that as we 
work with other countries and promote good governance around 
the globe that we are not continuing to have those same 
problems?
    Secretary Blinken. Yes. That is a great question and one 
that I do not have a good answer to because it is manifestly a 
failure of our policy over the last 20 years and one that we 
need to address because ultimately, that corruption, I think, 
among other things, undermined any trust or confidence in the 
government as well as allegiance to the government.
    And so when you are asking, you know, Afghan security 
forces to fight for their country and to fight for a 
government, when there is that much corruption that is endemic, 
it is awfully hard to get that allegiance. So you are a hundred 
percent right to point to that problem.
    We are putting a special emphasis in the department at 
large on trying to more effectively combat corruption around 
the world, and I think we need to understand very much the 
lessons of Afghanistan as part of that effort. We certainly 
welcome working with you and others on that because we see this 
around the world as a source of profound instability.
    Ms. Jacobs. Well, I appreciate that. I will look forward to 
working with you on that and especially looking at how the way 
we do our assistance and security assistance feeds into the 
incentives around corruption.
    I know you have been busy, so I am not sure if you have had 
a chance to read the recently released cigar lessons learned 
report, but I was wondering specifically what the 
administration plans on applying going forward on how we are 
conducting peace building and development in all of the 
countries we are working in.
    Because I think what we saw in Afghanistan was obviously a 
failure of some of our military strategy, but also that in 20 
years, we could not do the development and peace building 
programs that would have made the rest of the engagement more 
durable.
    So, you know, how do we plan our foreign engagements going 
forward with realistic goals, space to course correct, and how 
do we make sure we are actually peace building and helping 
countries develop and not just, you know, doing the same thing 
that we just saw did not work in Afghanistan?
    Secretary Blinken. Well, first, I hope that I can actually 
get my senior team in place to work on just that. But as we 
were talking about a little bit earlier, the most senior 
officials, unfortunately, are stuck in the Senate right now but 
we do need to--I have seen summaries of the report.
    I have not yet read the whole thing, but I have seen the 
summaries of it. This is going to be an important, very 
important document in informing what we do going forward and 
how we do it better. So, again, this is something we welcome 
working with Congress on in the weeks ahead.
    Ms. Jacobs. Well, thank you.
    And, Mr. Chair, I yield back.
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentlelady yields back.
    I now recognize Young Kim of California who is the vice 
ranking member of the Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, 
Central Asia, and Nonproliferation for 5 minutes.
    Ms. Kim of California. Thank you, Chairman.
    Secretary Blinken. I appreciate your patience. It has been 
a long day. I will get right to the point, and I would 
appreciate if you could keep your answers brief too.
    The withdrawal from Afghanistan continues to be a disaster 
that has been worsened by this administration's response, and I 
want to be clear the issue is not whether we should have 
withdrawn but how we withdrew and the complete lack of 
accountability from this administration.
    We left hundreds of Americans stranded behind enemy lines, 
abandoned our Afghan partners who fought by our side, left 
behind 500 journalists from the U.S. Agency for Global Media in 
Afghanistan, and left the fates of women and children in the 
hands of Taliban.
    Let's recognize that many State Departments and their 
employees risk their lives and work tirelessly over the last 
months, so I want to thank them for their service. However, due 
to a vacuum in the leadership from this administration the 
veterans, ordinary citizens, and congressional offices were 
forced to step up, and in many cases, take the lead in helping 
Americans and allies flee the country through independent 
rescue operations.
    Unfortunately, many of these operations, especially charter 
flights, have met resistance from the State Department every 
turn. And one of the Afghan SIVs we work with with the Marine 
veterans to try to evacuate was Sayed Obaidullah Amin. He 
served heroically and risked his life as a translator for the 
U.S. forces.
    Despite having a pending SIV, P-1, P-2 application, he was 
abandoned by this administration during the evacuation process. 
He and his wife were killed at Abbey Gate during the Kabul 
airport attack, fighting to get to safety, leaving their two 
infant sons orphans.
    There are still P-1 and P-2 applicants and need the State 
Department's help. It is too late to save his life, but we 
still have time to save others. My office and other 
congressional offices have been working with a third party to 
evacuate civilians, people that this administration left 
behind.
    This group includes Americans, Afghan partners, and 
civilians of allied Nations. This operation, without the help 
of the State Department, has secured routes into a neighboring 
country and has the approval of officials to stage people there 
for transfer to a safe third country where NGO's stand ready to 
feed, treat, and process those people.
    Without basic support from the State Department, this 
country has made it very clear that everyone in this group will 
be sent back to Afghanistan to die at the hands of the Taliban.
    Secretary Blinken, they have started moving as we speak, 
and the first group has 60 people in it, and 40 of them are 
children. Your team already has all the necessary information 
that we provided but has been repeatedly refused to provide any 
assistance. I have called your office two times and talked to 
your officials. These people are all doomed if State does not 
approve and provide transfer to a safe third country.
    Secretary Blinken, I need your commitment now that your 
department will approve and provide transport for these people. 
Do I have your word that you will make this happen?
    Secretary Blinken. We are committed, Congresswoman, to 
working with you and to working with every other member on 
securing the safe transport for people that you identified and 
that seek to leave Afghanistan, so we will work directly with 
you on that, but I remind you that we do not control who leaves 
the country.
    Ms. Kim of California. That is why--Secretary Blinken, you 
do not understand. If we do not do anything right now, even for 
another day, these people are in grave danger. I need your 
commitment now.
    You are a Department. Your office have all these 
information. We just need your commitment right now that you 
will work with them.
    Secretary Blinken. I have here,--it may be hard to see on 
the screen. These are all the cases, and I am--no, from the--
from members of this committee that we are working on. We have 
had 26,000. We have responded to 21,000 of them and we are 
working on every single case to the best of our ability.
    But what we are trying to do right now is to put in place a 
system that recognizes people who can leave, making good on 
commitments that have been made to us in the international 
community by the Taliban, and to get that system moving. That 
involves the airport, it involves land crossings in three 
different countries, and it involves working with different 
groups and organizations so that we can get this and get this 
moving, and we are committed to doing that wherever we possibly 
can.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentlelady's time has expired.
    I now recognize Representative Kathy Manning of North 
Carolina who is the vice chair of the Subcommittee on the 
Middle East, North Africa, and Global Counterterrorism for 5 
minutes.
    Ms. Manning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Mr. 
Secretary, for your patience and for your service on behalf of 
our country and the American people.
    Mr. Secretary, prior to this hearing, I read the agreement 
reached between the Taliban and the Trump administration, and I 
was shocked. Basically, President Trump agreed to withdraw all 
troops, all coalition partners, all civilian personnel by May 
1. He agreed to release 5,000 prisoners to work with the U.N. 
to lift the sanctions against the Taliban, to seek economic 
cooperation for the reconstruction of Afghanistan, and to 
refrain from the threat or use of force against Afghanistan or 
intervene in its domestic affairs.
    In exchange, the Taliban agreed to release up to a thousand 
prisoners. It agreed not to allow its members to attack our 
personnel on the way out and not to allow Afghanistan to be a 
base for the training or fostering of terrorists against the 
U.S. in the future.
    I did not see any demand for the protection of Afghan women 
and girls. I did not see any guarantees that the Taliban will 
prosecute anyone who commits atrocities against women or girls 
or Afghan men, for that matter. I did not see any commitment by 
the Taliban to prosecute people who take steps to attack the 
United States or any of our citizens. The Trump administration 
did not leave you with much to work with, did they?
    Secretary Blinken. Not much.
    Ms. Manning. Nevertheless, Mr. Secretary, you have stated a 
commitment to the safety and well being of Afghan women and 
girls, and I am proud that this committee passed a bipartisan 
resolution that I authored to support these women at risk.
    Unfortunately, the Taliban recently announced that they 
have abolished the Ministry of Women's Affairs, replacing it 
with a Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of 
Vice. Certainly this is a very worrisome sign, as is the lack 
of any women in the Taliban's interim government.
    Representative Spanberger has detailed videos and news 
reports of atrocities that are already taking place.
    Do you plan to assemble an international coalition to hold 
the Taliban accountable for the treatment of women and girls in 
Afghanistan? And can you tell us how you plan to monitor their 
safety, and how can the coalition be effective in ensuring 
those protections?
    Secretary Blinken. Yes. Thank you, Congresswoman, and in 
short, the answer is yes. And, in fact, we have already been 
doing that. We put together a group of leading countries. I led 
a meeting with about 22 of them, as well as NATO, the European 
Union, and the United Nations on the expectations of the 
international community when it comes to the Taliban-led 
government's conduct to include upholding the rights of women 
and girls and minorities.
    And so there is a clear understanding. It is also enshrined 
in a U.N. Security Council resolution that we initiated and got 
passed, and that has some real meaning to it beyond the fact 
that it is a resolution because there are significant U.N. 
sanctions on the Taliban.
    There are travel bans and other things that if the Taliban 
is in violation of this U.N. Security Council resolution, to 
the extent it wants to see those sanctions lifted or travel 
bans lifted, that is not going to happen.
    There are many other points of influence and leverage, and 
overall, we have made very clear, not just us, countries around 
the world, including many leading countries have made very 
clear that the Taliban's conduct will dictate whether they get 
any support or any legitimacy whatsoever from the international 
community. And that conduct goes among, other things, 
critically to how it treats women and girls.
    Ms. Manning. Mr. Secretary, this committee met over Zoom 
with brave and highly intelligent Afghan women who told us they 
were determined to stay in Afghanistan and fight for the soul 
of their country. These extraordinary women who held important 
professional, educational, and governmental positions in 
Afghanistan, should they find themselves targeted by the 
Taliban, will we have their backs? Will our country be willing 
to help these women and their families escape to safety?
    Secretary Blinken. We would do everything within our means 
to have their backs, and so would many other countries around 
the world with whom we are working. And we look forward also to 
working with you in Congress to make sure that we have every 
possible tool to support these women.
    Ms. Manning. Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I know my time is 
almost up, so I just want to encourage you to please do 
everything you can to speed up the SIV processing and to 
provide assistance to those whose documents, whose passports, 
documents, applications were destroyed in the embassy in the 
tumult of the evacuation.
    And, again, thank you for your service.
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you.
    Chairman Meeks. I now recognize Representative Jim Costa of 
California for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Costa. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank 
you, Mr. Secretary, for staying the entire length of time so 
all of us could answer our questions and for your service to 
our country.
    In listening to the hearing today, I am reminded that the 
old adage that we try in America to limit politics at the 
water's edge. With all the finger pointing that has been taking 
place, this maybe a thing of the past. But I would like to 
focus on the current situation with the P-2 process and the P-
1s. We have been trying to work with the State Department, and 
we have, frankly, been frustrated. What is the extent that the 
administration is exploring options for in country or virtual 
processing for P-2 humanitarian patrol applicants?
    Secretary Blinken. We are looking at all of that, 
Congressman, and I would very much appreciate working with you, 
working with your office, and if that is not happening, we will 
make sure that we fix it. But we are looking at everything to 
figure out how can we--whether it is an SIV or whether it is a 
P-1 or P-2 streamline, expedite, consistent, of course, with 
our security.
    Mr. Costa. Like a lot of my colleagues, I have a lot of 
constituents, and we have a hospital that an NGO group here in 
the California valley has sponsored for women and children over 
the last 13 years. Seventy-five percent of the physicians and 
nurses are women. Excuse me, 40 percent of them are women and 
children. They are in great fear. They are minorities in the 
country, and they have been trying to find a way out.
    Are you considering fast tracking the P-2 applicants? And 
what is the process date the department is looking at scaling 
up on the high volume of these applicants, and what sort of 
infrastructure? I mean, it is not equipped to handle, and will 
the department's--will the State work--will you expedite any 
humanitarian patrol petitions, parole petitions, and how long 
is that process for State to finish.
    Secretary Blinken. Yes. We are looking at all of that. I 
want to come back to you and come back to Congress on some of 
the ideas that we have for doing that as well as looking at 
what resources would be needed to do that because I think we 
are going to need more support, and this goes across the SIV 
program to P-1, P-2.
    Mr. Costa. Who would be the key person that our office 
would work with you folks at State?
    Secretary Blinken. I am going to have the head of 
Legislative Affairs in the first instance, her office followup 
with you and your office, and we can take it from there.
    Mr. Costa. It has been very frustrating. There are about, 
you know, almost 200 individuals with their families that are 
kind of in just great frustration and fear of their lives, 
frankly----
    Secretary Blinken. Yes.
    Mr. Costa [continuing]. Notwithstanding all the good work 
that they have done. And so, you know, I am just reminded of 
the fact that it seems like with what the State Department 
maybe has not been able to do, and I know you have made a great 
effort, a humanitarian effort in the evacuation.
    But I am working with other folks, and it seems like a 
modern underground railroad of some kind is taking place with a 
lot of third parties trying to get people by any means to the 
Uzbekistan border or to Tajikistan. How do you see that 
continuing, and with great risk, I might add.
    Secretary Blinken. Yes. Look. I think that there are people 
who are doing extraordinary things to try to help get people 
out of Afghanistan who want to leave, whether it is NGO's, 
individuals, veterans groups, and others. Wherever possible, we 
want to make sure that we are coordinated. We want to make sure 
that we are doing whatever we can to support these efforts.
    But we are also working, Congressman, to make sure to the 
best of our ability that we have in place an overall process, 
and an overall understanding that will allow people to leave 
openly and freely with the necessary documents. That would be 
the best way to do this.
    Mr. Costa. Right. But you are processing these P-2 
applicants, and getting some understanding by the Taliban is 
obviously key to that happening.
    Secretary Blinken. That is correct.
    Mr. Costa. And so let me just close on this, on the bigger 
picture at 20,000 feet. You have been asked this question, and 
please get back to us because these brave people are in great 
fear of their lives.
    Last night I do not know if you saw it, but CNN did a great 
presentation, 2 hours of 20 years of Afghanistan, was it worth 
it, under four different administrations. And I remember 
meeting with Malakey the third time in 2010. I made the same 
comment that was made earlier. How do you expect to create 
Democratic institutions where corruption in this part of the 
world is endemic, it is a way of life, and he gave me a BS 
answer. What is the lessons to learn here that you have gotten, 
and you cannot answer that in 10 seconds, but----
    Secretary Blinken. Well, I think one of them is exactly the 
one you just cited, Congressman, which is when you have got 
corruption corroding everything that you are trying to do, it 
makes it a lot harder, if not impossible, but that is certainly 
something we need to followup on.
    Mr. Costa. Look forward to working with you. Thank you.
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you.
    Chairman Meeks. I now recognize Representative Juan Vargas 
of California who is the vice chair of the Subcommittee for the 
Western Hemisphere, Civilian Security, Migration, and 
International Economic Policy for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Vargas. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I want 
to thank the Secretary. Mr. Secretary, I appreciate the words 
that you said that you were working with the veterans groups in 
particular. We stood up--not we. The veterans stood up an 
incredible group here in San Diego and did heroic work as they 
did when they were serving.
    I hope you continue to work with them and the State 
Department as a whole. They know the interpreters. They know 
the people that helped them. And, again, they did magnificent 
work obviously as soldiers, as airmen, as Marines, and they are 
doing magnificent work now as citizens trying to help those 
that helped us.
    Secretary Blinken. Sure. I agree with you. Yes. Thank you 
for underscoring that. I very much agree, and we are doing 
everything we can do work closely with them. As I mentioned, I 
met with about 75 veterans groups about 10 days ago, and our 
leadership has been engaged with them across the board as well 
as the Pentagon and others, so thank you.
    Mr. Vargas. Well, good. The one thing that we have kind of 
talked around a little bit but haven't really hit square on is 
the issue of intelligence, and obviously, this is not a 
classified briefing.
    But you did bring up the notion that while the briefing had 
stated that we thought that it would be 2 years, potentially, I 
think you said, 18 months to 2 years before the collapse. Then 
you said the shortest time was maybe by the end of this year. 
How many months would that have been? So what is the shortest 
period?
    Secretary Blinken. That, I believe, was an assessment that 
was made in July, so 4 or 5 months, 6 months.
    Mr. Vargas. I have to say I read all the classified 
information. I went to all the briefings. I do not remember 
anything shorter than that.
    Secretary Blinken. I do not either, but look. I want to be 
clear and be fair. You know, there are going to be individuals' 
voices who may point to something different. As you know, you 
try to do this with worst case scenarios as well as best case 
scenarios and other scenarios, and you have to look across the 
board at all of this. The question is, where does the kind of 
weight of it land, and that is what I was referring to.
    Mr. Vargas. What I remember and how I remember this, is all 
the information that I read--and obviously some we cannot 
discuss in this setting--but nobody said that they would 
collapse in a month.
    Secretary Blinken. That is correct.
    Mr. Vargas. Nobody said they would collapse in 2 months. 
There were some people that were saying that, you know, it 
might go quicker than 6 months. But this was a real failure of 
intelligence.
    And my concern is this, that I believe that we could have 
that same failure of intelligence with Iran and its nuclear 
program. Again, I do not think that we are looking at this 
wide-eyed and open-minded. I think that Iran, we are going to 
wake up one of these mornings and find out that our 
intelligence is very wrong there.
    I think we have a very difficult time understanding these 
religious fanatics and what they would do to either liberate 
their country as they see it or to create the weapon of choice 
as they see it. I do not think we have good intelligence on 
them. I do not think we understand what they would be willing 
to do, and it very much concerns me.
    We can look at blame, and certainly I agree with Mr. 
Malinowski. I was very upset when President Trump announced 
that he had secretly invited the Taliban to come to Camp David, 
and then the smiling pictures that we saw--and I hope you do 
not do this--the smiling pictures that we saw with Pompeo and 
the Taliban, saying that he looked into their eyes and he could 
see that they were telling the truth and all that kind of crap. 
I hope you do not do that. I hope you have wide eyes open and 
not those starry eyes of Mr. Pompeo, looking into the eyes of 
Taliban and saying, oh, yes, they are going to be good boys 
this time. They are not.
    But, again, I think our intelligence is lacking, and I do 
not know how we can correct that.
    Secretary Blinken. Let me just say, this is--look, this is 
a collective responsibility, and I think all of us, whether it 
is the intelligence community, whether it is the military, 
whether it is the State Department, need to make sure that we 
are doing everything we can to provide the best possible 
assessments and feeding all of the information in and coming to 
conclusions. So I think this is a collective responsibility, 
and that is very important.
    You know, Iran, there is lots that goes into that, 
different things, but when it comes to what we put in place 
through the agreement that is now no longer being adhered to, 
the JCPOA, we actually had on the ground, eyes-on intelligence 
inspections monitoring unlike any we have ever had, and that is 
different than, you know, assessing someone's intent.
    Mr. Vargas. Well, again, my time is almost up. I do thank 
you for all the work that you have done, but, again, I do think 
we got it all wrong with our intelligence. And I think we are 
going to get it all wrong with Iran, and I think we are going 
to pay a big price. But, again, I thank you for your hard work. 
I appreciate it.
    I yield back.
    Chairman Meeks. I now recognize Representative Brad 
Schneider of Illinois, for 5 minutes.
    Mr. Schneider. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you 
for hosting this critically important hearing.
    And before I go any further, I want to remember and honor 
the service and sacrifice of our military, as well as our 
diplomats and others, who have served our Nation in Afghanistan 
over the last 20 years.
    As you, Chairman Meeks, noted at the top of this hearing, 
800,000 people have served in our military operations in 
Afghanistan. 2,461 U.S. personnel have given their life, 
including, tragically, 11 Marines, one Army soldier, and one 
member of the Navy who died at Hamid Karzai International 
Airport last month.
    I also want to acknowledge the tremendous effort expended 
last month to coordinate the evacuation of more than 124,000 
people from Afghanistan. Nevertheless, I know we are all 
concerned to know that Americans and Afghani allies remain in 
Afghanistan after our last troops left on August 31.
    Mr. Secretary, as you have previously affirmed, our Nation 
remains committed to help any American, as well as citizens of 
allied nations and Afghans wanting to leave. I know this body 
is counting on your commitment there, and please know that we 
are prepared to assist in any way.
    Mr. Secretary, I also want to thank you for staying for a 
very long hearing to allow all of us to have a chance to speak 
and ask questions. We have covered a lot of ground today, some 
of it addressing very difficult issues.
    Let's be clear. The current situation in Afghanistan and 
the tragic events of this August were the consequence of 
policies taking place over 20 years, not the policies or even 
the events of the previous 20 weeks or even 20 months.
    I can just touch on some of those, going back to the very 
beginning, as was noted earlier, in December 2001, less than 3 
months after the 9/11 attacks, the Taliban leader, Mohammad--
Mullah Mohammad Omar, reportedly offered to recognize the new 
government and surrender their arms, but U.S. Secretary of 
Defense Donald Rumsfeld rejected that.
    We can go on into 2010 when we surged to 100,000 troops, 
but in that, President Obama said that he would begin 
withdrawing those troops within 18 months, which he did.
    By 2010, the Obama Administration came to a sense that 
there was no political--or no military solution and began low-
level negotiations with the Taliban in 2010.
    Then jump ahead to last year in 2020, when the U.S. signed 
an agreement with the Taliban after Donald Trump's 
administration initiated the first high-level direct U.S. talks 
with the Taliban.
    In November of last year, President Trump ordered the 
drawdown of our troops.
    On January 15 of 2021, the number of U.S. Forces was at 
2,500 troops, the lowest level since 2001.
    And on April 14 of this year, President Biden announced 
that though he would not have negotiated the deal that the 
previous administration did with the Taliban, he would follow 
through. And we know Kabul fell on August 14, and the last 
troops left on August 31.
    Mr. Secretary, I would like to focus a little bit on the 
agreement that was struck in 2020. According to the agreement, 
the Taliban was supposed to prevent terrorists from threatening 
the U.S. and our allies which, of course, was a farce, given 
the attack that we saw take place over the course of many 
months.
    My question is, under that agreement, how many prisoners 
were released as a condition of the negotiations with the 
Taliban?
    Secretary Blinken. We prevailed upon--the previous 
administration prevailed upon the Afghan Government to release 
about 5,000 prisoners. The Taliban released about 1,000 
prisoners.
    Mr. Schneider. Did any of these prisoners play a leadership 
role in the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan?
    Secretary Blinken. It appears to be the case that some of 
them played a significant role in leading military operations 
in various parts of the country, yes.
    Mr. Schneider. So, you know, jumping forward from the 
agreement, as you said, it left an agenda without a plan--the 
previous administration left an agenda without a plan.
    Based on the 2020 agreement, what would have been the 
implications of keeping U.S. troops in Afghanistan beyond the 
deadline set?
    Secretary Blinken. The implications were very clear, 
Congressman. Had the President not made good on the agreement 
reached by the previous administration, the attacks on our 
forces and partner forces would have resumed, and the offensive 
to take over Afghanistan's cities would have commenced.
    And the result of that would have been that in order to 
protect ourselves and to prevent the takeover of the country, 
we would have had to have reintroduced a substantial number of 
forces into Afghanistan, in effect, restarting and re-upping 
the war, not ending it.
    Mr. Schneider. So with the last couple of seconds, just to 
quickly summarize, had we stayed beyond the deadline, we would 
have had more troops than the 2,500 that started at the 
beginning of this year. Those troops would have been at risk 
and engaged in active conflict with the Taliban, likely 
resulting in casualties to American forces, costs of both blood 
and treasure for our country. Is that a fair statement?
    Secretary Blinken. It is.
    Mr. Schneider. My time has expired, but, again, I just 
implore you, we must do everything we can to bring every 
American home that wants to come home, all of those special 
immigrant visa applicants seeking to come to the United States 
after vetting----
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman's time has expired.
    Mr. Schneider [continuing]. Anything we can do to help you, 
please let us know.
    Secretary Blinken. Thank you.
    Chairman Meeks. The gentleman's time is expired.
    Member questions are now concluded.
    I want to first thank Secretary Blinken for his testimony, 
his patience, and his time here today. He has been accessible 
to this committee, and we look forward to continuing the 
relationship that we have as we utilize our oversight 
responsibilities.
    And as I close, I think it is important to recognize that 
our actions have consequences, and many times these actions are 
not easily reversible.
    The Trump administration's excluding the Ghani government, 
while legitimizing the Taliban through direct negotiations, 
fundamentally altered the power of the country. The deal the 
Trump administration struck with the Taliban forced the Afghan 
Government to release 5,000 prisoners. It was a deal they 
failed to obtain a commitment for a cease-fire or a commitment 
to not attack the Afghan Government, and that failed to obtain 
a commitment from the Taliban to separate from al-Qaeda.
    In exchange, the Trump administration agreed to withdraw 
all of our troops, to include all nondiplomatic personnel, by 
May 2021. There was a consequence to this agreement and 
consequences of the policy decisions that were made throughout 
the 20 years our military was deployed in Afghanistan.
    When I first became chair of this committee, I said that 
the American foreign policy is in desperate need of humility, 
and that includes understanding the limits of U.S. military 
intervention.
    And at the start of this hearing, I cited how many 
Americans were killed over 20 years of war in Afghanistan. But 
that alone does not capture all the full human cost.
    Those numbers do not capture the family members and friends 
forever changed by this conflict. It does not capture the 
suffering endured by Afghan civilians trapped in the middle of 
a civil war.
    The costs of war are immeasurable, and not just the human 
toll. Last year alone resulted in 17 veteran suicides a day, on 
average. We could not ask our servicemembers to fight overseas 
without a clear, winnable objective.
    As Members of Congress, this is our responsibility. In the 
weeks and months to come, we will continue our oversight of 
Afghanistan and take a sober look on how we got here for over 
20 years of war and how we can prevent making the same 
mistakes.
    I also would be remiss if I did not say thank you, after 20 
years, to all of our military and all of DoD. Thank you to the 
State Department and all of our diplomats there. Thank you to 
USAID, USAGM, the Department of Homeland Security, the DEA, the 
CIA, the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Justice, 
the Department of Commerce, and of course, our Afghan allies 
who stood side by side with us for 20 years. I want to thank 
each and every one of them.
    This is not the end. We will conduct, as I have stated 
earlier, continue our oversight responsibilities, bringing in 
individuals from the past administrations as we completely 
oversee and look back and forward to what has been and should 
be and will be in the future.
    And, with that, this hearing is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 7:22 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

                                APPENDIX
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         STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD FROM REPRESENTATIVE CONNOLLY
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            RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
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