The outgoing Biden administration’s Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, will testify before a Republican-led House committee on the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan in August 2021, ending a long controversy with that committee just weeks before his term expired.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee and the U.S. State Department have been squabbling for months over whether Blinken will appear before the former. Republicans on the committee voted in September – a few weeks before the US presidential election – to recommend that the US diplomatic chief be charged with contempt of Congress for failing to comply when called to appear.

Major political issue of US withdrawal from Afghanistan after 20 years of war

The chaoticUS withdrawal from Afghanistan after 20 years of war was a highly politicized issue during the campaign for this year’s US presidential election, which pitted Republican newly elected President Donald Trump against Democratic incumbent Vice President Camala Harris.

Trump, who will return to the White House on January 20, criticized the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and vowed to go after those responsible for it. During his campaign, he declared that he would call for the resignation of any high-ranking official who had “anything to do with the Afghan debacle.”

The Democrats insist that some of the blame for the chaotic end of the war – less than seven months since Joe Biden took office as president – should be placed on Trump, who began the withdrawal process by signing a deal with Afghanistan’s Islamist Taliban in 2020.

14 times Blinken testified before Congress

The State Department claimed that the Foreign Affairs Committee was provided a large amount of information, with Blinken testifying before Congress on Afghanistan more than 14 times and the State Department providing nearly 20,000 pages of records, multiple high-level briefings and transcripts of interviews.

The committee’s chairman, Michael McCall, released a report on Sept. 8 based on a Republican investigation into the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which criticized the Biden administration for failures regarding the withdrawal from the country.

“While I wish he had not delayed this critical appearance (before the committee) until the end of his tenure as head of the State Department, I look forward to hearing his testimony and asking poignant questions to help House Republicans and the next administration ensure that this never happens again,” McCall stressed in a statement.