The US State Department announced on Wednesday that two senior members of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, including its chairman, Michael McCaul, will be allowed to see the redacted version of the confidential documents regarding the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“The State Department will let McCaul and the committee’s ranking Democrat, Gregory Meeks, view a redacted version to protect the identity of those using the dissent channel,” Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters, as quoted by Reuters.
McCaul told CNN said that the State Department’s offer to make the cables available was “a really significant step forward”. He said if the department agreed to allow the entire committee to see the cables “then I think we’ve resolved a litigation fight in the courts”.
The State Department has said the documents will be available as soon as possible.
In a letter to McCaul, the U.S. Department of State said it would make the material available as soon as possible.
“The Department has engaged extensively with the Committee to respond to your requests. We have provided numerous briefings, thousands of pages of documents, and public testimony from the Department’s senior leaders,” the State Department said.
