Almost two months after the U.S. withdrew all of its troops, the State Department is in touch with hundreds of Americans who want to leave Afghanistan, the Pentagon’s top policy official said Tuesday.
Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Colin Kahl, the undersecretary of Defense for policy, told lawmakers that 196 Americans are ready to leave Afghanistan now, while another 243 either want to stay or aren’t yet ready to depart.
Republicans on the committee, including ranking member James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, took that as an admission that President Joe Biden had not lived up to his pledge to leave no American citizens behind.