Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday defended President Biden’s decision to withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan in August 2021, a move the administration raced toward to meet the 20-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
“As I have said, President Biden made the courageous and right decision to end America’s longest war,” Harris said. “Over the past three years, our administration has demonstrated we can still eliminate terrorists, including the leaders of al-Qaeda and ISIS, without troops deployed into combat zones. I will never hesitate to take whatever action necessary to counter terrorist threats and protect the American people and the homeland.”
Harris referred to “our administration” despite the chaotic withdrawal, which resulted in the deaths of 13 U.S. servicemembers as part of a tragic suicide bombing at the Kabul airport on Aug. 26, 2021.
Her comments come amid former President Donald Trump criticizing the administration’s withdrawal procedures and the impact it had on both U.S. forces and those left behind.
“Three years ago, Kamala's and Biden's incompetence left 13 dead warriors, hundreds of civilians killed and grievously wounded, and $85 billion worth of the finest military equipment on the planet abandoned to the Taliban,” Trump said Monday as part of a Truth Social post.
The U.S. withdrawal compelled American forces to leave behind an estimated $7 billion in military hardware provided to the Afghan National Army, which is now in the hands of the Taliban who paraded some of the seized equipment and weapons earlier this month.
Harris has said she was the “last person in the room” when the president effectuated the withdrawal which the Biden administration has said they did to honor the Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan signed by Trump in February 2020 when he was in office from 2017-2021.
Harris can be seen in photos taken at Camp David with the president when he gave the a national address about the withdrawal as it unfolded in front of the world.
Trump on Monday criticized the withdrawal, saying it “ranks among the worst foreign policy debacles in American history,” and insisted that Democrats have shirked responsibility for the lives lost and damage caused to U.S. foreign policy.
He has illuminated the Taliban takeover as part of his stinging criticism, saying images of the U.S. leaving the Middle Eastern country will be remembered as the “most embarrassing moment in the history.”
He also blamed Harris for what happened, saying on his Truth Social platform that “she repeatedly praised the decisions.”
For his part, Trump participated in a wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday while Harris met with her advisers and Biden was vacationing in Delaware.
Trump's vice presidential running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance said that Democrats need to be more assertive about accepting responsibility for what happened.
During a Monday press call with family members of service members who were killed in the bombing, he said the Biden-Harris has not appropriately held officials accountable.
“Nobody expects perfection from our government, but we do expect accountability,” Vance argued. “The fact that Kamala Harris can't even bring herself today to offer any real answer for what happened or for what she's going to do over the next six months to get to the bottom of what happened is, I think, insulting to the families who gave their loved ones in service of this country.”
Last April, the Biden administration admitted it should have evacuated U.S. forces sooner and at a quicker pace, but also blamed the debacle on flawed intelligence. It also faulted the Trump administration for negotiating the withdrawal in the first place without discussing the decision with the Afghan government and American allies.
“President Biden’s choices for how to execute a withdrawal from Afghanistan were severely constrained by conditions created by his predecessor,” the administration said in a statement.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said “there are many ways” to observe the third anniversary of the withdrawal.
The withdrawal from Afghanistan hurt Biden’s favorability and it never came back, according to polls.
During their June debate, Biden commended those who served in Afghanistan and said they represented the best of America.
“They embodied the very best of who we are as a nation: brave, committed, selfless. And we owe them and their families a sacred debt we will never be able to fully repay, but will never cease working to fulfill,” the president said.
