Biden admin ignored diplomats' warnings, McCaul says after viewing Afghanistan dissent cable

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) slammed the Biden administration for ignoring warnings from U.S. embassy officials in Kabul before the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan after he viewed a 2021 dissent cable from the diplomats.

McCaul and New York Rep. Greg Meeks, the Foreign Affairs committee's top Democratic member, viewed the dissent cable and the State Department's official response this week after McCaul threatened to hold Secretary of State Antony Blinken in contempt of Congress for not complying with a subpoena for the document.

"The dissenters were absolutely right about everything they said," McCaul told Punchbowl News. "And it was a warning to the administration about what was going to happen and what they needed to do. [The dissenters] deserve a medal."

He also said: "Unfortunately, the administration didn’t heed all their warnings and we got what we got."

When he subpoenaed Blinken in March, McCaul said, "The American people deserve answers as to how this tragedy unfolded, and why 13 U.S. servicemembers lost their lives," referring to the August 2021 suicide bomb at the Kabul airport during the Afghan withdrawal that killed 13 U.S. troops and at least 170 Afghan civilians.

While the top committee members were able to view the documents in person at the State Department, McCaul is still pushing the agency to allow everyone on the committee to view the materials.

The resolution holding Blinken in contempt has been paused but not canceled. 

Meeks said the dissent cable did not reveal any groundbreaking revelations.

"There’s nothing really that we didn’t know," Meeks said. "There was a dissent cable, there was a reply and action that was being done."

He also said: "Hopefully that puts to rest this whole thing about having a subpoena and the president is hiding something or whatever it is. That should be put to rest."

Madeleine Hubbard is an international correspondent for Just the News. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram.