Kabul’s international airport reopened late Monday for evacuation efforts hours after heartbreaking chaos at the sole getaway out of a country that completely fell to Taliban’s militants.
Images depicting desperate Afghans clinging to a departing American plane Monday morning upset the world as President Biden issued a long-awaited statement from the comfort of White House East Room.
“If anything, the developments of the past week reinforce that ending US military involvement in Afghanistan now was the right decision,” the President said. “Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country.”
“The choice I had to make as your president was either to follow through on the agreement to draw down our forces or escalating the conflict and sending thousands more American troops back into combat and lurching into the third decade of conflict.”
Monday evening, thousands of Marine and Army soldiers arrived at Hamid Karzai International Airport in order to help secure the facility amid evacuation operations.
