President Biden announced today he was pulling the remaining 2,500 U.S. forces out of Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks because the U.S. has ‘accomplished’ the mission.
‘I said, along with others, we’d follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of Hell if need be. That’s exactly what we did. And we got him … That was 10 year ago. Think about that,’ Biden said from the White House Wednesday. ‘Since then, our reasons for remaining in Afghanistan have become increasingly unclear.’
Biden noted how he ‘inherited’ an agreement from former President Trump and the Taliban to pull U.S. troops out of the country by May 1.
‘It’s perhaps not what I would have negotiated myself, but it was an agreement made by the United States government and that means something,’ Biden acknowledged, adding that May 1 would not be the end, but the beginning of the drawdown.
‘U.S. troops as well as forces deployed by our NATO allies and operational partners will be out of Afghanistan before we mark the 20th anniversary of that heinous attack on September 11,’ he said.
In his 15 minute speech, he made it clear to the Taliban that the U.S. would retaliate if they attacked.
‘The Taliban should know if they attack us as we draw down, we will defend ourselves and our partners with all the tools at our disposal,’ Biden said.
‘If the [Doha] agreement is breached and foreign forces fail to exit our country on the specified date, problems will certainly be compounded and those whom failed to comply with the agreement will be held liable,’ Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid tweeted Wednesday.
Biden said he wouldn’t rush a departure.
‘We will not conduct a hasty rush to the exit. We’ll do it responsibly, deliberately and safely,’ he pledged. ‘And we will do it in full coordination with our allies and partners who now have more force in Afghanistan than we do.’
Biden made the announcement from the Treaty Room of the White House, where President George W. Bush announced the U.S. and Britain had started bombing Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001.
He said during the speech that he had called Bush to inform him of his decision.
‘While he and I have had many disagreements over policy throughout the years, we’re absolutely united in our respect and support for the valor, courage and integrity of women and men in the United States Armed Forces who served,’ Biden said.
‘We’re immensely grateful for the bravery and backbone they have shown through nearly two decades of combat deployments,’ he continued. ‘We as a nation are forever indebted to them and their families.’
Later, White House press secretary Jen Psaki tweeted that Biden had also spoken to former President Obama.
‘I am now the fourth American president to preside over an American troop presence in Afghanistan. Two Republicans. Two Democrats. I will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth,’ Biden said.
Biden said he also consulted with allies, military leaders, lawmakers and Vice President Kamala Harris to help make his decision to withdraw all U.S. troops.
‘I concluded that it was time to end America’s longest war,’ Biden said. ‘It’s time for American troops to come home.’
He recalled traveling to Afghanistan in 2008 as the incoming vice president.
‘What I saw on that trip reinforced my conviction that only the Afghans have the right and responsibility to lead their country and that more and endless American military force could not create or sustain a durable Afghan government,’ Biden said.
‘I believed that our presence in Afghanistan should be focused on the reason we went in the first place: To ensure Afghanistan would not be used as a base from which to attack our homeland again,’ the president continued.
‘We did that, we accomplished that objective,’ Biden stated.
Since then, Biden argued, the war on terror has moved all over the place.
‘With the terror threat now in many places keeping thousands of troops grounded and concentrated in just one country, at the cost of billions each year, makes little sense to me and our leaders,’ he said.
He added, ‘the main argument for staying longer is what each of my three predecessor have grappled with – no one wants to say that we should be in Afghanistan forever.’
‘But they insist, now is not the right moment to leave,’ Biden said.
The decision on a deadline to remove the final 2,500 U.S. forces would finally put an end to the war – amid questions about how much stability and security the U.S. would leave behind amid a fragile government that the military has helped prop up in Kabul.
Republicans slammed Biden’s plan as essentially surrendering the region to al Qaeda amid the ongoing war on terror.
But Biden argued that ‘diplomatic and humanitarian work will continue’ in Afghanistan after the military presence has gone.
He emphasized that his administration will continue to support peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban and assist international efforts to train the Afghan military.
And he noted that the U.S. and its partners are training and equipping nearly 300,000 personnel who are fighting in country.
‘We went to Afghanistan because of a horrific attack that happened 20 years ago,’ Biden will say. ‘That cannot explain why we should remain there in 2021. Rather than return to war with the Taliban, we have to focus on the challenges that will determine our standing and reach today and into the years to come.’
After his remarks, the president visited Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery to honor the sacrifice of those who died in recent American conflicts.
‘Hard to believe, isn’t it?’ he said, looking at the lines of graves.
Section 60 of the Virginia cemetery includes the country’s most recent war dead, from the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
‘I’m always amazed at generation after generation, the women, the men, who are prepared to give their lives for their country,’ Biden told reporters after being asked what this moment meant to him.
As he did in his remarks, Biden brought up his son, Beau, who died of cancer in 2015 after serving in Iraq.
‘It means I have trouble these days ever showing at a veterans’ cemetery not thinking of my son Beau, who proudly insisted on putting on that uniform and going to hit unit to Iraq and giving up his spot as attorney general in the state of Delaware, because he thought it was the right thing to do,’ Biden said.
He answered in the negative when asked if withdrawing was a hard decision.
‘No it wasn’t to me,’ the president said. ‘It was absolutely clear. Absolutely clear.’
President Biden visits Arlington National Cemetery today
‘We went for two reasons – get rid of bin Laden and to end the safe haven. From the very beginning I never thought we were there to unify Iraq, I mean Afghanistan,’ Biden said, making a quick fumble. ‘It’s never been done. It’s never been done.’
‘Thank you all for being out here in the rain,’ he told the group of reporters, as he walked through the cemetery with an umbrella in his hand, but not opening it.
Prior to his announcement, Biden spoke with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani ahead of his remarks.
‘The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan respects the U.S. decision and we will work with our U.S. partners to ensure a smooth transition,’ Ghani wrote on Twitter.
‘Afghanistan’s proud security and defense forces are fully capable of defending its people and country, which they have been doing all along, and for which the Afghan nation will forever remain grateful,’ he added.
The White House is facing criticism from several corners about the decision to withdraw all of the American military presence – even from within its own ranks.
CIA Director William Burns said today that Washington’s ability to collect intelligence and act on threats will diminish when U.S. troops leave Afghanistan.
‘When the time comes for the U.S. military to withdraw, the U.S. government’s ability to collect and act on threats will diminish. That’s simply a fact,’ he told the Senate Intelligence Committee, adding that the United States would however retain ‘a suite of capabilities.’
While Biden’s decision keeps U.S. troops in Afghanistan four months longer than initially planned, it sets a firm end to two decades of war that killed more than 2,200 U.S. troops, wounded 20,000, and cost as much as $1 trillion.
The conflict largely crippled al Qaeda and led to the death of Osama bin Laden, the architect of the Sept. 11 attacks.
But an American withdrawal also risks many of the gains made in democracy, women’s rights and governance, while ensuring that the Taliban, who provided al Qaeda’s haven, remain strong and in control of large swaths of the country.
Defense officials and commanders had argued against the May 1 deadline, saying the U.S. troop withdrawal should be based on security conditions in Afghanistan, including Taliban attacks and violence.
Republicans also hammered Biden after his decision was publicly reported.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell blasted the move in a Senate floor statement – saying Biden plans to ‘turn tail’ and calling it a ‘retreat.’
Just moments ago, new reporting suggests the Biden Administration plans to turn tail and abandon the fight in Afghanistan,’ McConnell said.
‘Precipitously withdrawing U.S. forces from Afghanistan is a grave mistake. It is retreat in the face of an enemy that has not yet been vanquished and abdication of American leadership,’ he added. He said leaders in both parties criticized a ‘reckless withdrawal’ from Syria and Afghanistan in the ‘prior Administration.’
‘Those same voices in both parties should be equally concerned about the Biden Administration’s announcement today,’ he said. ‘A reckless pullback like this would abandon our Afghan, regional, and NATO partners in a shared fight against terrorists that we have not yet won.’ He also said it would ‘specifically abandon the women of Afghanistan, whose individual freedoms and human rights will be imperiled.’
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and GOP hawk, called the planned withdrawal a ‘disaster in the making.’
‘A full withdrawal from Afghanistan is dumber than dirt and devilishly dangerous. President Biden will have, in essence, cancelled an insurance policy against another 9/11,’ said Graham.
Some Democrats also criticized the decision.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire called it disappointing.
‘I’m very disappointed in the president’s decision to set a September deadline to walk away from Afghanistan. Although this decision was made in coordination with our allies, the U.S. has sacrificed too much to bring stability to Afghanistan to leave without verifiable assurances of a secure future,’ she said in a statement.’
Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, a voice on military issues among Senate Democrats, declined to say directly he was on board with the decision.
‘Well, it will be a transition. Because we still have vital interests in protecting against terrorist attacks that could be emanating from that area. But there are other places in the world too where you have to be conscious,’ he said. We also have to maintain a presence for regional stability,’ he said.
Asked if he supports the move, he responded: ‘You know there is no easy answer.’
‘It’s a little concerning to me. It should be a conditions-based withdrawal, and not just because it’s the 20th anniversary of 9/11,’ said Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst.
U.S. and coalition forces were able to drive the Taliban from power and a new Afghan government was created. A long effort to train and equip native Afghan forces followed, amid an ongoing insurgency.
In a statement last month, the Taliban threatened to resume hostilities against foreign troops in Afghanistan if they did not meet the May 1 deadline.
But it would still set a near-term date with withdrawal, potentially allaying Taliban concerns that Biden would drag out the process.
The May 1 deadline had already started to appear less and less likely in recent weeks, given the lack of preparations on the ground to ensure it could be done in a safe and responsible way.
U.S. officials have also blamed the Taliban for failing to live up to commitments to reduce violence and some have warned about persistent Taliban links to al Qaeda.
It was those ties that triggered U.S. military intervention in 2001 following al Qaeda’s Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington because the Taliban had harbored al Qaeda leaders.
Thousands of American and allied troops have died in fighting in Afghanistan.
The war has resulted in 3,500 U.S. and coalition casualties, with a cost to the U.S. Treasury of more than $2 trillion, and a cost to NATO of an estimated $825 billion.
At the height of the conflict in 2011, the U.S. and NATO forces totaled 130,000.
The war is believed to have resulted in 110,000 Afghan forces, with an estimated 31,000 civilian casualties.