US President Joe Biden is planning to announce his plans to withdraw remaining US troops from Afghanistan, declaring that the September 11 attacks “cannot explain” why American forces should still be there 20 years after the deadliest terror assault on the United States.
His plan is to pull out all the American forces — numbering 2,500 now — by this Sept. 11, according to US officials. That is the anniversary of the attacks, which were coordinated from Afghanistan.
The US cannot continue to pour resources into an intractable war and expect different results, Biden says in excerpts released ahead of an afternoon address in which he intends to detail his withdrawal timeline.
US President Joe Biden at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, April 13, 2021. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, Pool)
The drawdown would begin rather than conclude by May 1, which has been the deadline for full withdrawal under a peace agreement the Trump administration reached with the Taliban last year.
“We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan hoping to create the ideal conditions for our withdrawal, expecting a different result,” Biden says in the speech excerpts. “I am now the fourth American president to preside over an American troop presence in Afghanistan. Two Republicans. Two Democrats. I will not pass this responsibility to a fifth.”
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