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Hillary Clinton, Condi Rice sound alarm over Afghanistan troop withdrawal

30 April 2021
 Dan Ackermann

Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice told members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee they're worried about President Biden's plan to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, with Rice suggesting the U.S. may need to go back, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: The position puts two former secretaries of State — from the Obama and Bush administrations — at odds with one of Biden's most significant foreign policy moves to date.

  • The new president has vowed to complete the withdrawal by Sept. 11, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attack. U.S. forces were sent to Afghanistan by Rice's then-boss, former President George W. Bush, to destroy havens used by the attack's organizers.
  • Clinton and Rice offered their reactions during a members-only Zoom call Wednesday, two attendees told Axios.
  • Rice's office did not want to comment on a private briefing. Clinton's spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

What they're saying: "We had Secretaries Clinton and Condi Rice Zoom today with the committee," one committee member told Axios. "A little disagreement on Afghanistan, but they both agreed we're going to need to sustain a counterterrorism mission somehow outside of that country."

  • "Condi Rice is like, 'You know, we’re probably gonna have to go back,'" amid a potential surge in terrorism, the member said.
  • Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas), the top Republican on the committee, told Axios: "With the potential for an Islamic State, coupled with what they're going to do to our contractors in Yemen and Afghanistan is, sadly, it's going to be tragic there and we all see it coming."
  • Another member of the committee confirmed both Clinton and Rice raised concerns about the potential fallout from a quick removal of all U.S. troops.
  • Both also expressed concerns about protecting U.S. diplomats on the ground following the withdrawal and what the move will mean for the global war on terrorism.

Background: Both Rice and Clinton supported military intervention in the Middle East following the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

  • Rice, who was Bush's national security adviser at the time, helped craft the administration's wartime response.
  • Then-senator Clinton — considered by many as a military hawk — voted in 2002 to give Bush the authority to go to war, a vote she later said she regretted while on the presidential campaign trail.
  • Clinton also supported surging additional troops to Afghanistan in 2009.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.