WASHINGTON — It's been three years now since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and lawmakers are still hammering the Biden Administration for the chaotic exit.
The military managed to evacuate more than 120,000 U.S. citizens and allies, but suicide bombers killed 13 American troops at the Abbey Gate outside Hamid Karzai International Airport.
Wednesday, at a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing, Secretary of State Antony Blinken offered his condolences to the families of the fallen.
"And I think today especially of the 13 heroes that we lost at Abbey Gate, and I deeply regret that we did not do more and could not do more to protect them," he said.
Republican lawmakers called the event one of the darkest moments of President Joe Biden's administration.
Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas) the panel's chairman, said the withdrawal was "the beginning of a failed foreign policy that lit the world on fire."
Ranking member Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-New York) defended the Biden administration and accused Republicans of politicizing the Afghanistan withdrawal.
“We should have conducted proper oversight of the policy decisions made across not one administration, but four administrations, not only for the months in which President Biden was in office for the sole purpose of politics,” he said.