-Blames Afghan Forces for quick fall of Kabul to Taliban
-Admits the fall of the country to the Taliban did unfold more quickly than anticipation
-Acknowledges that the scenes from Aghanistan are “painful” for veterans
-Says it is wrong to order US troops to step up when Afghanistan’s own Armed Forces would not
-Claims US Mission in Afghanistan “was never supposed to have been nation building”
-Says he won’t pass Afghanistan war decision on to another President
DM Monitoring
WASHINGTON: President Biden addressed the nation Monday, saying he stands “squarely behind” his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan after having a presence for 20 years, while admitting that the fall of the country to the Taliban “did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated.”
The president, speaking from the White House Monday, said his administration has been “closely monitoring the situation on the ground in Afghanistan,” and is moving “quickly” to execute the new plans put in place. “I stand squarely behind my decision,” the president said Monday. “After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way, that there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces.”
“Truth is, this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated,” the president said, a day after the Taliban took over Afghanistan, after his administration moved forward with a withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country, signaling the end of the United States’ two-decade-long effort to rebuild the nation.
“American troops cannot, and should not, be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves,” Biden said, adding that the U.S. has given “every tool they could need.”
“We gave them every chance to determine their own future,” he said. “What we could not provide them was the will to fight for that future.”
“Here is what I believe to my core. It is wrong to order American troops to step up when Afghanistan’s own armed forces would not,” Biden said. “How many more generations of America’s daughters and sons would you have me send to fight Afghanistan’s civil war when Afghan troops will not?”
The president said that he has always “argued our mission should be narrowly focused on counterterrorism,” adding that he is “adamant we focus on the threats we face today in 2021, not yesterday’s threats,” noting that the terrorist threat has “metastasized well beyond Afghanistan.” The Taliban is pushing to restore the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the formal name of the country under the Taliban rule before the militants were ousted by U.S-led forces in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, which were orchestrated by Al Qaeda while it was being sheltered by the Taliban.
Last week, though, as the Taliban seized major provinces throughout the country, the Biden administration assessed that Kabul could fall to the Taliban within 90 days. A prior CIA assessment months ago said Kabul could fall in six months, however, officials last week said that prediction was cut in half.
The White House, at the time, said the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces had “what they need” to “fight back.” Administration officials, in the wake of Kabul’s fall to the Taliban over the weekend, have blamed Afghan security forces, maintaining that the U.S. has provided billions of dollars in support, training and equipment, with White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan saying Afghan forces, “when push came to shove, they decided not to step up and fight for their country.”
