Biden news: President’s approval rating drops over Afghanistan as Trump rants at
Biden says troops will stay in Afghanistan for as long as it takes to evacuate all US civilians
Joe Biden has said American troops will stay in Afghanistan until all remaining US citizens —and citizens of American allies — are evacuated from the country after receiving criticism for the chaotic withdrawal of US forces.
In a defensive interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos on Wednesday, Mr Biden said there was no way of avoiding “chaos” by leaving Afghanistan, and that he was committed to evacuating Americans and US allies out before the deadline of 31 August, but that if any US citizens were still in the country, his forces would “stay till we get them all out.”
In Thursday’s Pentagon briefing it was revealed that a further 2,000 people had been evacuated in the past 24 hours, but bottlenecks in getting people into Kabul airport, rather than flight capacity, are the real challenge.
The State Department says that 6,000 people have been processed at the airport and spokesperson Ned Rice says they hope to get 20 flights off the ground tonight which could clear the majority of them.
On the domestic front, new unemployment claims have sunk to a pandemic low, and the Biden administration has announced it is wiping out $5.8bn of student debt for disabled Americans.
Hello and welcome to The Independent’s rolling coverage of the Biden administration and the ongoing response to the United States’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Gino Spocchia19 August 2021 10:42
US will ‘stay’ until citizens and allies evacuated, Biden says
US President Joe Biden told ABC News on Wednesday night he was committed to doing “everything in our power” to get Americans and US allies in Afghanistan out before a 31 August deadline, after he was criticised for failing to anticipate the fall of Kabul to the Taliban at the weekend.
Mr Biden, who was asked what he would do if there were Americans remaining in Afghanistan after 31 August, affirmed that “if there’s American citizens left, we’re gonna stay till we get them all out.” There are believed to be 10,000 – 15,000 Americans alone in the country.
It follows the airlifting of Americans from the roof of the country’s embassy in Kabul on Sunday as the Taliban advanced on the Afghan capital. Many argued that the scenes were reminiscent of the fall of Saigon and Vietnam in 1975, when Americans were also forced to flee.
Mr Biden said in the ABC News interview that “chaos” was unavoidable. That has been disputed by intelligence officials and his opponents.
Gino Spocchia19 August 2021 10:51
US presence in Kabul depends on pace of evacuations
The US president, who said he was committed to evacuating Americans and allies, said the presence of US troops in the country was dependent on getting thousands of US citizens and allies out a day.
US officials said on Tuesday they had evacuated 3,200 people from Afghanistan, including all Embassy staff, since the fall of Kabul on Sunday, which Mr Biden described on Wednesday night as being “five days ago”.
That figure was apart from a group of US staff left working from Kabul’s international airport, as…
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