President Joe Biden incorrectly said on Wednesday that Afghans falling off U.S. military planes was “four days ago, five days ago,” when it was two days ago as the Taliban has taken over the Afghan capital of Kabul.
In a preview of his first interview following the fall of Afghanistan, Biden was asked by ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos, “Look at what’s happened over the last week. Was it a failure of intelligence, planning, execution or judgement?”
“Look, it was a simple choice, George,” replied Biden.
“When you had the government of Afghanistan, the leader of that government,” said Biden, referring to Ashraf Ghani, “getting in a plane and taking off and going to another country, when you saw the significant collapse of the Afghan troops we have trained, of the 300,000 of them, just leaving their equipment and taking off… that’s what happened. That’s simply what happened.”
The preview then shows Stephanopoulos asking, “But we’ve all seen the pictures, we’ve seen those hundreds of people packed into a C-17. We’ve seen Afghans falling.”
“That was four days ago, five days ago,” said Biden.
“What did you think when you first saw those pictures?” asked Stephanopoulos.
“What I thought was, we have to gain control of this. We have to move this more quickly. We have to move in a way in which we can take control of that airport. And we did,” said Biden.
“So you don’t think this could have been handled — this exit could have been handled better in any way, no mistakes,” asked Stephanopoulos.
“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. I don’t know how that happened,” said Biden.
“So for you, that was always priced into the decision?” asked Stephanopoulos.
“Yes,” said the president.
*story by MEDIAite
