Washington. September 13. INTERFAX-US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on Monday said at a hearing before the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs that the Afghan government forces would be unable to independently provide control, even if US forces remained in Afghanistan.
"The emergency evacuation was triggered by the collapse of the Afghan security forces and the government. During the year, we constantly assessed their forces and considered several scenarios. But even the most pessimistic did not predict that the government forces in Kabul would surrender the city, and - when there will still be American troops in the capital itself," Blinken said.
"There is no data indicating that being there for a longer time would make the Afghan security forces and the government more stable or autonomous. If 20 years and hundreds of billions of dollars of support, equipment and military training were not enough, would a year, or another five, or ten years, make any difference?" - he added.
At the same time, he once again pointed out that "the strategic rivals of the United States, such as China and Russia, or such opponents as Iran and the DPRK, would most like the United States to remain bogged down in Afghanistan for another decade."
At the beginning of the hearing, the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Democrat Gregory Meeks, said that the Joe Biden administration could have acted differently in the situation, but in general its decision to withdraw the military was correct. He blamed the problems that have arisen in Afghanistan on former US President Donald Trump, criticizing him, in particular, for deals with the Taliban (a terrorist organization banned in the Russian Federation).
In turn, the deputy head of the committee, Republican Michael McCaul, as expected, actively criticized the current administration for Afghanistan. "I never thought that I would see an unconditional surrender to the Taliban," he said. McCaul added that the United States " left the Americans at the mercy of the enemy, the translators whom you, the Secretary of State, and the president promised to protect."
On August 31, US President Joe Biden officially announced the end of the 20-year war between the United States and its NATO allies in Afghanistan, which they waged under the pretext of fighting terrorism.
