Biden Defends Afghanistan Policy Amid Mounting Criticism of Withdrawal

President Joe Biden of the United States yesterday defended his administration’s decision to continue with the US military drawdown in Afghanistan, blaming the US-backed Afghan government and military for allowing the Taliban to take over.

“Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country; the Afghan military collapsed, sometimes without trying to fight,” nbcnews.com quoted Biden to have said.

“If anything, the developments of the past week reinforce that ending US military involvement in Afghanistan now was the right decision,” he added.

Speaking to the American public from the White House, Biden said he stood firmly by his decision and argued that he was faced with a choice to either follow through with the drawdown or escalate the conflict into its third decade and ultimately sacrifice more American lives.

“I stand squarely behind my decision,” Biden said. “After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces. That’s why we’re still there.”

The Taliban seized control of Afghanistan’s capital on Sunday following President Ashraf Ghani’s departure from the country, bringing an abrupt end to the 20-year US effort to restructure the Afghan government and its military.

Within hours of the Taliban takeover, chaos erupted at Kabul’s international airport as desperate Afghans raced to flee the country. A harrowing video captured Monday showed Afghans storming the military side of the airport and clinging to a US Air Force plane as it attempted to move down the tarmac. In the video, some people appear to fall to their death as the aircraft takes off.

The White House appeared to be caught off guard by the Taliban’s rapid advance. Within the past few days, the US was forced to send additional troops to Afghanistan to help with evacuations.

The US Embassy, which the State Department had insisted Thursday would remain open, was fully evacuated by Sunday evening. Over the weekend, Biden chose to stay at Camp David, the presidential retreat, as criticism mounted.

“The truth is, this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated,” Biden said, insisting that his administration was prepared for all scenarios but that the Afghan government and military were unwilling to defend their own country.

“American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves,” he said, arguing that if their military was unable to mount any real resistance to the Taliban now, a few more years of US troops on the ground would not have made any difference.

“This is a crisis of untold proportions,” said Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., who had urged Biden to make an address to the nation. “This is an intelligence failure.”

Ryan Crocker, who was ambassador to Afghanistan in the Obama administration, said the Biden administration had “a total lack of coordinated, post-withdrawal planning,” and that the predicament was a “self-inflicted wound.”

Responding to criticism from some that the administration should have started to evacuate Afghans and US personnel sooner, Biden said some Afghans did not want to leave earlier in hope that it would not be necessary. The Afghan government also discouraged the US from organising a mass exodus out of concern that it would trigger a “crisis of confidence,” Biden said.