Biden Call Afghan Exit An "Extraordinary Success"

Biden Call Afghan Exit An Extraordinary SuccessShow more

President Joe Biden defended his withdrawal from Afghanistan in a speech Tuesday, one day after the final U.S. troops left the Taliban-run country following two decades of war, insisting the departure was timed appropriately and calling the frenzied, dangerous and often chaotic effort to evacuate Americans and Afghans from the country an “extraordinary success.”

The last U.S. military jet departed Kabul’s airport late Monday, ending the longest war in American history with the Taliban — which the United States pushed out of power in 2001 and spent 20 years attempting to vanquish — back in control of Afghanistan. The United States spent its final weeks occupying Kabul’s airport and flying out thousands of American citizens, Afghans who worked for the U.S. military and others at risk of Taliban retaliation. The evacuation was interrupted after scores of Afghans flooded onto the airfield and attempted to board departing planes two weeks ago, and last week’s suicide bombing reportedly killed more than 100 civilians and 13 U.S. troops working to secure the airport. Biden has faced intense criticism for his handling of the withdrawal, but he’s argued the only alternative to leaving Afghanistan this year was prolonging — and possibly escalating — a war he views as obsolete, unwinnable and disconnected from the United States’ strategic interests. “I was not going to extend this forever war, and I was not extending the forever exit,” Biden said Tuesday.