Biden says ‘chaos’ was inevitable in Kabul

US President Biden largely reiterated his defense of the Afghanistan withdrawal in an interview with ABC News Wednesday, saying that some chaos was inevitable, npr reported.

He added that US troops will stay in Afghanistan until all American civilians are out.

"The idea that somehow, there's a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don't know how that happens," Biden told ABC News.

The president said it was "a simple choice" to withdraw US forces, and he faulted the Afghan government and its military for not more forcibly defending the capital, Kabul.

"Look, it was a simple choice," Biden said. "When you had the government of Afghanistan, the leader of that government, get in a plane and taking off and going to another country, when you saw the significant collapse of the Afghan troops we had trained, up to 300,000 of them, just leaving their equipment and taking off—that was, you know, I'm not, that's what happened."

"That's simply what happened. And so the question was, in the beginning, the threshold question was, do we commit to leave within the time frame we set, do we extend it to Sept. 1, or do we put significantly more troops in?"

In the interview, Biden also stressed he's committed to keeping a troop presence in Afghanistan until every American who wants to get out is safely evacuated.

As far as the nation's Afghan allies, Biden made less of a firm commitment.

"We're going to do everything in our power to get all Americans out and our allies out," Biden said. "The commitment holds to get everyone out that, in fact, we can get out and everyone who should come out. And that's the objective. That's what we're doing now. That's the path we're on. And I think we'll get there."

Biden had made an early promise to withdraw American troops from the country by Sept. 11, the 20th anniversary of the attacks that prompted the initial US invasion of Afghanistan.

By last week, when it became apparent the speed with which the Taliban were advancing their takeover, Biden authorized sending several thousand troops back to Afghanistan on a temporary mission to help evacuate most of the US Embassy in Kabul and Afghan civilians who had supported the United States.

"I had a simple choice. If I said, 'We're gonna stay,' then we'd better be prepared to put a whole lot, hell of a lot more troops in," Joe Biden told ABC News.

Russia peacekeepers in Artsakh provide drinking water to more than 200 families Russian peacekeepers in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) have provided...	Turkey's Erdogan says he is 'open to cooperation' with Taliban Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday lauded the...
	US delegation maintains contact with Taliban in Doha A delegation of US diplomats led by Zalmay Khalilzad, Special...