The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Biden vows safe harbor for refugees
Amid fierce criticism for the crisis, he may extend deadline for withdrawal.
President Joe Biden said Sunday that he might extend his Aug. 31 deadline for removing all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, and he pledged that all evacuated Afghan allies will be given a home in the United States after they are screened and vetted at bases in other countries.
Biden addressed the nation as the United States scrambled Sunday to control the mayhem at the Kabul airport, where the situation was growing increasingly dire for the thousands of desperate Afghans trying to flee the Taliban. The chaos of surging crowds turned deadly, and the threat of attacks from the Taliban or other militants fueled the sense of urgency.
The president has come under intense criticism from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle and from leaders around the world for the execution of the withdrawal, which left governments scrambling to get their citizens out of Kabul when the Taliban swept in.
Biden said Sunday the U.s.-led evacuation of
‘It’s heartbreaking. We see it. We feel it. You can’t look at and not feel it. Nothing about this effort is easy.’
Americans, at-risk Afghans and others from the Kabul airport accelerated this weekend, although it remains vulnerable to threats posed by the Islamic State extremist group.
Since Aug. 14, one day before the Taliban entered Kabul, the airlift has evacuated 28,000 people, Biden said. He did not elaborate, but that number appeared to include not just U.S. military flights but also charter and non-u.s. military flights. Biden said 11,000 people had been airlifted from Kabul in a 36-hour period this weekend, but he did not provide details.
Critics have also accused Biden of not expressing enough empathy for the situation at the airport, where several people have died amid huge crowds. In his remarks Sunday, the president was more emotional than he has been in recent days.
“It’s heartbreaking,” he said Sunday afternoon in remarks from the Roosevelt Room at the White House. “We see it. We feel it. You can’t look at and not feel it. Nothing about this effort is easy.”
He vowed that Afghans who have helped us in the war effort over the last 20 years will be welcomed in the U.S. “Because that’s who we are. That’s what America is.”
Biden said military officials will be looking at whether to stay in the country beyond Aug. 31 to complete evacuations.
“Our hope is we will not have to extend, but there are going to be discussions, I suspect, on how far along we are in the process,” he said.
The British Defense Ministry, which has troops at the airport, said Sunday that seven Afghan civilians had died in crowds there, where people have been trampled to death, including a toddler.
“Conditions on the ground remain extremely challenging,” the ministry said, offering no details about the deaths.
The day before, the United States and Germany warned their citizens in Afghanistan to avoid the airport. American officials cited the possibility of another threat:
President Joe Biden
an attack by the Taliban’s Islamic State group rivals.
Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, said on CNN’S “State of the Union” Sunday, “The threat is real. It is acute. It is persistent. And it is something that we are focused on with every tool in our arsenal.”
With the risks rising, military commanders at the airport had been “metering” the flow of Americans, Afghan allies and other foreigners through the gates, according to Maj. Gen. William Taylor of the Pentagon’s Joint Staff.
Biden has been increasingly under pressure over the dangerous and chaotic process and the swelling crisis.
Several NATO countries have pressed to keep the airport open for evacuations beyond Aug. 31. Biden has committed to evacuating every American and every Afghan who worked for the U.S. government but has said the mission will not be open-ended.
The situation at the airport has grown increasingly dangerous in recent days, sometimes with lethal consequences.
On Saturday morning, a former interpreter for a U.S. company plunged into a mass of humanity outside an airport gate, her family in tow. As they were jostled and elbowed, she pushed ahead, intent on securing a flight for them all.
The crowd surged, and the family was slammed to the ground. People trampled them where they lay, the woman recalled hours later. She said someone kicked her in the head. She could not breathe.
As she struggled to her feet, she said, she searched for her 2-year-old daughter. The girl was dead, crushed by the mob.
On Sunday, families from across Afghanistan continued to make the perilous journey to the airport gates. Nezamuddin, who uses a single name, came from Kunduz province with his wife, three children and five grandchildren, hoping his two years of work for the German government would get them on a plane out of Kabul.
“We live in a dangerous place,” he said. “For me it doesn’t matter anymore. My life is almost over. We arrived from Kunduz last night and spent the night here in the dust. All I want is a future for my grandchildren.”
In formal settings elsewhere in Kabul, the Taliban have been in talks about forming a government. One of their leaders, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, arrived in Kabul to begin discussions with former President Hamid Karzai and other politicians, whose participation in any government could help lend it legitimacy overseas.
But the Taliban face an uphill struggle to govern a war-weary nation with hollowed-out ministries and a lack of financial resources. Many Afghans are far from persuaded that the group’s repressive past, in which it deprived women of basic rights and encouraged floggings, amputations and mass executions, is truly behind it.