The State Department will allow two top members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee to view a redacted version of a classified cable about the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Republican chairperson of the committee, Representative Michael McCaul, had scheduled a meeting to consider charging Secretary of State Antony Blinken with contempt of Congress for refusing to release the cable. The cable was sent by US diplomats via the State Department’s “dissent channel” which allows officials to air concerns to their supervisors. The State Department will redact the cable to protect the identity of those using the dissent channel.
McCaul has been investigating the withdrawal from Afghanistan and has been seeking a “dissent channel” cable sent in July 2021 that warned officials of the potential collapse of Kabul soon after the withdrawal of US troops. In an interview on CNN, McCaul said that the State Department’s offer was “a significant step forward.” The department said it would make the material available as soon as possible but stressed the importance of protecting the dissent channel.
Republicans and some Democrats have been critical of the chaotic operation, in which 13 US service members were killed at Kabul’s airport. The State Department has provided numerous briefings, thousands of pages of documents, and public testimony from senior leaders but McCaul believes there has never been a full accounting of what happened.
