This report was first published on NBC News.
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Monday defended his administration’s decision to continue with the U.S. military drawdown in Afghanistan despite mounting chaos in that nation, arguing that the turmoil provided further evidence that it was time to leave.
“I stand squarely behind my decision,” Biden said in a speech at the White House Monday. “After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw.”
The address marked the first time Biden publicly spoke since the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan’s capital on Sunday following President Ashraf Ghan’s departure from the country, bringing an abrupt end to the 20-year U.S. effort to restructure the Afghan government and its military.
Within hours of the Taliban takeover, chaos erupted at Kabul’s international airport as desperate Afghans raced to flee the country. A harrowing video captured Monday showed Afghans storming the military side of the airport and clinging to a U.S. Air Force plane as it attempted to move down the tarmac. In the video, some people appear to fall to their death as the aircraft takes off.
The Taliban’s quick rise to power appeared to catch the White House off-guard.
Over the past 72 hours, the number of U.S. military personnel on the ground has grown, with 6,000 troops ultimately expected in the coming days. The U.S. embassy, which the State Department had insisted Thursday would remain open, had been fully evacuated by Sunday evening.
Biden was at the presidential retreat at Camp David on Sunday when the Taliban took control of Kabul, and officials had said then they were unsure when he would return to the White House. Biden was initially planning to vacation at Camp David and his Wilmington, Delaware home this week.
The rushed evacuation of U.S. embassy personnel drew comparisons to images of Americans being airlifted from the roof of the U.S. embassy in Saigon in 1975.
Democrats on Capitol Hill and former Obama administration officials joined Republicans in publicly criticizing Biden’s handling of the situation. While most agreed with the decision to remove troops, they attacked Biden’s failure to help the thousands of Afghans who assisted U.S. forces exit the country before the Taliban took over and the scramble to evacuate Americans from the country.
“This is a crisis of untold proportions,” said Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., who had urged Biden to make an address to the nation. “This is an intelligence failure.”
Ryan Crocker, who was ambassador to Afghanistan in the Obama administration, said the Biden administration had “a total lack of coordinated, post-withdrawal planning,” and that the predicament was a “self-inflicted wound.”
Former President Donald Trump negotiated a deal while in office with the Taliban to withdraw U.S. military personnel by May 1 of this year. After he was inaugurated, Biden said the withdrawal would be completed by the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks.
In July, Biden insisted that a Taliban takeover was not inevitable and said that the Afghan military was well equipped and trained to keep the Taliban at bay. “I trust the capacity of the Afghan military,” Biden said at the time.
As U.S. forces began to withdraw earlier this year, the Taliban, facing little resistance from the U.S.-trained Afghan military, rapidly expanded their control, ultimately taking Kabul within weeks.
