Biden says he did not see way to withdraw from Afghanistan without ‘chaos ensuing’
Washington, Aug 19 (UNI/Sputnik) US President Joe Biden said in an interview that he did not see any way to pull the United States out from Afghanistan without an ensuing chaos.
“I don’t think it could have been handled in a way that, we’re gonna go back in hindsight and look – but the idea that somehow, there’s a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don’t know how that happens,” Biden told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on Wednesday.
Asked about the developments in Afghanistan over the last several days and whether there was any failure on the part of the intelligence community, the execution or planning of the withdrawal, Biden said, “It was a simple choice.”
“When you had the government of Afghanistan, the leader of that government, get in a plane taking off and going to another country; when you saw the significant collapse of the Afghan troops we had trained, up to 300,000 of them, just leaving their equipment and taking off – that was, you know, I’m not, that’s what happened. That’s simply what happened,” Biden said.
Commenting on his first reaction to the pictures and videos showing chaotic scenes at the Kabul airport, Biden said his first thought was “to gain control of this.”
“We have to move this more quickly. We have to move in a way in which we can take control of that airport. And we did,” Biden said.
On Sunday, the Taliban terror group (banned in Russia) completed their takeover of Afghanistan by entering Kabul. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani resigned and left the country to prevent what he described would be a bloodshed. Numerous countries chose to evacuate their citizens and diplomatic personnel from Afghanistan due to the precarious security situation.
UNI