A review of the withdrawal of the US forces from Afghanistan by the Biden administration is expected to complete and ready for release within weeks, US media reported, quoting the White House.
According to media reports, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US National Security Council coordinator John Kirby said they expect the report to be released in mid-April.
“We’ve now been spending time putting all of this together to make sure that we look at some of the common lessons learned,” Blinken said in testimony to a Senate Appropriations Committee subcommittee hearing.
“I am committed and determined to make that information available to Congress, and we will do that. We will do that by mid-April. So I can tell you today, you’ll have the after-action review. We will share the findings and find the appropriate mechanism to do that within the next three weeks.”
Meanwhile, Kirby told reporters on Wednesday that they expect to be able to share those takeaways with the public by mid-April.
“Of course, we also have every expectation that the agencies themselves who conducted these after-action reviews will be able to share the classified reports with their relevant congressional oversight committees again, on the same basic timeline of mid-April,” Kirby said.
Members of the US Congress have been demanding information about the August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan for months. House Republicans have sought to bring the withdrawal back into the spotlight through new oversight investigations and hearings, according to reports.
Quoted by Washington Examiner, Michael McCaul, the House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, said they would subpoena Blinken this week if the Biden administration official doesn’t provide requested documents related to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The US secretary of state is set to testify before the Foreign Affairs Committee today, March 23, to answer questions on Biden’s proposed budget for the State Department in the next fiscal year.
