Biden denies he was advised not to withdraw troops from Afghanistan

The US president denies receiving advice from government officials not to withdraw US military forces from Afghanistan. This statement comes after a source from the US intelligence services described to the Wall Street Journal (Wall Street Journal) how the political authority was warned of the dangers of the army’s exit from the country. Complaining that “nobody wants to hear us.”

In an interview with ABC News, Joe Biden told journalist George Stephanopoulos that “nobody remembers him” advising him to keep 2,500 troops in Afghanistan while discussing a peace agreement between the Afghan government and the Taliban.

According to the “Wall Street Journal”, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned the president that a complete withdrawal of US forces would not guarantee political stability in the country, while Chief of Staff General Mark Milley advised him to maintain a presence in Afghanistan.

Despite “divided” reports about the military’s withdrawal, Biden said his advisers had not contested the troop withdrawal by the August 31 deadline.

In the same interview, the White House tenant also reiterated that he had not received reactions by intelligence services that had anticipated such accelerated dominance by the Taliban as it turned out, although the paper reported that “military and intelligence officials warned Biden that the country’s national security was deteriorating,” warning thus, “of the limited capabilities of the Afghan army to stand in the way.” face of the Taliban.

“The intelligence services did not warn me in June or July that the country would collapse like it did,” Biden said during the interview, stressing that a military withdrawal would be inevitable. He stressed that “there was no good time to remove heads from Afghanistan.”

The US president has been a bipartisan target for the chaotic exit from Afghanistan, complicated by the Taliban’s surprise takeover of Kabul last Sunday – a takeover that has led to a humanitarian crisis that has so far left 12 people dead and several vacationed. Since then, the United States has accelerated the process of evacuating the estimated 10 million Americans still in the country, as well as tens of thousands of US Afghan allies.