‘We will get you home’
Biden pledges rescue of all Americans and Afghan supporters
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden pledged firmly on Friday to bring all Americans home from Afghanistan — and all Afghans who aided the war effort, too — as officials confirmed that U.S. military helicopters were flying into Taliban- held Kabul to scoop up would- be evacuees.
But Mr. Biden’s promises, and the limited U.S. helicopter sorties beyond the concrete barriers ringing the Kabul airport, came as thousands more Americans and others seeking to escape the Taliban struggled to get past crushing crowds, Taliban airport checkpoints and sometimes- insurmountable U.S. bureaucracy.
“We will get you home,” Mr. Biden promised Americans who were still in Afghanistan days after the Taliban retook control of Kabul, ending a two-decade war. American officials confirmed to The Associated Press that limited helicopter rescues were underway.
Mr. Biden’s comments, delivered at the White House, were intended to project purpose and stability at the conclusion of a week during which images from Afghanistan more often suggested chaos, especially at the airport.
His commitment to find a way out for Afghan allies vulnerable to Taliban attacks amounted to a potentially vast expansion of Washington’s promises, given the tens of thousands of translators and other helpers, and their close family members, seeking evacuation.
“We’re making the same
commitment” to Afghan wartime helpers as to U.S. citizens, Mr. Biden said, offering the prospect of assistance to Afghans who have been fighting individual battles to get the documents and passage into the airport that they need to leave. He called the Afghan allies “equally important” in the evacuations.
Mr. Biden is facing continuing criticism as videos and news reports depict pandemonium and occasional violence outside the airport.
“I made the decision” on the timing of the U.S. withdrawal, he said, his tone firm as he declared that it was going to lead to difficult scenes, no matter when. Former President Donald Trump had set it for May in negotiations with the Taliban, but Mr. Biden extended it.
Thousands of people remain to be evacuated ahead of Mr. Biden’s Aug. 31 deadline to withdraw most remaining U. S. troops. Flights were stopped for several hours on Friday because of a backup at a transit point for the refugees, a U.S. airbase in Qatar, but they resumed in the afternoon, including to Bahrain.
Still, potential evacuees faced continuing problems getting into the airport. The Belgian Foreign Ministry confirmed that one of its planes took off empty because the people who were supposed to be aboard couldn’t get in.
A defense official said about 5,700 people, including about 250 Americans, were flown out of Kabul aboard 16 C-17 transport planes, guarded by a temporary U.S. military deployment that’s building to 6,000 troops. On each of the previous two days, about 2,000 people were airlifted.
Senior American military officials told the AP that an American CH-47 Chinook helicopter picked up Afghans, mostly women and children, and ferried them to Hamid Karzai International Airport on Friday. The 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division airlifted the Afghans from Camp Sullivan, near the Kabul airport.
The officials said such sorties have been underway for several days from various points in Kabul as Afghans seek to flee the country taken over by the Taliban.
The lawmakers also said they want Mr. Biden to make clearer that the Aug. 31 deadline for withdrawing U.S. troops is not a firm one.
The deadline “is contributing to the chaos and the panic at the airport because you have Afghans who think that they have 10 days to get out of this country or that door is closing forever,” said Rep. Peter Meijer, R-Mich., who served in Iraq and also worked in Afghanistan to help aid workers provide humanitarian relief.
While Mr. Biden has previously blamed Afghans for the U.S. failure to get out more allies ahead of this month’s sudden Taliban takeover, U.S. officials told The Associated Press that American diplomats had formally urged weeks ago that the administration ramp up evacuation efforts.
Mr. Biden said Friday he had gotten a wide variety of time estimates, although all were pessimistic about the Afghan government surviving.
He has said he was following the advice of Afghanistan’s U.S.-backed president, Ashraf Ghani, in not earlier expanding U.S. efforts to fly out translators and other endangered Afghans. Mr. Ghani fled the country last weekend.