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President Joe Biden on Tuesday defended his decision to withdraw United States soldiers from Afghanistan after being there for twenty years.
The President said that the United States “no longer had a clear purpose in an open-ended mission in Afghanistan.”
“My fellow Americans, the war in Afghanistan is now over,” the President said. “I’m the fourth President who has faced the issue of whether and when to end this war. When I was running for President, I made a commitment to the American people that I would end this war. Today, I’ve honored that commitment.”
Critics of President Biden’s decision to withdraw troops have said that the mission was poorly executed. The United States began withdrawing troops before clearing American civilians from the region.
Had the United States dragged out its Aug. 31 deadline to pull out of Afghanistan, the Taliban that now runs the country would have resumed attacks on U.S. troops, the president said, and that would have required the deployment of thousands more to defend them.
And had he started mass evacuations earlier, Biden said, there still would have been a rush to leave and a crush of people at the airport trying to leave.
“That was the choice – the real choice, between leaving or escalating. I was not going to extend this forever war, and I was not extending a forever exit,” President Biden said.
"I was not going to extend this forever war, and I was not extending a forever exit," President Biden says on the withdrawal from Afghanistan. pic.twitter.com/yxdebDe23Y
— Poli Alert ⚖️ (@polialertcom) August 31, 2021
The Taliban quickly took over when the United States started the withdrawal process.
Last week, two explosions in Kabul near the Hamid Karzai International Airport killed thirteen United States service members — more than 170 people died.
“To ISIS-K: We are not done with you yet,” President Biden said.
“My predecessor, the former President, signed an agreement with the Taliban to remove US troops May 1, just months after I was inaugurated. It included no requirement that the Taliban work out a cooperative government arrangement with the Afghan government,” President Biden said.
“But it did authorize the release of 5,000 prisoners last year, including some of the Taliban’s top war commanders, among those that just took control of Afghanistan. By the time I came into office, the Taliban was in the strongest military position since 2001.”
According to the Pentagon, more than 122,000 people had been airlifted from Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul since July, including 5,400 Americans.
