Biden defends troop pullout as chaos in Kabul draws wrath
WASHINGTON — President Biden, facing the biggest political crisis of his term, defended the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan amid the rapid collapse of the country’s government, taking responsibility for ending the 20-year war but deflecting blame for the “hard and messy” events of recent days.
“I am president of the United States of America, and the buck stops with me,” Biden said in a speech from the White House on Monday. “I’m deeply saddened by the facts we now face. But I do not regret my decision to end America’s war fighting in Afghanistan.”
While Biden claimed he had “planned for every contingency,” he acknowledged that the Taliban’s march into Kabul “did unfold more quickly than we anticipated.” The Taliban’s success in taking over Afghanistan in just a few weeks, he argued, validated his decision to end America’s two-decade presence in the country.
“American troops cannot — and should not — be fighting in a war, and dying in a war, that the Afghans are not willing to fight for themselves,” Biden said. “We gave them every chance to determine their own future. What we could not provide them was the will to fight for that future.”
Biden was far more forceful in explaining his rationale for bringing U.S. troops home than addressing the poorly executed departure, blaming Afghanistan’s political leaders who “gave up and fled the country.”
The president, determined to restore America’s values-based leadership on the world stage, asserted that “human rights must be the center” of U.S. foreign policy. But his statement appeared to be at odds with the chaos unfolding at Kabul’s airport, where thousands of desperate Afghans flooded the tarmac.
The president emphasized his consistent view that the Afghanistan conflict had evolved from a counterterrorism mission in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks into a nation-building exercise that was draining U.S. resources.
“I am now the fourth American president to preside over a war in Afghanistan,” Biden said. “I will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth president. I will not mislead the American people by claiming just a little more time in Afghanistan will make all the difference.”
Biden’s remarks did little to quell outrage on both sides of the political aisle. In comments that mirrored others by Republicans, Sen. Mitt Romney, RUtah, blasted the president over his reluctance to reckon with what has transpired in recent days.
“Contrary to his claims, our choice was not between a hasty and ill-prepared retreat or staying forever,” Romney said. “The decision to place a higher priority on a political promise than on the lives of innocent men, women and children is a stain on America’s reputation and undermines our credibility around the world.”
Sen. Mark R. Warner, D-Va., the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said his panel would investigate “why we weren’t better prepared for a worst-case scenario,” adding that the U.S. owes answers “to the American people and to all those who served and sacrificed so much.”
The president’s initial inconspicuousness during a major crisis also drew sharp criticism from lawmakers, who have called on the administration to do more to reassure the public and to follow through on Biden’s commitment to help the Afghans who aided the U.S. effort.
Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., an Iraq combat veteran, said calling Afghanistan’s fall “anything short of a disaster would be dishonest” and urged the White House to expedite the evacuation of vulnerable Afghans. “I have been calling on the administration to evacuate our allies immediately — not wait for paperwork, for shaky agreements with third countries, or for time to make it look more ‘orderly.’ ”