President Joe Biden’s opinion about how he withdrew troops from Afghanistan is that he “didn’t believe anyone had made a mistake,” according to an excerpt from a yet-to-be-released book.
Biden’s presidential foreign policy will be documented in a new book by reporter Alexander Ward. Among the milestones discussed will be the president’s decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan in 2021, a move that came after an over 20-year war that resulted in 2,400 U.S. soldiers killed and 20,000 injured. During the withdrawal, an additional 13 service members were killed in a suicide bombing at the airport in Kabul. Ward shared an excerpt from the book, titled The Internationalists: The Fight to Restore Foreign Policy After Trump, with Axios.
“Biden told his top aides, [national security adviser Jake] Sullivan included, that he stood by them and they had done their best during a tough situation,” Ward wrote.
One White House official told Ward that “there wasn’t even a real possibility of a shake-up,” and therefore, according to Ward, “no one offered to resign, in large part because the president didn’t believe anyone had made a mistake. Ending the war was always going to be messy.”
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Meanwhile, the House Foreign Affairs Committee continues its investigation of Biden’s withdrawal. During the final half of 2023, the committee conducted 15 interviews.
This investigation surrounds the Doha Agreement, which the Trump administration signed with the Taliban to confirm a withdrawal date of May 1, 2021. As a trade, the United States would give up Bagram Air Base in order to keep the site of the attack, Hamid Karzai International Airport. Today, the airport is operated by the Taliban, which successfully made agreements to continue international flights.
