State Department Officials Testify on Afghanistan Withdrawal Plans

State Department officials testified to the House Foreign Affairs Committee that they were rushed into Afghanistan with no established emergency evacuation plan in place and had to create evacuation systems from scratch amid the chaos outside the Kabul airport. The officials described the ad-hoc nature of the evacuation and the challenges they faced in coordinating with the military and navigating the constantly changing situation on the ground. The handling of the evacuation operation has been a point of criticism, with Republicans blaming the Biden administration and Democrats pointing fingers at the Trump administration for the deal that set the US withdrawal into motion.