refugee we received so far, do we know they have some form of i.d., and we didn t. we heard all of these assurances that we are getting biometrically screened, a 14-step plan. i asked for them to describe the steps? what do we screen them against? isis terrorists, al qaeda terrors, what is that process, not just the steps, but describe to us in detail how are we keeping this nation safe from such a chaotic situation? senator, the 14-step process refers to specifically to the special immigrant visa applicants, and there s a lengthy what about for the other 124,000 people? senator, a couple things, we
days. but it is important that we go back and look at all of this. senator shaheen. thank you, mr. chairman and thank you, secretary blinken for appearing before the committee today. i appreciate and share the frustration of my colleagues over the challenges with the evacuation over the situation of special immigrant visa and the taliban s treatment of women and other minorities. i agree with your assessment that where we were when we got to that evacuation was because of the failure of both democratic and republican administrations. and i want to know where that outrage was when year after year for 10 years starting with senator mccain i and others in the senate tried to get more special immigrant visa applicants through the process so that they could leave
period of time under such difficult circumstances. i want to get to where we are today. during this process the state department was very open to all members of congress, democrats, republicans, as we filtered information into you about vulnerable people in an effort to get them out of afghanistan. today our offices are still being die luged. can you share with us the process that you are using in order to filter information about americans that are still in afghanistan who wanted to leave, those that apply for siv status and those afghans that are at risk, how do we transmit that information and what process is in place so we can try and get these people out of afghanistan? thank you, senator. as i noted, we have established a task force focused entirely on
0 for the unity of our country. i thank you very much for the way that you have kept us engaged and informed as decisions have been made. as you pointed out, the biden administration was dealt a very difficult hand on the withdrawal from afghanistan. we all recognize we needed to withdraw, the options were extremely limited. the mistakes made by previous administrations, we ve talked about it. i think we need to understand that many of us did not support the 2002 campaign to go into iraq. one of those reasons was we wanted to complete the mission in afghanistan when we had a chance to do it when the taliban was diminished after our military came in after the attack on our country. instead we went into iraq which was not engaged in the 9/11 activities and we never finished afghanistan. a mistake made by the bush administration. we ve already talked about the trump administration and setting a deadline and releasing prisoners and moving forward with the reduction of troops when there was
0 i thank you very much for the way that you have kept us engaged and informed as decisions have been made. as you pointed out, the biden administration was dealt a very difficult hand on the withdrawal from afghanistan. we all recognize we needed to withdrawal and the options were extremely limited. the mistakes made by previous administrations, we talked about it, but i think we need to understand that many of us did not support the 2002 campaign to go into iraq. one of those reasons was we wanted to complete the mission in afghanistan when we had a chance to do it when the taliban was diminished after our military came in after the attack on our country, but instead we went into iraq which was not engaged in the 9/11 activities, and we never fin finished afghanistan. a mistake by the bush administration. it doesn t negate the information that was made available to you about the strength of the afghan security forces and the ghani administration s will to stick with it in afghanistan