White House national security adviser Jack Sullivan
A senior White House official said Sunday that no one can be sure what will happen in Afghanistan once President Joe Biden withdraws the remaining 2,500 to 3,500 U.S. troops by Sept. 11, ending the longest-running U.S. war.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told “Fox Sunday News” that “I can’t guarantee what’s going to happen inside Afghanistan. No one can.”
He said, “All the United States can do is provide resources and capabilities to the Afghan security forces, to the Afghan government and to the Afghan people, to train and equip their forces, to provide assistance to their government.” “We’ve done that, and now it’s time for U.S. troops to come home and for the Afghan people to step up and defend their country.”
Biden’s decision to withdraw troops drew mixed reactions in Washington. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called it a grave mistake and a “retreat in the face of the enemy.” Senator Lindsey Graham said it was “very foolish and dangerous as hell.” Even some Democrats are worried about the decision, including Senator Robert Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He worries that the U.S. could “lose what we’re trying to achieve.”
But other lawmakers say the time has long passed for the U.S. to withdraw the troops sent to Afghanistan to defeat the al Qaeda terrorists who planned and carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States. But critics of Biden’s withdrawal after 20 years say it could lead to the creation of a new terrorist sanctuary in Afghanistan.
Asked in another CNN interview whether the U.S. “won the war” in Afghanistan, Sullivan replied that the U.S. “achieved its goal” by reducing al Qaeda’s presence and killing al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 2011. “.
He said the U.S. military is now withdrawing in recognition that the United States needs to “focus on the next 20 years of fighting, not the last 20 years.”
In an interview with Fox News, Sullivan was asked if the U.S. was in danger of repeating what happened in Iraq in 2011 – when Islamic State militants took over Iraqi territory after U.S. troops withdrew. Then-President Barack Obama resent troops to Iraq, but Sullivan said Biden had no intention of returning U.S. troops to Afghanistan after they withdrew.
In announcing the decision to withdraw, Biden said the U.S. would monitor any terrorist threat in Afghanistan and retain significant assets in the region.
“He has no intention of taking our eye off the ball on key points,” Sullivan said. “We can reposition our capabilities to continue to combat the terrorist threat in Afghanistan.”
But CIA Director Burns told the Senate Intelligence Committee last week that the U.S. ability to gather intelligence and act against extremist threats in Afghanistan will diminish as U.S. troops withdraw.
A U.N. report in January said there are as many as 500 al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan.
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