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Joe Biden said US troops could stay past the August 31 deadline to evacuate all Americans from Afghanistan, and defended the pullout, saying there was no way for states – United to withdraw “without chaos ensuing”.
As critics in the United States and abroad questioned his handling of the withdrawal, the president said in his first on-camera interview since the Taliban took Kabul that troops would remain in the country to bring out the US citizens.
“If there are any US citizens left, we will stay until we get them all out,” Biden told ABC News, hinting that he would listen to US lawmakers who had urged him to extend the deadline for the August 31 that he had set for a final decision. extract.
When asked if he thought the handling of the crisis could have gone better, Biden replied, “No.”
“We’re going to go back and watch… but the idea that there is somehow a way out of this without chaos ensuing, I don’t know how it happens. “, he told George Stephanopoulos of ABC.
The sentiment contradicts what Biden said weeks ago, when he insisted that “the likelihood of the Taliban invading everything and possessing the whole country is highly unlikely.”
The speed with which Taliban forces recaptured Afghanistan, as US and foreign forces retreated, led to lingering chaotic scenes at the airport with diplomats, foreign citizens and Afghans trying to flee. They are hampered by crowds and Taliban checkpoints, and there are reports of citizens being crushed and beaten by the Taliban who now control the exterior of the airport.
The United States said it has evacuated nearly 6,000 people from Afghanistan since Saturday, but thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Afghans who wish to leave the country remain and it is feared that the slow evacuation could endanger lives. Educated young women, former US military translators and other Afghans most threatened by the Taliban appealed to the Biden administration to send them on evacuation flights to the US as quickly as possible possible.
“If we don’t fix this, we will literally sentence people to death,” said Marina Kielpinski LeGree, the US head of the nonprofit Ascend.
Although the Taliban have called for international aid to continue to flow into the country, which currently accounts for 42.9% of GDP, the International Monetary Fund has joined a growing number of donors and lenders who have said ‘they would suspend funds destined for Afghanistan. IMF resources of over £ 268million were due to arrive this month, but an IMF spokesperson said “lack of clarity within the international community” on recognition of a government in Afghanistan meant he would no longer send the funds.
It also emerged that classified intelligence documents from recent weeks have given multiple warnings to the Biden administration of the prospect of an imminent Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and the likely collapse of Afghan troops, Kabul being described as very vulnerable. This raises questions as to why the US administration was not better prepared for security and evacuations in case the Taliban took control.
Biden told ABC the Taliban were cooperating to help get Americans out of the country, but admitted that “we’re having more difficulty” evacuating Afghan citizens aligned with the United States.
He said, “They cooperate, let the American citizens out, the American personnel out, the embassies out, et cetera, but they have … we have a harder time having those who helped us when we were there. . “
Biden appeared dismissive of the footage that emerged Monday of crowded US military planes taking off from Kabul airport as people cling to their sides. At least two people apparently died from the landing gear shortly after takeoff.
Stephanopoulos said: “We have all seen the photos. We saw those hundreds of people crammed into a C-17. We have seen Afghans fall… ”
Biden interrupted him and said, “That was four days ago, five days ago!”
The President was asked what he thought when he saw these images for the first time. Biden replied, “What I was thinking was: we have to take control of this. We have to go faster. We have to act in a way that we can take control of this airport. And we have.
Former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who fled the country on Sunday as Taliban troops entered Kabul, made his first appearance since it emerged that he had been cleared into the UAE for “humanitarian reasons. “.
Ghani, speaking in a video posted on Facebook, said he supported talks between the Taliban and former government officials, led by former President Hamid Karzai. He said he was “in talks” to return to Afghanistan and that he was making efforts to “safeguard Afghan rule over our country”.
Looking pale and gaunt, Ghani denied betraying the Afghans by fleeing and said the Taliban entered Kabul, despite a deal they did not want.
“Don’t believe whoever tells you that your president sold you and ran away for his own benefit and to save his own life,” Ghani said. “These accusations are baseless.
He also denied reports that he took money with him when he fled. “I was kicked out of Afghanistan in such a way that I didn’t even have a chance to take off my slippers and put on my boots,” Ghani said.
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