A defiant President Biden on Monday defended his handling of the Afghanistan crisis, saying he stands by decision to withdraw U.S. troops from the embattled Middle Eastern nation.
In remarks from the White House, Mr. Biden also pointed a direct finger at the Afghan government and its army for folding to the Taliban insurgents.
Despite superior weaponry and training, many Afghan soldiers stood down or retreated as the Islamist militia waged a lightning offensive, taking control of the country by Sunday night.
“Americans cannot and should not be fighting in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves,” Mr. Biden said.
Mr. Biden stood firm in the face of sharp criticism from both Democrats and Republicans as the Taliban restored its Islamist government and scenes of panic and desperation in Afghanistan were viewed in shocking videos on social media and TV news.
Mr. Biden said the rapid collapse of Afghanistan’s government and its security forces proved his decision to move U.S. troops out of the country was the right call.
“The truth is, this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated,” he said. “So what happened? Afghanistan’s political leaders gave up and fled the country. The Afghan military collapsed, some … without trying to fight.”
“If anything, the developments of the past week reinforced that ending U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan now was the right decision,” he continued.
Mr. Biden had been expected to stay at Camp David through Wednesday. He suddenly scrapped those plans as criticism mounted over the administration’s evacuation effort in Afghanistan, underscoring the pressure he feels to address the Taliban takeover.
The speech comes one day after the Taliban completed their swift and stunning sweep of Afghan cities, controlling the capital by Sunday.
U.S. troops are scrambling to evacuate thousands of American diplomats and Afghans from the U.S embassy.
The president initially had no public events on his schedule Monday, but that changed after Democrats and Republicans lashed out at him for addressing the American people.
After the speech, Mr. Biden boarded the Marine One helicopter for a return trip to Camp David. Accompanying him were several military and national security advisers.
Mr. Biden also laid plenty of the blame for the political and humanitarian catastrophe in Afghanistan at the feet of former President Trump, who had planned to move troops out of Afghanistan by May 2021.
Mr. Biden noted that under Mr. Trump, U.S. forces had already been drawn down to about 2,500 troops in the country.
The president said Mr. Trump’s actions left the Taliban at its strongest since before the U.S. invasion in 2001. He blasted the deal Mr. Trump negotiated with the Taliban, saying there was no agreement to protect American forces, and that it would likely have led to another conflict.
“There was only a cold reality of either following through on the [Trump] agreement to withdraw our forces or escalating the conflict and sending thousands more American troops back into combat in Afghanistan,” he said. “Lurching into the third decade of conflict, I stand squarely behind my decision.”
Still, Mr. Biden’s defense of the pullout fell short of answering critics on both sides of the aisle who questioned the execution of the drawdown policy.
Sen. Tom Carper, Delaware Democrat, said the U.S. pullout “should have been carefully planned to prevent violence and instability.”
“We cannot abandon those who fought by our side who now face mortal danger from the Taliban’s takeover. We have a moral obligation to act immediately to protect their lives and a national security imperative to ensure that Afghan soil does not again become a source of terrorist attacks on our allies and our homeland,” said Mr. Carper, who served alongside Mr. Biden when he was a senator from Delaware.
Mr. Biden was out of public view all weekend and away from top advisors, and only issued one public statement. The only public image of him was a photo released by the White House showing him seated at an empty conference room holding a teleconference with his national security team.
He did issue one public statement, making a similar case to the one delivered in his White House address.
Mr. Biden earlier this year pledged that all American military will leave Afghanistan by Sept. 11. He repeatedly pushed back on the idea that the country would fall to the Taliban without American support to prop up the government and its military.
“The Taliban is not the North Vietnamese army,” he said last month. “They’re not remotely comparable in terms of capability. There’s going to be no circumstances where you see people lifted off the roof of an embassy … of the United States from Afghanistan. It’s not at all comparable.”
But images over the weekend of helicopters transporting officials from the former U.S. Embassy complex to the Kabul airport have drawn comparisons of the frantic evacuation from Saigon in 1975.
“It does feel like the fall of Saigon today, I’m not going to lie,” Rep. Debbie Dingell, Michigan Democrat, said Sunday.
At least seven people were killed at Kabul’s international airport, the Associated Press reported, as panicked crowds fled the Taliban.
Crowds swarmed the airport’s tarmac and a video showed desperate Afghans holding to the side of a U.S. military plane trying to get out.
Some of those people plunged to their deaths from the plane, the Associated Press reported.
White House national security advisor Jake Sullivan made the rounds on political talk shows Monday to defend the administration, though he was forced to acknowledge the administration was caught flat-footed.
Mr. Biden “thought the Afghan national security forces could stop and fight,” he said during an appearance on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
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