Joe Biden has claimed there was 'no way' US troops could have left Afghanistan 'without chaos ensuing' in his first interview since the Taliban stormed in.
In a heated exchange the US president stood by the decision to leave the country after a 20-year campaign ended in mayhem.
Evacuation efforts in Kabul are still ongoing amid reports of fresh brutality from the Taliban.
Shocking images and video emerged since the militants seized control on Sunday, appearing to show a group of people trying to get on board a taxiing US plane.
In other footage people appeared to fall from aircraft carrying evacuees that had taken off from the airport.
The latest devastating video posted on social media appears to show a large group of people pushing up against a barbed wire fence as a young child is lifted up into the air.
In an interview with ABC News, his first since Kabul fell, Joe Biden stood by the decision to pull out of the country.
Asked if the exit could have been handled better he said: "No, I don't think it could have been handled in a way that, we're gonna go back in hindsight and look - but the idea that somehow, there's a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don't know how that happens."
He went on: "One of the things we didn't know is what the Taliban would do in terms of trying to keep people from getting out. What they would do. What are they doing now?
"They're cooperating, letting American citizens get out, American personnel get out, embassies get out, etc, but they're having - we're having some more difficulty having those who helped us when we were in there."
Taliban fighters are now said to be using guns, whips and sticks to stop Afghans getting to Kabul airport, forcing flights to leave half-empty.
When asked about some of the shocking scenes that have been documented during the evacuation he snapped at the interviewer.
George Stephanopoulos said to him: "We've all seen the pictures. We've seen those hundreds of people packed in a C-17. We've seen Afghans falling -."
The US president then interrupted: "That was four days ago, five days ago.
"What I thought was, we have to gain control of this. We have to move this more quickly. We have to move in a way in which we can take control of that airport. And we did."
Asked if what had happened in recent days was a failure of 'intelligence, planning, execution or judgment' he said: "Look, it was a simple choice.
"When you had the government of Afghanistan, the leader of that government, get in a plane and taking off and going to another country; when you saw the significant collapse of the Afghan troops we had trained, up to 300,000 of them, just leaving their equipment and taking off - that was, you know, I'm not, that's what happened.
"That's simply what happened. And so the question was, in the beginning, the threshold question was, do we commit to leave within the timeframe we set, do we extend it to [September] 1, or do we put significantly more troops in?"
As the airlift of western citizens and Afghans who worked for foreign governments ramped up, the administration said US forces would remain until the evacuation of Americans was finished, even if that meant staying past the August 31 US deadline for complete withdrawal.
US officials told the Taliban "that we expect them to allow all American citizens, all third-country nationals, and all Afghans who wish to leave to do so safely and without harassment," U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman told reporters in Washington.
Around 20,000 Afghan refugees will be given sanctuary in the UK in the next five years after the government announced plans to help those fleeing the Taliban.
