US2 min(s) read
Published 12:31 23 Aug 2021 GMT
Joe Biden has once again defended his decision to withdraw American forces from Afghanistan.
Speaking from the White House on Sunday (August 22), the POTUS said that once the evacuation is complete, the American people "will have a clear understanding of what I did, why we did it."
He continued: "I'm convinced I'm absolutely correct in not deciding to send more young women and men to war, for a war that, in fact, is no longer warranted."
Watch the full statement from the Roosevelt Room below:The president said that the US had to leave Afghanistan at some point, and he made the decision now because the war was not in America's "overwhelming interest".
"But the bottom line is this, folks: Look, at the end of the day, if we didn't leave Afghanistan now, when do we leave? Another 10 years? Another five years? Another year?
"I'm not about to send your son or your daughter to fight in Afghanistan. I don't see where that is in our overwhelming interest."
Biden went on to claim that American adversaries around the world would be sad to the US occupation of Afghanistan come to an end.
"You're sitting in Beijing or you're sitting in Moscow. Are you happy we left?" Biden said as he chuckled.
"They'd love nothing better than for us to continue to be bogged down there, totally occupied with what's going on. So the idea, I think, that history is going to record [is] this was the logical, rational and right decision to make."
While heartbreaking images have emerged from Kabul, where thousands of people are desperately trying to flee Afghanistan amid the Taliban takeover, Biden said that Americans were being successfully evacuated.
He said that around 11,000 people were evacuated in a 30-hour period this weekend, and he sees "no reason why this tempo will not be kept up."
The president explained that the heartbreaking images which have been shown internationally were inevitable.
He explained: "There is no way to evacuate this many people without pain and loss and heartbreaking images you see on television. It's just a fact. My heart aches for those people you see."
Biden's latest comments come after NBC News released a poll on Sunday which found that just 25 percent of Americans approve of his handling of the evacuation of Afghanistan with a further 61 percent saying that they think the 20-year war was not worth it.
