US politicians duel over Afghanistan war's disastrous legacy as Afghans face starvation

On the day when the United Nations warned Afghans were facing starvation in a country on the verge of total collapse, Washington's political rivals were fixated on wringing political gain from the chaotic end to the longest US war.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken became the first senior Biden administration official to testify to Congress about the hurried, bloody and humiliating US final exit from Kabul last month after two decades of conflict. As an exercise in finding out what went wrong in the war and the withdrawal, the often incoherent and politically charged hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee provided few answers. But it did offer clear pointers to how the Biden administration and its Republican opponents will square off over the war's messy ending in the coming congressional election year.