Biden says the Afghanistan evacuation would have been 'hard and painful' no matter when it had begun
Delivering remarks on Afghanistan on Sunday, President Biden said that the U.S. withdrawal from Kabul would have been “hard and painful” no matter when it had begun. He added that there was no way to evacuate so many people without the “pain and loss and heartbreaking images” that have been seen over the last week from Afghanistan.
Video Transcript
JOE BIDEN: Let me be clear. The evacuation of thousands of people from Kabul is going to be hard and painful, no matter when it started, when we began. It would have been true if we had started a month ago or a month from now. There is no way to evacuate this many people without pain and loss and heartbreaking images you see on television. It's just a fact.
My heart aches for those people who you see. We are proving that we can move, though, thousands of people a day out of Kabul. We're bringing our citizens, NATO allies, Afghanis who have helped us in the war effort. But we have a long way to go. And a lot could still go wrong. But to move out 30,000 people in just over a week, that's a great testament to the men and women on the ground in Kabul and our armed services.
