Today's D Brief: Lawmakers probe Afghan exit; UN warns of peril in Afghanistan; New North Korea test; Squirrels, Army robots; And a bit more.
By Ben Watson and Jennifer Hlad
September 13, 2021
The D Brief
America’s Afghanistan withdrawal goes under the microscope. United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken heads to Capitol Hill today for a 2 p.m. ET oversight hearing before the House Foreign Affairs Committee. It’s the first of two big hearings on the withdrawal, with the second slated for Tuesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The ambitious title for today’s hearing: “Afghanistan 2001- 2021: Evaluating the Withdrawal and U.S. Policies – Part 1.”
Some of the questions lawmakers plan to ask concern, e.g., why Bagram Air Base was closed ahead of the impromptu evacuation in mid-August, and what sort of “over the horizon” agreements have been reached so far, as well as why more haven’t been agreed upon—according to Texas Rep. Michael McCaul, lead GOP lawmaker on the HFAC. Other key lawmakers are interested in probing “the policies that led to the Taliban’s reestablishing control of the country, including those that drove the Trump Administration’s February 2020 agreement,” as HFAC Chairman Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., announced in late August.
https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2021/09/the-d-brief-september-13-2021/185298/
