Biden said military discussions are underway on potentially extending the airlift beyond the August 31 deadline.
President Joe Biden says the “difficult and painful” airlift of Americans and thousands of others from the Afghan capital is accelerating, but won’t rule out extending it beyond the August 31 deadline before the Taliban’s swift takeover .
In remarks at the White House on Sunday, a week after the Taliban completed their victory by capturing Kabul, Biden defended his decision to end the war and insisted that getting all Americans out of the country was under the best circumstances. I would have been difficult. Critics waited too long for Biden to begin organizing an evacuation for a serious error in judgment that became a prisoner of fear and panic created by the government’s sudden collapse.
“Evacuation of thousands of people from Kabul is going to be difficult and painful, regardless of when it started,” Biden said. “It would have been true if we had started a month ago or a month from now. There is no way to expel so many people in pain and loss without the heartbreaking pictures that appear on TV.”
But there were signs of progress: In the 24 hours ending Monday morning, 28 US military flights evacuated about 10,400 people from Kabul, according to a White House official. In addition, 61 Coalition aircraft evacuated approximately 5,900 people.
Biden said military discussions are underway on potentially extending the airlift beyond the August 31 deadline. “Our hope is that we will not have to expand, but there are discussions,” he said, suggesting the possibility of consulting the Taliban.
Since August 14, the US has facilitated the evacuation and evacuation of approximately 37,000 people. The White House official said that since the end of July, we have moved about 42,000 people.
“We see no reason why this momentum would not be kept,” Biden said from the White House. The US military says it has the capacity to fly more than 5,000 people daily from Kabul.
A Marine calms an infant during an evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Biden insisted, without giving a full explanation, that US forces had managed to improve access to the airport for Americans and others who wish to join the flights. He suggested that the perimeter was increased while widening the “safe zone”.
“What I’m not going to do is talk about the strategic changes that we’re going to make to make sure we maintain as much security as possible,” he said. “We have consistently, how can I say this, increased rational access to airports, where more people can get there more safely. It is still a dangerous operation, but I will go into that in detail. Don’t want to know how we’re doing it.”
Biden later said: “We’ve had a lot of discussions with the Taliban. They have been instrumental in expanding some of the perimeter. He said groups of Americans in Kabul were being moved more efficiently and safely to the airport, but did not give details.
“Any American who wants to go home will find a home,” he insisted.
Earlier on Sunday, administration officials said the US military was looking at “constructive ways” to bring Americans and others to Kabul airport to evacuate, and the Pentagon on Sunday sent six US commercial airlines to Afghanistan. Ordered to help with evacuation from temporary sites outside.
Addressing a criticism cited by many Republicans, Biden said that no Afghan evacuation is being sent directly from Afghanistan to the United States without prior investigation. He said that they are being shown in third countries.
Biden and his top aides have repeatedly cited their concern that extremist groups in Afghanistan will attempt to take advantage of the chaos around Kabul airport.
Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said: “The threat is real, it is acute, it is persistent and something we are focusing on with every tool in our arsenal.”
The Biden administration has not given a firm estimate of the number of Americans willing to leave Afghanistan. Some put the total at between 10,000 and 15,000. Sullivan put it at “several thousand” on Sunday.
Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” Austin said that as the deadline for Biden’s August 31 exit campaign to end, he would recommend whether it be given more time.
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Republicans in Congress intensified criticism of Biden’s response. “If the Taliban are saying that Americans can travel safely to the airport, there’s no better way to make sure they get to the airport safely than to use our military to rescue them,” Iowa GOP Sen. Joni Ernst, an Army veteran, said on ABC’s “This Week.”
Ryan Crocker, who served as the US ambassador to Afghanistan under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the handling of Biden’s return was “disastrous” and triggered a “global crisis”. Had given.
Vice President Kamala Harris was reminded several times about the situation in Afghanistan during her visit to Singapore. He dismissed several questions on what went wrong there during a press conference in Singapore after meeting the country’s prime minister.
Harris said that while “there is and should be a strong analysis of what has happened,” the current focus is “on the evacuation of vulnerable Afghans, including American citizens, Afghans who work with us, and women and children.”
“We can’t in any way deviate from what should be our primary mission right now, which is getting people out of the area that deserve to be evacuated,” she said.
Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong offered support for the US decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, saying the country understood the decision and was “grateful” for US efforts to counter terrorism in the region. He also announced that Singapore would offer to use its Air Force planes to help evacuate people there.
A central problem in evacuation operations is processing evacuations after arriving in the region and other countries in Europe. Those temporary vestments including Qatar, Bahrain and Germany are sometimes reaching capacity, although new sites are being made available, including in Spain.
In an effort to mitigate this, and to free military aircraft for missions from Kabul, the Pentagon activated the Civil Reserve Air Fleet on Sunday. The Defense Department said 18 aircraft belonging to American Airlines, Atlas Air, Delta Air Lines, Omni Air, Hawaiian Airlines and United Airlines would be directed for evacuation from the interim destination. Airlines will not fly into Afghanistan. The six participating airlines have agreed to assist for a little less than two weeks, roughly coinciding with the airlift’s current planned period, which is to end on August 31.
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