Biden has said he will withdraw US troops from Afghanistan before September 11, the twentieth anniversary of the World Trade Center and Pentagon terrorist attacks that launched the war in the first place.
This origin has long given way to other goals, and Biden stated on Wednesday that no amount of time or money could solve the problems his three predecessors were trying to solve.
“War in Afghanistan was never meant to be a multigenerational enterprise,” Biden said during his remarks at the White House Convention, the same site from which President George W. Bush announced that the war would begin in October 2001.
“We were attacked. We went to war with clear objectives. We achieved those objectives,” Biden continued. “Bin Laden is dead and Al Qaeda has been dismantled in Afghanistan and it is time to end the eternal war.”
It was a decisive moment for a president who has not been in office for 100 days. Biden considered his decision for months, declaring a war in Afghanistan that killed about 2,300 U.S. troops and costing more than $ 2 trillion no longer fit within the urgent 2021 foreign policy interest.
The deadline set by Biden is absolute and no potential for extension due to deteriorating conditions on the ground. Officials said it was clear to the president after two decades of war that more time and money would not work after the problems in Afghanistan, even though senior military and national security advisers had warned against a complete withdrawal.
“We can not continue to expand or expand our military presence in Afghanistan in the hope of creating the ideal conditions for our withdrawal, with the expectation of a different outcome,” Biden said.
“I am now the fourth American president to lead a US troop representative in Afghanistan. Two Republicans. Two Democrats,” he continues. “I will not transfer this responsibility to a fifth.”
Biden said the withdrawal would begin on May 1, in line with an agreement reached between President Donald Trump’s government and the Taliban. Some U.S. troops will continue to protect U.S. diplomats, although officials have refused to give an exact number.
Biden said that US diplomatic and humanitarian efforts in Afghanistan would continue and that the US would support peace efforts between the Afghan government and the Taliban. But he was adamant that the war in Afghanistan would end, two decades after it began.
“It’s time to end America’s longest war. It’s time for US troops to return home,” he said in his speech.
When he then visited the section of Arlington National Cemetery where war dead from Afghanistan are buried, Biden was asked if his decision was difficult to make.
“No, it was not,” he said. “For me, it was completely clear.”
A deliberative process
Both Biden’s most recent predecessors sought to end the war in Afghanistan, only to be withdrawn by government security and efforts to support the government. Biden made another calculation that the US and the world should simply move on.
The White House has specifically chosen the House of Representatives to provide book support to the two-decade conflict that began before some Americans currently in use in Afghanistan were born. Biden said he spoke with Bush on Tuesday before announcing his decision to withdraw troops.
“Although he and I have had many differences of opinion over the years, we are absolutely united in our respect and support for the bravery, courage and integrity of the women and men of the American forces who served,” Biden said.
“After nearly two decades of damaging our troops, it’s time to realize that we’ve achieved everything we can militarily, and that it’s time to bring home our remaining troops,” he wrote.
After decades of Afghanistan-focused national security meetings and decisions, Biden’s priorities for foreign policy now lie elsewhere: in Asia, where he hopes to compete with China, and in Russia, whose president he spoke to on Tuesday and a forthcoming summit.
“We went to Afghanistan because of a horrific attack that took place 20 years ago. That cannot explain why we should stay there in 2021,” Biden said. “Instead of returning to the war with the Taliban, we need to focus on the challenges that lie ahead.”
Discussions lasted longer than some U.S. officials expected, even though Biden repeatedly indicated that a May 1 full withdrawal deadline was nearly impossible to meet. Hoping he could provide space to make an informed final decision that he would not regret, officials tried to prevent them from pressuring a president known for blowing deadlines. Meetings at the highest level were convened at an extraordinarily high rate.
As of February, officials have been undertaking a review of ‘real, realistic options’ for Afghanistan, according to an official, mindful of Biden’s instructions not to ‘sugar coat’ the likely results. Heavy consultations between cabinet members and foreign partners followed.
Speaking to senior national security and military officials, Biden suggested that US troops stay in Afghanistan for much longer, according to people familiar with the matter, and reminded his advisers that he – like his two predecessors – had promised voters that he ends the country’s longest war.
There was no unanimous consent among his team. Among those pleading against a withdrawal was Genl. Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, one of the most ardent, who earlier in the deliberations suggested that the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan could cause the government in Kabul to collapse and cause a fallback. according to people familiar with the conversations in women’s rights.
“The Taliban are likely to make a profit on the battlefield, and the Afghan government will struggle to overthrow the Taliban if the coalition withdraws support,” the statement said.
On Wednesday, Biden presented his rebuttal to the “many who will loudly insist that diplomacy cannot succeed without a robust U.S. military presence to stand as leverage.”
“We gave the argument a decade. It never proved effective. Not when we had 98,000 troops in Afghanistan, nor a few thousand,” Biden said. “Our diplomacy does not depend on us having shoes on the ground, but American shoes on the ground. We must change our thinking. American troops should not be used as a point of negotiation between warring parties in other countries.”
A long history of conflict
Officials involved in the process interpreted the long timing for the decision-making as a sign of the president’s anxiety about the way forward, sources said. Biden, meanwhile, has indicated he does not want to be chased.
In fact, Biden thought about it for almost as long as the war itself, having traveled to the region as a leader on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as an in-house advocate – first ignored – to withdraw troops. during the Obama administration.
“I have no doubt that the Taliban are done and the American people will learn about it and the world will learn about it within a few weeks, I predict,” he said in the interview – a projection that it 20 years later, it seems misleading, as his government works to foster peace talks between the Taliban, which controls large parts of Afghanistan, and the Afghan government.
In the interview, however, Biden acknowledged that there was a long way to go – even though he could not have imagined that two decades later he would be the president to decide to withdraw troops.
“The hard part is going to be putting it together,” he then said. “The easiest part is to pick it up.”
During the ensuing years, Biden would travel to Afghanistan as part of congressional delegations and military leaders appearing before his committee.
By the time he became vice president, Biden had adopted a skeptical view of a sustained large presence in the country. Some confidants attributed this to deteriorating conditions and the growing inflexibility of the political situation; others said his son Beau went to Iraq as a member of the Delaware Army National Guard to give him new insight into the sacrifice of military families.
Biden summoned his son in his speech Wednesday.
‘I’m the first president in forty years to know what it means to have a child in a war zone. During this process, my North Star recalled what it was like when my late son, Beau, was deployed to Iraq, how proud he was to serve his country, how urgent he was to work with his unit and the impact it had had him and all of us at home, ‘he said.
This story was updated with more from the President’s speech on Wednesday.
CNN’s Betsy Klein contributed to this report.