Watch Live: Biden to announce withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Afghanistan by 9/11
Afghanistan #Afghanistan
Washington — President Biden is poised to announce Wednesday plans to pull all U.S. military forces from Afghanistan by September 11, 2021, a move that would bring an end to America’s longest war by the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon.
Mr. Biden is expected to make remarks “on the way forward in Afghanistan, including his plans and timeline for” the drawdown of U.S. troops, from the Treaty Room at the White House, the same place where former President George W. Bush announced airstrikes in Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. Following his speech, Mr. Biden is scheduled to visit Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery, where service members who died in America’s most recent wars are buried.
A senior administration official said the September 11 deadline for having troops out of Afghanistan is “not conditions-based.”
With his new target date for completing the drawdown in Afghanistan, Mr. Biden will miss a May 1 deadline for full withdrawal set by the Trump administration under an agreement with the Taliban last year. But the administration official said the U.S. will begin pulling American troops before May 1, with the plan to have all service members out of the country before September 11. The president acknowledged last month it would be “hard” to meet the May 1 deadline set by his predecessor.
Mr. Biden’s move to bring U.S. forces home from Afghanistan has been met with mixed reactions from lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Top Republicans criticized the president’s decision, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell calling it a “grave mistake” and Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, saying the move is “outrageous.”
Some Democrats, too, have expressed concern about the forthcoming announcement. Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he would not support any U.S. aid to Afghanistan “if there is backsliding on civil society [and] the rights that women have achieved,” and is “concerned that after so much blood and national treasure that we don’t lose what we were seeking to achieve.”
But progressives cheered Mr. Biden’s move. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont said it was the “brave and right decision,” while Congressman Ro Khanna said he applauds Mr. Biden “for achieving an impossibility here in Washington: ending forever war.”
There are currently 2,500 U.S. service members in Afghanistan, according to the Defense Department. More than 2,300 American troops have died in the country.