The White House is adamant President Joe Biden’s mismanagement of the United States’s Afghanistan withdrawal has not undermined his message that “America is back.”
U.S. leadership was evident in its securing of capital Kabul’s international airport and its evacuation of 42,000 people since last month, according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
BIDEN TRIES TO PIVOT FROM AFGHANISTAN BACK TO COVID
“That is Americans leading. That is our men and women in our military leading on the ground, securing the airport after the Afghans fled and didn’t secure the airport, and ensuring that we are taking care of our partners as we promised,” she told reporters on Monday.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan was asked a similar question when he opened the briefing, the pair’s first since last Tuesday.
Sullivan also cited the quick securing of Hamid Karzai International Airport so Americans, other people “from friends and foes alike,” and Afghan nationals looking to flee for humanitarian reasons could fly out.
“This is an enormous logistical, diplomatic, security, humanitarian undertaking,” he said. “There is no other country in the world who could pull something like this off, bar none.”
The White House has been pressed on its international standing as foreign partners, including the United Kingdom, publicly vent about Biden’s handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been particularly vocal about the lack of coordination ahead of Tuesday’s Group of Seven meeting. Johnson is expected to push Biden on extending his self-imposed Aug. 31 exit deadline during that virtual gathering so a coalition can continue airlifting people to safety.
Sullivan declined to preview Biden’s response to Johnson’s request. But he did say the decision to stay “ultimately” rested with the president and was “no one else’s” responsibility.
“We believe that we have time between now and the 31st to get out any American who wants to get out,” he said. “We will continue to get Afghans at risk out of the country, even after U.S. military forces have left.”
Both Psaki and Sullivan bristled at criticism over perceptions the U.S. had left Americans “stranded” in Afghanistan and that the White House had “bragged” about the speed at which it reached agreements with other governments to become transit countries for evacuees.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“I’ve never bragged about anything. I’m trying to give you the straight dope from here, the good and the bad, and that means a lot to me,” Sullivan said.
