WASHINGTON -- President Joe Biden on Tuesday called the U.S. airlift to extract more than 120,000 Americans, Afghans and other allies from Afghanistan to end a 20-year war an "extraordinary success," though more than 100 Americans and thousands of others were left behind.
He declared the end of an era in which the United States uses military power "to remake other countries."
Twenty-four hours after the last American C-17 cargo plane roared off from Kabul, Biden spoke to the nation and vigorously defended his decision to end America's longest war and withdraw all U.S. troops ahead of an Aug. 31 deadline.
"I was not going to extend this forever war," Biden declared from the White House. "And I was not going to extend a forever exit."
Biden has faced tough questions about the way the U.S. went about leaving Afghanistan -- a chaotic evacuation with spasms of violence, including a suicide bombing last week that killed 13 American service members and 169 Afghans.
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Biden said the nation owed a debt of gratitude to the troops who died in the evacuation mission.
"Thirteen heroes gave their lives," he said. "We owe them and their families a debt of gratitude we can never repay, but we should never, ever, ever forget."
The president is under heavy criticism, particularly from Republicans, for his handling of the evacuation. But he said it was inevitable that the final departure from two decades of war, negotiated with the Taliban for May 1 by former President Donald Trump, would have been difficult, with likely violence, no matter when it was planned and conducted.
"To those asking for a third decade of war in Afghanistan, I ask, 'What is the vital national interest?'" Biden said. He added, "I simply do not believe that the safety and security of America is enhanced by continuing to deploy thousands of American troops and spending billions of dollars in Afghanistan."
Asked after the speech about Biden sounding angry at some criticism, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the president had simply offered his "forceful assessment."
Biden scoffed at Republicans -- and some Democrats -- who contend the U.S. would have been better served by maintaining a small military footprint in Afghanistan. Before Thursday's attack, the U.S. military had not suffered a combat casualty since February 2020 -- around the time the Trump administration brokered its deal with the Taliban.
Biden said breaking the Trump deal would have restarted a shooting war. He said those who favor remaining at war also fail to recognize the weight of deployment, with a scourge of PTSD, financial struggles, divorce and other problems for U.S. troops.
"When I hear that we could've, should've continued the so-called low-grade effort in Afghanistan at low risk to our service members, at low cost, I don't think enough people understand how much we've asked of the 1% of this country to put that uniform on," Biden said.
"There's nothing low-grade or low-risk or low-cost about any war," the president said. "It's time to end the war in Afghanistan."
In addition to all the questions at home, Biden is also adjusting to a new relationship with the Taliban, the Islamist militant group the U.S. toppled after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in America, which is once again in power in Afghanistan.
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Biden has tasked Secretary of State Antony Blinken to coordinate with international partners to hold the Taliban to their promise of safe passage for Americans and others who still want to leave in the days ahead.
"We don't take them by their word alone, but by their actions," Biden said. "We have leverage to make sure those commitments are met."
Biden also pushed back against criticism that he fell short of his pledge to get all Americans out of the country ahead of the U.S. military withdrawal. He said many of the Americans left behind are dual citizens, some with deep family roots that are complicating their ability to leave Afghanistan.
"The bottom line: 90% of Americans in Afghanistan who wanted to leave were able to leave," Biden said. "For those remaining Americans, there is no deadline. We remain committed to get them out, if they want to come out."
SHIFTING FOCUS
Biden repeated his argument that ending the Afghanistan war was a crucial step for recalibrating American foreign policy toward growing challenges posed by China and Russia -- and counterterrorism concerns that pose a more potent threat to the U.S.
"There's nothing China or Russia would rather have, want more in this competition, than the United States to be bogged down another decade in Afghanistan," he said.
In Biden's view, the war could have ended 10 years ago with the U.S. killing of Osama bin Laden, whose al-Qaida extremist network planned and executed the 9/11 plot from an Afghanistan sanctuary. Al-Qaida has been vastly diminished, preventing it thus far from again attacking the United States.
And the president lamented an estimated $2 trillion of taxpayer money that was spent fighting the war.
"What have we lost as a consequence in terms of opportunities?" Biden asked.
Congressional committees, whose interest in the war waned over the years, are expected to hold public hearings on what went wrong in the final months of the U.S. withdrawal.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., on Tuesday described the Biden administration's handling of the evacuation as "probably the biggest failure in American government on a military stage in my lifetime" and promised that Republicans would press the White House for answers.
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Meanwhile, the Senate met briefly Tuesday, with Vice President Kamala Harris presiding, to pass by unanimous consent a bill that increases spending for temporary assistance to U.S. citizens and their dependents returning from another country because of illness, war or other crisis. Biden quickly signed the legislation, which raises funding for the program from $1 million to $10 million.
A group of Republican lawmakers gathered on the House floor Tuesday morning and held a moment of silence for the 13 service members who were killed in the suicide bomber attack.
They also sought a House vote on legislation from Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., which among other things would require the administration to submit a report on how many Americans remain in Afghanistan as well as the number of Afghans who had applied for a category of visas reserved for those employed by or on behalf of the U.S. government.
The GOP lawmakers objected as Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., gaveled the House into adjournment. They then gathered for a news conference to denounce the administration.
For many U.S. commanders and troops who served in Afghanistan, it was a day of mixed emotions.
"All of us are conflicted with feelings of pain and anger, sorrow and sadness, combined with pride and resilience," said Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who commanded troops in Afghanistan earlier in his career.
"But one thing I am certain of," Milley said, "for any soldier, sailor, airman or Marine and their families, your service mattered. It was not in vain."
'NEW ERA' OF POWER
Biden declared that he believed with "all of my heart" that he made a wise decision. But he appeared angry and defensive as he sought to counter a torrent of criticism from Democrats and Republicans -- and from some families of the service members killed in Kabul last week -- for his handling of the withdrawal.
The president refused to offer any sort of mea culpa Tuesday, even as the Taliban celebrated their "independence" from America with gunfire in the streets of Kabul.
Instead, the president sought to justify his handling of the final weeks of the war, saying the U.S. military and its diplomats deserved credit and thanks for ferrying out more than 120,000 Americans and Afghan allies in the face of the Taliban takeover and terrorist threats from ISIS-K, an affiliate of the Islamic State group.
Biden expressed deep remorse for the loss of lives in the explosions at the airport Thursday, including scores of Afghans, but he dismissed the argument that his administration should have -- or could have -- conducted the final withdrawal in a "more orderly manner" by evacuating people earlier, before the Taliban takeover of the country was complete.
"I respectfully disagree," Biden said, at one point pounding his finger on the lectern and delivering a sense of righteous indignation about the second-guessing from critics on Capitol Hill and others outside the administration.
At the heart of Biden's argument is a bet that Americans -- a majority of whom say they support an end to the war -- as well as historians will judge his decision to withdraw troops as the only acceptable one, given the situation on the ground when he came into office at the beginning of the year.
Withdrawing from Afghanistan was a central campaign promise, and White House officials believe that a majority of voters will reward the president for following through on what he said he would do.
Biden portrayed himself as a leader who took the only course available to him through a thicket of bad choices, laying blame on his predecessor, who reached the accord with the Taliban last year that committed the United States to fully withdraw by May, and the Afghan army. He said the United States had "no vital interest in Afghanistan other than to prevent an attack on America's homeland" and that the war should have ended a decade earlier.
"That was the choice, the real choice between leaving or escalating," Biden declared, his voice frequently rising. "I was not going to extend this forever war."
In making that argument, Biden offered a glimpse of a different U.S. foreign policy in the post-9/11 world. He said he would shun ground wars with large troop deployments, favoring a strategy guided more by economic and cybersecurity competition with China and Russia and focused on countering threats with military technology that allows strikes against terrorists without having large contingents of troops based on the ground in a place like Afghanistan.
He called it a "new era" of the use of American power in which the United States would no longer seek to reshape its rivals in the way three previous presidents tried to do in Afghanistan and Iraq. He said "the world is changing" and that U.S. leadership must change with it.
"As we turn the page on the foreign policy that has guided our nation the last two decades, we've got to learn from our mistakes," he said.
He suggested two lessons: setting missions with "clear achievable goals" and staying focused on the fundamental national security interests of the United States.
Information for this article was contributed by Aamer Madhani, Kevin Freking, Robert Burns and Lolita C. Baldor of The Associated Press; and by Michael D. Shear and Jim Tankersley of The New York Times.
