Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul confronted Secretary of State Antony Blinken at Tuesday’s hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Paul challenged Blinken on reports that a drone strike carried out by the United States had accidentally killed an aid worker and his family, rather than an ISIS-K operator. (RELATED: Rand Paul Accuses Fauci Of ‘Lying Dozens Of Times’ After Bombshell Report)
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Paul began his time by noting that he had long been an outspoken advocate of ending the war in Afghanistan, but pivoted immediately to criticize the way the United States had pulled out.
“Never in my worst nightmares did anyone or conceive of such a colossal incompetence,” Paul said, decrying the choice to abandon Bagram Air Base and billions of dollars worth of weaponry and equipment.
“Don’t we have some prohibition against giving aid and comfort to the enemy?” he went on, condemning the decision to release aid money to Afghanistan.
Paul noted there were still billions of dollars set aside for the Afghan government. “Can you pledge today without equivocation that the administration will not release any of this money to the Taliban?” he asked Blinken.
“Absent the Taliban making good on the commitments and expectations of the international community that I’ve outlined previously, that’s correct,” Blinken replied.
Paul then turned to the reported drone strike and asked Blinken whether the person killed was an aid worker or an ISIS-K operator.
“The administration is, of course, reviewing that that strike, and I’m sure a full assessment will be forthcoming,” Blinken replied.
“You don’t know if it was an aid worker or an ISIS operative?” Paul pressed.
“I can’t speak to that,” Blinken said.
“So you don’t know or won’t tell us,” Paul continued.
“I don’t know,” Blinken replied.
“You think you’d kind of know before you off somebody with a Predator drone, whether he’s an aid worker or he’s an ISIS-K,” Paul replied. “If it’s true, but I see these pictures of these beautiful children that were killed in the attack, if that’s true and not propaganda. If that’s true, guess what maybe you created hundreds or thousands of new potential terrorists from bombing the wrong people, so you gotta know we can’t sort of have an investigation after we kill people, we have an investigation before we kill people.”
