WASHINGTON (AP) — Under fire from congressional Republicans about one of the darkest moments of Joe Biden’s presidency, Secretary of State Antony Blinken defended the administration’s handling of the disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying Democrats struggled to make the best of a bad pullout deal struck by Donald Trump.
Blinken testified Wednesday before the Republican-led House Foreign Affairs Committee, facing questions from lawmakers for the last time.
He said much of the blame for the sudden collapse of Afghanistan's U.S.-allied government and the chaotic August 2021 evacuation of Americans that followed rested with a withdrawal deal President Trump had reached with the Taliban in 2020 before leaving office.
“To the extent President Biden faced a choice, it was between ending the war or escalating it,” Blinken told lawmakers. “Had he not followed through on his predecessor’s commitment, attacks on our forces and allies would have resumed and the Taliban’s assault on the country’s major cities would have commenced.”
But McCaul and other Republican lawmakers portrayed Blinken and the Biden administration as ill-prepared and disengaged as the disaster grew, and intent on minimizing mounting evidence that the Taliban would complete a takeover of the country before the last U.S. troops departed.
“This catastrophic event was the beginning of a failed foreign policy that lit the world on fire,” McCaul, a Texas Republican, said. He urged Blinken to take “accountability for the disastrous withdrawal.”
It was clear “it was going to be a disaster,” said Florida Republican Rep. Brian Mast, who will take over as chairman of the committee in the next Congress.
The hearing came at the end of Blinken's diplomatic service under Biden, with six weeks left before Trump takes office, and at the end of McCaul's time leading the Foreign Affairs committee. It served as a capstone to nearly four years of animosity between the two over the end of America's longest war.
The hearing broke no new ground on the U.S. withdrawal, after years of blame-trading between Republicans and Democrats. Blinken pointed Wednesday to the planned 2026 release of a government-appointed Afghanistan war commission's review as the best prospect of an independent full report on the disastrous events of the summer of 2021.
The 20-year U.S. military occupation of Afghanistan succeeded in routing the al-Qaida militants responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, whom Afghanistan's fundamentalist Taliban militants had allowed a home. But as the U.S. began its pullout, as set by Trump's deal and carried out by Biden, Taliban fighters routed the U.S.-allied government and military, capturing control of the country within months.
An extremist group's bombing at the Kabul airport killed 13 U.S. service members and nearly 200 Afghans as Americans, Afghan allies and others thronged the airport in hopes of seats on the last U.S. military-run flights out.
Blinken testified Wednesday that all of the “hundreds” of Americans and dual citizens stranded by the sudden scramble from Afghanistan have now been able to leave, if they have chosen.
He opened his appearance before the committee by turning to families of U.S. forces killed in the withdrawal and expressing condolences. Protesters repeatedly interrupted his comments, crying out “scum” and “genocide,” before security cleared the room of them.
He denied Republican charges that he and others ignored warnings from lower-ranking administration officials that the U.S. withdrawal would go badly wrong, and that the U.S. had to move faster on getting out Americans and the Afghans who had worked for and allied with them.
“We anticipated that Kabul would remain in the hands of the Afghan government” through the end of the year, Blinken said. “This unfolded more quickly than we anticipated including in the intelligence community.”
“Waiting until the last minute is not executing a plan,” McCaul said.
Blinken's testimony came months after House Republicans issued a scathing report on their investigation into the withdrawal, blaming the disastrous end on Biden’s administration. They played down Trump's role in the failures even though he had signed the withdrawal deal with the Taliban.
Previous investigations and analyses by a government-appointed special investigator for Afghanistan and some private policy groups have pointed to a systemic failure spanning the last four presidential administrations and concluded that Biden and Trump share the heaviest blame.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken appears before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock indexes are rising Wednesday after the latest update on inflation appeared to clear the way for more help for the economy from the Federal Reserve.
The S&P 500 gained 1% and is on track to break its first two-day losing streak in nearly a month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 57 points, or 0.1%, as of 1:32 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 1.8% and was heading for a record.
Treasury yields held relatively steady in the bond market as expectations built that Wednesday’s inflation data will allow the Fed to deliver another cut to interest rates at its meeting next week.
Traders are betting on a 95% probability of that, according to data from CME Group, up from 89% a day before. If they’re correct, it would be a third straight cut by the Fed after it began lowering rates in September from a two-decade high. It’s hoping to support a slowing job market after getting inflation nearly all the way down to its 2% target.
Lower rates would give a boost to the economy, but they could also provide more fuel for inflation.
Wednesday’s report said U.S. consumers paid prices in November that were 2.7% higher than a year earlier. That’s a slight acceleration from October’s inflation rate of 2.6%, but it was exactly what economists were expecting. Another report on inflation at the wholesale level will arrive on Thursday.
“The data have given the Fed the ‘all clear’ for next week, and today’s inflation data keep a January cut in active discussion,” according to Ellen Zentner, chief economic strategist for Morgan Stanley Wealth Management.
Expectations for a series of cuts to rates by the Fed have been one of the main reasons the S&P 500 has set an all-time high 57 times this year, with the latest coming last week.
On Wall Street, Stitch Fix jumped 48% after the company that sends clothes to your door reported a smaller loss for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It also gave financial forecasts for the current quarter that were better than expected, including for revenue.
Albertsons edged down by 0.8% after filing a lawsuit against Kroger, saying it didn’t do enough for their proposed $24.6 billion merger agreement to win regulatory clearance. Albertsons said it’s seeking billions of dollars in damages from Kroger, whose stock rose 1.6%.
A day earlier, judges in separate cases in Oregon and Washington nixed the supermarket giants’ merger. The grocers contended a combination could have helped them compete with big retailers like Walmart, Costco and Amazon, but critics said it would hurt competition.
After terminating the merger agreement Albertsons said it plans to boost its dividend 25% and increased the size of its program to buy back its own stock.
Mondelez, the company behind Oreo and other food brands, climbed 2.5% after announcing a plan to send cash to shareholders by buying back up to $9 billion of its own stock. The program replaces a prior $6 billion plan, which had about $2.8 billion of capacity remaining and would have otherwise expired at the end of next year.
On the losing end of Wall Street, Macy’s fell 2.8% after cutting some of its financial forecasts for the full year of 2024, including for how much profit it expects to make off each $1 of revenue.
Dave & Buster’s Entertainment sank 16.3% after reporting a worse loss for the latest quarter than expected. It also said CEO Chris Morris has resigned, and the board has been working with an executive-search firm for the last few months to find its next permanent leader.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.25% from 4.23% late Tuesday. The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for the Fed, held steady at 4.14%.
In stock markets abroad, indexes rose across much of Europe and Asia.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was an outlier and slipped 0.8% as Chinese leaders convened an annual planning meeting in Beijing that is expected to set economic policies and growth targets for the coming year.
South Korea’s Kospi rose 1%, up for a second straight day as it climbs back following last week’s political turmoil where its president briefly declared martial law.
AP Writers Matt Ott and Zimo Zhong contributed.
People gather in front of the New York Stock Exchange in New York's Financial District on Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan)
A banner for Alaska Air Group hangs on the front of the New York Stock Exchange in New York's Financial District on Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan, File)
A person walks in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
People walk in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
People stand in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
A person walks in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
A person gestures in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
