In an address to the nation, President Joe Biden recognised the end of a “forever war” in Afghanistan after the last American troops departed from Kabul on Monday night, marking the beginning of the end of the nation’s longest war.
He defended the evacuation effort, in which thousands of people were lifted out of Kabul in recent weeks, as an “extraordinary success” due to the “incredible skill, bravery, and selfless courage of the United States military and our diplomats and intelligence professionals.”
The end of the nation’s longest war – in which nearly 50,000 Afghan civilians, 2,500 US service members, and thousands of Afghan military, police and Taliban fighters were killed – included the deaths of at least 13 US service members and an estimated 170 Afghan civilians after a terror attack claimed by Isis-K.
The president said he does not believe mass evacuations from Kabul should have started sooner, arguing that any announcement prior to an approaching withdrawal date could have sparked a “rush to the airport.”
“I take responsibility for the decision,” he said.
He added: “Imagine if we began evacuations in June or July, bringing in thousands of American troops and evacuating more than 120,000 people in the middle of a civil war. There still would have been a rush to the airport, a break down in confidence and control of the government and still would have been very difficult and dangerous mission.”
“The bottom line is there is no evacuation from the end of a war that you can run without the kinds of complexities, challenges, threats we faced,” he said. “None.”
He also stressed that for Americans who remained beyond the 31 August withdrawal deadline, “there is no deadline.”
“We remain committed to get them out, if they want to come out,” he said.
At home, the president has approved federal disaster aid and dispatched emergency response in the wake of Hurricane Ida’s devastation across southeast Louisiana, where thousands of homes were damaged by the now-dissipated storm, leaving more than 1 million homes without power.
The president pledged the federal government to “stand with you and the people of the Gulf as long as it takes for you to recover,” he said on Monday.
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