Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee in United States has attributed the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan
to a “series of mistakes” by Republican and Democratic administrations over the
past 20 years.

“We are now witnessing the horrifying result of many
years of policy and intelligence failures,” Senator Bob Menendez said in a
statement amid growing criticism of the Joe Biden administration over the issue. 

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The committee will hold a hearing on America’s policy
toward Afghanistan, including negotiations between former Republican President
Donald Trump’s administration and the Taliban and the his successor’s execution
of the withdrawal.

In a letter to Menendez, Republicans demanded that
Secretary of State Antony Blinken testify so that the committee can understand
why the “State Department was so ill prepared for the contingencies unfolding
before us.”

“Updates from the State Department have been
inconsistent, lacked important detail, and not be responsive to Members and the
American people,” the Republican members of the committee wrote.

Republicans have blamed President Joe Biden’s policies for
the debacle. “The security and humanitarian crisis now unfolding in Afghanistan
could have been avoided if you had done any planning,” Republicans on the House
of Representatives Armed Services Committee wrote in a letter to the White
House on Tuesday.

Senator Mark Warner, the chairman of Democratic Intelligence
Committee, had Monday assured to work with other committees “to ask tough but
necessary questions” about the Biden administration being seemingly caught off
guard about the Afghan government’s collapse. Following the capture of the
majority of provinces in Afghanistan with little or no resistance from Afghan
security forces within a week, the Taliban seized control of capital city Kabul
on Sunday.