Chairman of the US House Foreign Affairs Committee Michael McCaul has accused the country’s State Department of misleading the American public over withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan and its failure to cooperate in the committee’s investigation of the process.
“The State Department continues to obstruct my committee’s investigation into the Afghanistan withdrawal and we will not tolerate it,” McCaul said in a statement issued on Wednesday a day after the State Department’s Spokesperson Ned Price said the Department was cooperating with the Committee’s investigation and had provided more than 150 briefings on Afghanistan policy.
McCaul has reiterated on provision of three specific documents about the withdrawal from the State Department. “The department must produce the Dissent Channel cable and response, Ambassador Smith’s after-action report, and U.S. Embassy Kabul’s Emergency Action Plans without further delay,” he asserted.
The Committee kicked off its investigation of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan on 08 March with emotional testimonies from two US army soldiers.
Providing a brief detail of the correspondence between the Committee and State Department about the investigation, McCaul-led Committee has demonstrated that either they are not provided with the specific documents they had asked for or the Department has provided them with already-published documents after missing the set deadlines.
Last time, McCaul warned last Sunday that he will subpoena Secretary of State Antony Blinken, if he failed to provide the documents his committee has asked for.
