Breaking: Top us diplomat finally agrees to face tough questions about afghan exit

Antony Blinken has given in to pressure from lawmakers agreeing to a public hearing about the us withdrawal from Afghanistan (which happened roughly 3 yrs ago)

The house foreign affairs committee got its way after a long stand-off with the state dept chief who will appear at the dec-11 hearing. Committee chairman Michael McCaul made this known on tuesday; the announcement comes after months of heated back-and-forth between both sides

The state dept points to their previous cooperation: Blinken spoke to congress 14 times about Afghanistan gave almost 20k pages of docs and set-up high-level meetings. However the committee wasnt satisfied with this level of engagement – they even voted to hold him in contempt this fall

The committees sept report (written by republican members) hit hard at the Biden teamʼs handling of the pullout. The topic became extra-hot during election season: Donald Trump made campaign stops at Arlington cemetery and tried to shift blame to his opponent Kamala Harris

Democrats push back saying Trump shares responsibility for the messy ending – he started everything by making a deal with taliban back in twenty-twenty. With trumps return to white house coming up next yr‚ theres talk about him wanting to fire people involved in the withdrawal

The whole situation got more complex when Trump won another term; during his campaign he talked about removing those who managed the pullout. Now with his jan return to power coming up this topic might get even more attention