By Humeyra Pamuk

WASHINGTON (Reuters] – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that he ordered an internal review of how the State Department planned and executed the U.S. military evacuation to Afghanistan. This follows a string of criticisms of chaotic operations.

Two decades of US occupation in Afghanistan ended in an organized airlift that evacuated more than 124,000 civilians, including Americans and Afghans. The Taliban took control. But, the Taliban threatened thousands more U.S.-allied Afghans were not left behind.

Blinken spoke out to praise the operation of evacuation, but also to say that the State Department needs to take lessons from it and be better prepared for future situations.

“There are many aspects that we should now look back on and ask ourselves, “Could they have done it differently?” “Could that be the first step? “Should that idea have been tried first?” Could we have reached that decision quicker?”,” Blinken stated in the address at Arlington’s Foreign Service Institute, Virginia. The speech was attended by diplomats, lawmakers and other attendees.

Reuters, along with other media outlets, reported last week the State Department’s Inspector General will examine the ending of the Biden administration’s diplomatic operations and evacuations in Afghanistan.

In addition, the acting inspector general for the department will be looking into the Special Immigrant visa (NYSE:) program. This is the process of processing Afghans to become refugees and their eventual resettlement in the United States.

Blinken was not specific about the steps involved in evacuations and relocations.

He said, “Now, we owe to ourselves, our Afghan friends, partners and future State Department employees, who may find themselves faced with a similar challenge one morning, to capture everything we learned, study it, apply it and preserve it in such a way that enhances our future plans and helps us better prepare for future contingencies.”