The United States may blow past its self-imposed Aug. 31 deadline to withdraw from Afghanistan if it has not finished evacuating citizens, according to President Joe Biden.
In an exchange with ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos, Biden said U.S. troops would remain in Afghanistan if Americans still needed extracting.
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“If there’s American citizens left, we’re gonna stay to get them all out,” Biden said.
The Biden administration estimates between 10,000 and 15,000 Americans were in Afghanistan when the Taliban entered Kabul last weekend and assumed control of the country after deposed Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled. That does not include the 50,000-65,000 Afghan nationals awaiting special visas, who now fear retribution from the Taliban for helping the U.S. during the 20-year war.
In the interview, Biden insisted his team would work to meet the Aug. 31 deadline, expedited from the Sept. 11 end date he laid out when he first announced the withdrawal in April.
“Americans should understand that we’re gonna try to get it done before Aug. 31,” he said. “We’ll determine at the time who’s left.”
Despite extricating roughly 700 people on their first day of operations, the Biden administration hopes to fly between 5,000 and 7,000 people a day to safety from Hamid Karzai International Airport.
“The commitment holds to get everyone out that, in fact, we can get out and everyone who should come out. And that’s the objective. That’s what we’re doing now. That’s the path we’re on. And I think we’ll get there,” he said.
Biden’s comments go further than statements from his Cabinet and aides. Hours before clips of the interaction were released, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters the U.S. would keep evacuating Americans “until the clock runs out.”
Biden and his staff have been criticized for the chaos that ensued earlier this week at the airport, now the only way out of Afghanistan. A handful of people died attempting to escape by clinging on to the outside of a U.S. military plane.
However, Biden defended their actions Wednesday.
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“No, I don’t think it could have been handled in a way that, we’re gonna go back in hindsight and look — but the idea that somehow there’s a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don’t know how that happens,” he said. “I don’t know how that happened.”
