WASHINGTON, Aug 17 — President Joe Biden said yesterday he stood “squarely behind” his decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan despite searing images of chaos in Kabul that exposed the limits of US power and plunged him into the worst crisis of his presidency. Breaking his silence on...
WASHINGTON, Aug 17 — President Joe Biden said yesterday he stood “squarely behind” his decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan despite searing images of chaos in Kabul that exposed the limits of US power and plunged him into the worst crisis of his presidency.
The panicked evacuation, coming weeks after Biden predicted the Taliban’s takeover in Afghanistan was not inevitable, has dented America’s image on the global stage just as Biden has sought to emphasize to world leaders that “America is back” after former President Donald Trump’s tumultuous four years.
“I stand squarely behind my decision,” Biden said in a televised speech at the White House. “After 20 years I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw US forces. That’s why we’re still there.” He also doled out criticism to his Republican predecessor, Trump, whose administration negotiated a deal with the Taliban that Biden said left the group “in the strongest position militarily since 2001.”
Biden singled out for criticism the two main Afghan leaders, Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, head of the country’s High Council for National Reconciliation, saying they had “flatly refused” his advice to seek a political settlement with the Taliban. The United States is preparing to begin evacuating thousands of Afghan applicants for special immigration visas who risk retaliation from Taliban insurgents because they worked for the US government.
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