Joe Biden insists there was no way to leave Afghanistan ‘without chaos ensuing’

Joe Biden, the US President, claimed there was no way of getting out of Afghanistan “without chaos ensuing” and pledged to keep troops in the country beyond his Aug 31 deadline if necessary.

In a tense first interview since Kabul was seized by the Taliban, Mr Biden on Wednesday night defended his handling of the situation, saying it wasn’t a “failure” and that it couldn’t have been conducted any better.

Mr Biden said he was left with “a simple choice” once Ashraf Ghani, the Afghan president, fled the country – send in more troops or commit to leaving.

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

Critics of Mr Biden have pointed out that just last month he said the troop drawdown would be “secure and orderly”.

At one point Mr Biden appeared to become frustrated when asked what he thought of the shocking videos from Kabul airport on Monday showing people packing into, and even falling off, cargo planes.

“That was four days ago, five days ago,” he snapped.

“What I thought was, we have to gain control of this,” he added.

“We have to move this more quickly. We have to move in a way in which we can take control of that airport. And we did.”

In a broadside at Afghanistan’s ousted president and the country’s army, Mr 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, that’s what happened.

“So the question was: do we commit to leave within the timeframe we set, do we extend it, or do we put significantly more troops in?”

Mr Biden has pledged to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan by the end of the month, but admitted for the first time that they could remain past that deadline.

“We're going to try and get it done before August 31,” he said, but added: “If there's American citizens left, we're going to stay until we get them all out.”

The Pentagon said on Wednesday night that since Aug 14 nearly 6,000 people have been evacuated by the US, including about 1,800 in the past 24 hours.

There are between 10,000 and 15,000 US citizens still in Afghanistan and around 65,000 Afghans that the US wants to get out.

Mr Biden said that if the US could ramp up evacuation numbers to between 5,000 and 7,000 a day, it would successfully meet his Aug 31 deadline and troops would not need to remain in the country.