President Joe Biden has been criticised following his first sit-down interview after the beginning of the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Mr Biden was accused of “bald-faced” lies by Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton – an Afghanistan veteran – who was one among many who slammed the president for claiming that “chaos” was inevitable in the country as the US military presence ended.
Between 10,000 and 15,000 Americans and thousands more vulnerable Afghans who are trying to leave remain in the country. The Afghans hope to get on US evacuation flights but face a gauntlet of Taliban-induced disorder and violence to get to the Kabul airport controlled by US armed forces.
The Taliban stunned the world on Sunday by taking over Kabul as the Afghan government and armed forces fell much quicker than expected.
“The idea that somehow, there’s a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing – I don't know how that happens,” Mr Biden told ABC News on Wednesday.
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On July 8, Mr Biden said: “The likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban, overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.”
Those comments have now opened the president to criticism as the Taliban has taken full control of the country much quicker than the US government had apparently anticipated.
“No way to avoid this chaos? That’s a bald-faced lie. Joe Biden is as dishonest as he is impotent,” Mr Cotton tweeted.
Wyoming Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney wrote that Mr Biden’s interview performance was “truly ignorant and shameful”.
Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott simply said the president was: “Incompetent. Unhinged. Incoherent. Unfit.”
Nikki Haley, who served as former President Donald Trump’s first ambassador to the United Nations, said Mr Biden's comments were “a slap in the face to the thousands of Americans still in Afghanistan. He had no plan, he has no urgency, and he won’t take responsibility”.
“As far as I’m aware, Joe Biden has created the largest hostage situation perhaps in the history of the world,” Donald Trump Jr told Fox News on Wednesday night. “It’s all on Joe Biden. He took my father’s plan and he wanted to change it,” he added. “He wanted to be the one to get credit, so rather than doing it in the late spring before the fighting season and using your brain and knowledge and listening to the guys that are the door kickers ... he didn’t. He wanted to make it his own so he could get credit.”
In the interview with ABC News, Mr Biden said the US government would “do everything in our power to get all Americans out and our allies out”.
When asked if that meant that US troops could stay in the country beyond the self-imposed 31 August deadline if necessary, Mr Biden said: “It depends on where we are and whether we can get – ramp these numbers up to 5,000 to 7,000 a day coming out. If that’s the case ... they’ll all be out.”
Mr Biden said he’s committed to staying in the country until all Americans are out. He said the “commitment holds” also for the Afghan allies who remain in the country, which Mr Biden estimated includes between 50,000 and 65,000 allies and their family members.
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“The commitment holds to get everyone out that, in fact, we can get out and everyone that 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,” Mr Biden said.
When the deadline comes, Mr Biden said they would “determine at the time who’s left,” but added that “if there [are] American citizens left, we’re gonna stay to get them all out”.