During a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Monday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken dodged a question from Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) about whether Russia President Vladimir Putin threatened President Biden saying he “could not build intelligence capabilities” in Afghanistan.
“Bagram went down, the Embassy went down, and we went dark,” McCaul began. “We have no eyes and ears on the ground. We’ve lost intelligence capability in the region. That includes Russia, China, and Iran as you know. This is a national security threat as China moves in, for all I know, they may take over Bagram airbase, but this over the horizon capability, I believe is exaggerated, it’s not a viable option. It’s too far away.”
“Did you negotiate with countries like Uzbekistan, or Tajikistan to put an ISR capability there?” McCaul asked. “And my last question, is it true that President Putin threatened the president United States, saying he could not build intelligence capabilities in the region?
“This is an this is an important question and one that in its detail and substance, I think we need to take up in another setting for reasons I know that you very much appreciate,” Blinken said. “Let me just say this very broadly, and you know this very well, given your focus and expertise on these issues. The terrorist threat has metastasized dramatically over the last 20 years. And it’s most acute in places like Yemen, like Libya, like Iraq, like Syria, like Somalia, and, of course, we have much greater and different capabilities than we had 20 years ago in terms of dealing with that threat. And in many countries around the world, we deal with it effectively with no U.S. boots on the ground.”
“We lost some capacity for sure in not having those boots on the ground in Afghanistan, but we have ways and we are very actively working on that to make up for that, to mitigate for that, to make sure that we have, you know, eyes on the problem to see if it reemerges in Afghanistan and to do something about it,” Blinken added.
.@RepMcCaul: "Is it true that President Putin threatened the president of the United States, saying he could not build intelligence capabilities in the region?"
Blinken: "This is an important question & one that…we need to take up in" a classified setting pic.twitter.com/TlIOR9JznP
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) September 13, 2021
Blinken’s comments came the same day he revealed that there were still about 100 Americans still stranded in Afghanistan that have been able to contact the Biden administration and tell them they want to be evacuated.
Blinken said, “as of the end of last week, we had about 100 American citizens in Afghanistan who told us that they wish to leave the country.”
