Sen. Rand Paul confronted Secretary of State Antony Blinken in a hearing Tuesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about a drone strike that killed an aid worker and children instead of the intended target, who was believed to be a member of ISIS-K.
Paul, R-Ky., argued that it would make more sense to use the bombs, of which he pointed out the U.S. military has plenty, to bomb the planes and equipment left behind in Afghanistan, rather than an unspecified target. Paul added that there would be “blowback” from the Afghan community from bombing such unidentified targets, which would create more terrorists.
According to the Daily Caller, Paul said that “never in my worst nightmares did anyone or conceive of such a colossal incompetence” in reference to the decision to abandon Bagram Air Base along with billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment.
“Don’t we have some prohibition against giving aid and comfort to the enemy?” he continued, condemning the idea to release aid to the region.
“Can you pledge today without equivocation that the administration will not release any of this money to the Taliban?” Paul asked Blinken.
Blinken replied, “Sbsent the Taliban making good on the commitments and expectations of the international community that I’ve outlined previously, that’s correct.”
The Kentucky senator then asked Blinken whether he knew the person killed in a drone strike was an aid worker or a member of ISIS-K.
“The administration is, of course, reviewing that strike, and I’m sure a full assessment will be forthcoming,” Blinken answered.
“You don’t know if it was an aid worker or an ISIS operative?” Paul persisted.
“So you don’t know or won’t tell us,” Paul said.
“I don’t know,” Blinken responded.
Paul 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. 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 got to know we can’t sort of have an investigation after we kill people, we have an investigation before we kill people.”
