Our State Department was working 24/7 contacting and talking, and in some cases, walking Americans into the airport.Again, more than 5,500 Americans were airlifted out. After we started the evacuation 17 days ago, we did initial outreach and analysis and identified around 5,000 Americans who had decided earlier to stay in Afghanistan but now wanted to leave.Our Operation Allied Rescue ended up getting more than 5,500 Americans out. We got out thousands of citizens and diplomats from those countries that went into Afghanistan with us to get bin Laden. We got out locally employed staff of the United States Embassy and their families, totaling roughly 2,500 people. We got thousands of Afghan translators and interpreters and others, who supported the United States, out as well.Now we believe that about 100 to 200 Americans remain in Afghanistan with some intention to leave.
Most of those who remain are dual citizens, long-time residents who had earlier decided to stay because of their family roots in Afghanistan.The bottom line: Ninety percent of Americans in Afghanistan who wanted to leave were able to leave.And for those remaining Americans, there is no deadline.
We remain committed to get them out if they want to come out. As part of that decision, we set the date of August 31st for American troops to withdraw. The assumption was that more than 300,000 Afghan National Security Forces that we had trained over the past two decades and equipped would be a strong adversary in their civil wars with the Taliban.That assumption - that the Afghan government would be able to hold on for a period of time beyond military drawdown - turned out not to be accurate.But I still instructed our national security team to prepare for every eventuality - even that one. And that’s what we did.So, we were ready when the Afghan Security Forces - after two decades of fighting for their country and losing thousands of their own - did not hold on as long as anyone expected.We were ready when they and the people of Afghanistan watched their own government collapse and their president flee amid the corruption and malfeasance, handing over the country to their enemy, the Taliban, and significantly increasing the risk to U.S. Personnel and our Allies.As a result, to safely extract American citizens before August 31st - as well as embassy personnel, Allies and partners, and those Afghans who had worked with us and fought alongside of us for 20 years - I had authorized 6,000 troops - American troops - to Kabul to help secure the airport.As General McKenzie said, this is the way the mission was designed.
It was designed to operate under severe stress and attack.
0 kommentar(er)
