Paula Lugones
08/18/2021 18:19
Clarín.com
World
Updated 08/18/2021 19:03
The president of the United States, Joe Biden,
defended on Wednesday his decision to withdraw US troops
from Afghanistan and said that the chaos that was generated at the exit was inevitable.
Biden gave an interview with
ABC,
the first he has given since the forces left the Asian country and the Taliban took control of the territory and the government in a sudden way, while
a stampede
of people trying to flee the new regime was produced. .
The president suffers strong attacks
, even from the ranks of his own party, over his decision and the way in which it was executed.
In an interview at the White House, presenter George Stephanopulos asked him:
“Don't you think the exit could have been handled better, without mistakes?
“No, I don't think it could have been handled in a way that, let's look back and look at it, but the idea that there is a way to have gotten out without that chaos, I don't know how that would have been.
I don't know how that happened
, ”the president replied.
United States President Joe Biden at the White House.
EFE
"So that was the cost of the decision for you?"
the journalist asked him.
"Yes," Biden said.
But then the president clarified: “Now exactly what happened no.
But I knew there was going to be a huge… Look, one of the things we didn't know is what the Taliban would do in terms of
trying to stop people from leaving. "
Then he added, given the news on Wednesday, that the planes are leaving.
"What are they doing now?
They are cooperating, letting the American citizens out, the American personnel out, the diplomats out,
but we're having a few
more
difficulties
getting those who helped us out when we were there, ”he said, referring to Afghans who cooperated with the Americans and they fear retaliation.
On the defensive
Biden became defensive when the reporter referred to the
chaotic scenes at the airport
, with civilians hanging from airplanes desperate to escape, even falling from airplanes.
"That was four days ago, five days ago!"
the president interrupted, although the photo Stephanopoulos referred to, of hundreds of evacuees packed into a C-17 cargo plane, was taken on Monday.
Biden seeks to appease criticism for the chaotic way in which the United States withdrew from the Asian country and
for not having foreseen that the Taliban
would advance so fast to the point of taking the capital in a few days, while the Afghan army they had trained for 20 years it surrendered and President Ashraf Ghani, backed by Washington, fled.
Surprise still reigns in Washington
.
The Pentagon's top general said Wednesday there was nothing that could predict the speed with which the Taliban took control.
"There was nothing that I or anyone else saw that would indicate a collapse of this military and this government in 11 days," said US Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley.
“The Afghan security forces had the capacity and by that I mean they had the training, the size, the capacity to defend their country.
This comes down to
a question of will and leadership, ”he
added.
A Turkish soldier at Kabul airport.
AP Photo
Critics
have blamed the State Department, US intelligence and the Pentagon for not anticipating the debacle and preparing earlier for the evacuation, which involved more than 10,000 US citizens.
Warnings
Douglas London, the former CIA South Asia chief of counterterrorism and later an advisor to Biden's presidential campaign, said that US intelligence
had predicted that the Taliban would defeat
Afghan forces and that the government might capitulate within a few minutes. days, as he wrote on the Just Security site.
In the midst of it all, former President Donald Trump, who had been the one who started the troop withdrawal last year, came out to beat his successor.
“You had to get people out of there.
Can you imagine your army going home and leaving all those people behind?
That's called the lamb slaughtered
, "Trump said on Fox Business.
Trump mentioned that
President Biden's inability
to evacuate the thousands of American citizens still in the country puts them at risk of being used as hostages by the Taliban.
"But here's the problem: retiring is the right thing to do, but the way they retired will turn into infamy," he accused.
PB
Look also
Taliban are no longer so friendly and suppress protests in Afghanistan: at least one dead
Afghanistan: How will the Taliban get international financial aid for a ruined country?