In Washington, Recriminations Over Afghanistan Emerge Quickly

WASHINGTON — A league telephone betwixt members of Congress and the Biden administration’s apical diplomatic and subject leaders connected Afghanistan turned contentious connected Sunday, arsenic lawmakers pressed the medication connected however quality could person failed truthful severely and however agelong the subject would assistance clasp the Kabul airport.

Lawmakers said the 45-minute telephone with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken; Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III; and Gen. Mark. A. Milley, president of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; was not peculiarly revelatory.

“It was, I would say, a rote workout successful telling america what we had already learned from the media and societal media,” said Representative Peter Meijer, Republican of Michigan and a erstwhile Army reservist who did struggle investigation successful Afghanistan.

But the questioning was pointed and astatine times contentious, centering connected which Afghans the United States would get retired and how. Representative Tom Malinowski, Democrat of New Jersey, who was a State Department authoritative successful the Obama medication and a erstwhile person of Human Rights Watch, pressed the apical officials connected however agelong the U.S. subject would beryllium capable to support the Kabul airdrome unfastened to charter and commercialized flights.

Lawmakers besides asked whether the Afghans that Americans were trying to assistance permission would see much than those who worked for the embassy, interpreters for the subject and others with peculiar migrant visas, oregon S.I.V.s. The briefers assured them that they would effort to assistance a broader group, including quality rights and women’s rights activists, journalists and students of the American University of Afghanistan.

“I privation to marque definite we don’t prime up and permission erstwhile each the Americans and S.I.V.s are out,” Mr. Malinowski said.

Democrats said they did look from the telephone convinced that the subject would clasp connected to the airdrome for a while, adjacent if the Taliban took afloat power of the government. But that is nary warrant that each Afghans who privation to get retired volition beryllium capable to bash so.

“It is overwhelmingly wide to maine that this has been a cascade of failures astatine the Defense Department, with the quality assemblage and wrong our governmental community,” Mr. Meijer said. “And thing connected the telephone gave maine the assurance that adjacent the magnitude of the failures has been comprehended.”

On the league call, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican number leader, was recognized to inquire a question, past began a blistering onslaught connected the Biden administration, saying the illness successful Afghanistan would empower China and weaken the U.S. presumption successful the world, according to radical connected the call.

He enactment retired a connection afterward saying that during the telephone “I lone heard excuses.”

“Amidst the ongoing chaos and ensuing instability astatine location and abroad, the lone solution President Biden has offered is to play authorities and baselessly blasted his predecessor,” helium said.

He added, “Given that Republican members were someway not allowed to inquire questions during the call, I’ve requested the medication clasp different telephone successful the contiguous future.” That petition was greeted with incredulity by Democrats, fixed Mr. McCarthy’s lengthy attack.

But fewer lawmakers were happy. Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California, said his bureau had been bombarded with calls from the ample Afghan colonisation successful his East Bay territory due to the fact that the repatriation assistance leafage of the State Department website included a breached nexus that had gotten them nowhere. Mr. Khanna was fixed a azygous constituent of interaction astatine the State Department for each of his callers, but that idiosyncratic was soon overwhelmed.

“Maybe they ought to person a functioning nexus connected the website with a nonstop mode of processing each these requests,” Mr. Khanna said.

The political fallout for Mr. Biden remains unclear. Defense hawks specified arsenic Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, are outspoken astir what they spot arsenic a precipitous withdrawal and a illness that tin and should beryllium placed astatine the Biden administration’s feet.

“If you look astatine what it would person taken successful presumption of maintaining the presumption quo, 2,500 to 3,500 forces connected the crushed conducting counterterrorism and counterintelligence operations, this disaster, the catastrophe that we’re watching unfold close present crossed Afghanistan, did not person to happen,” Ms. Cheney said connected Sunday connected ABC’s “This Week.”

But specified voices are becoming rarer successful a Republican Party that continues to clasp erstwhile President Donald J. Trump, who had demanded an adjacent swifter pullout from Afghanistan, and successful a war-weary Democratic Party that is mostly lasting by Mr. Biden — oregon staying silent. That whitethorn bespeak the sentiment of voters successful some parties.

But yet an extremity to the U.S. military’s engagement successful Afghanistan whitethorn beryllium to beryllium much fashionable than the play chaos proves to beryllium a liability.

Representative Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat and Marine Corps seasoned of Iraq, wrote connected Twitter: “What I americium feeling and reasoning astir the concern successful Afghanistan, I tin ne'er acceptable connected Twitter. But 1 happening that is decidedly sticking retired is that I haven’t gotten 1 constituent telephone astir it. And my territory has a ample Veteran population.”