Biden: There is no way to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan without creating chaos | US news

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And US President Joe Biden admitted that there is no way to withdraw troops from Afghanistan “without creating chaos.”

The withdrawal of US forces under Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump was agreed in last year’s controversial “peace deal” with the Taliban, but has been implemented under the Biden presidency and is expected to be completed by the end of this month.

The withdrawal allowed the Taliban to advance rapidly across the country, capturing all major cities – including the capital, Kabul – by mid-August.

Biden told ABC News that there was nothing his administration could do to avoid the resulting chaos, as thousands of Afghans desperately try to escape the oncoming regime.

“The idea that there’s a way out somehow without making a mess, I don’t know how that happens,” Biden said.

There are up to 15,000 Americans in Afghanistan and up to 65,000 Afghans and their families the United States also wants to rescue.

About 4,500 US troops maintain security at Kabul airport until the evacuation is complete, but US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III said the US was “nowhere near where we want to be” in terms of the operation.

Biden said the United States will do “everything we can” to get its citizens out before the end of the month, adding, “We’ll stay until we get them all out.”

Many Afghans will act as interpreters for US forces during the 20-year conflict, and will be especially afraid of Taliban reprisals.

Photo: Desperate Afghans cling to a plane leaving Taliban-controlled Kabul.

Footage was shown earlier this week of people so desperate to escape the country that they were clinging to the landing gear of a plane as it attempted to depart from Kabul International Airport.

After taking off, a few of them were seen falling from the plane towards the ground.

When asked about the photos, Biden responded dismissively, saying, “That was four days ago, five days ago.”

He added, “What I thought (when I saw the pictures) is that we have to get this under control, we have to move more quickly, we have to move in a way that we can control that airport. And we did.”

Biden also repeated his criticism of the Afghan security forces, blaming them for the collapse of the country in the face of the Taliban’s advance.

He had said earlier in the week: “American forces cannot and should not go to war, and die in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves.”

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Conservative MP Tom Tugendhat on Afghanistan

This claim provoked angry reactions from many in the US and UK who worked alongside local security forces.

One of them was British MP Tom Tugendhat, who served as an army officer in Afghanistan and told the House of Commons on Wednesday: “Seeing (Biden) questioning the courage of the men I fought with, and claiming that they ran, is shameful.

“Those who have never fought for the colors they fly should be careful about criticizing those who have.”

But in his interview with ABC, Mr. Biden said: “When the government of Afghanistan, the leader of that government, got on a plane and took off and went to another country, when I saw the massive collapse of the Afghan forces that we had they trained – up to 300,000 of them – they just left their equipment. And they took off.

“This was… this is what happened. This is simply what happened.”

But data from Harvard’s Kennedy School and from Brown University’s Costs of War Project show the heavy price Afghan security forces are paying.

While the project recorded 2,448 US military deaths and 3,846 US contractor deaths in Afghanistan as of April, about 66,000 Afghan soldiers and police were killed, along with more than 47,000 Afghan civilians.

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