Biden defends ‘messy’ US pullout from Afghanistan

President Joe Biden has said he stands “squarely” behind the US exit from Afghanistan as he faces withering criticism over the Taliban’s lightning conquest of the war-torn country.

“How many more American lives is it worth?” asked the Democratic president.

He said that despite the “messy” pullout, “there was never a good time to withdraw US forces”.

On Sunday, the Taliban declared victory after Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled and his government collapsed.

The militants’ return to rule brings an end to almost 20 years of a US-led coalition’s presence in the country.

Kabul was the last major city in Afghanistan to fall to a Taliban offensive that began months ago but accelerated in recent days as they gained control of territories, shocking many observers.

Mr Biden’s address followed a dramatic day at Kabul’s international airport, where hundreds of civilians desperate to flee the country forced their way inside on Monday.

Many thronged the runway, running alongside a moving military transporter aircraft as it prepared for take-off.

Some clung to the side of a plane, and at least two of them are reported to have perished when they fell from the aircraft after it had left the ground.

American troops killed two armed Afghans who were part of the crowd that breached the airport perimeter. Seven people reportedly died in total.

The US suspended its evacuation from Kabul but it has now resumed.

‘The right decision’

Mr. Biden returned on Monday to the White House from the Camp David presidential retreat to make his first public remarks on Afghanistan in nearly a week.

“If anything, the developments of the past week reinforce that ending US military involvement in Afghanistan now was the right decision,” said Mr Biden.

“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.”

Mr Biden is facing an intense political backlash over the turmoil in Kabul following his April decision to order all American troops out of Afghanistan by 11 September – the 20 year anniversary of the terror attacks that triggered the US invasion.

In his speech, Mr Biden said the US mission in Afghanistan was never supposed to have been about nation-building.

He said that when he was vice-president he had opposed the 2009 deployment of thousands more troops into the country by former President Barack Obama.

Mr Biden also noted he had inherited a deal negotiated with the Taliban under former President Donald Trump for the US to withdraw from Afghanistan by May of this year.

He said he was now the fourth US president to preside over America’s longest war, and would not pass the responsibility on to a fifth.

“I will not mislead the American people by claiming that just a little more time in Afghanistan will make all the difference.”

Mr Biden campaigned as a seasoned expert in foreign policy and declared after assuming office this year that “America is back”. BBC