President Biden Announces Full U.S. Troop Withdrawal From Afghanistan by Sept. 11

(WASHINGTON, DC) Exclusive: President Joe Biden said the war in Afghanistan was never meant to be multi-generational, as he officially announced the drawdown of all 2,500 U.S. troops in that country beginning May 1 and concluding by Sept. 11, the 20th anniversary of the war.

The president lay the path for the way forward in Afghanistan today in an address to the nation and noted that only the citizens of Afghanistan have the right and responsibility to lead their country. “After consulting closely with our allies and partners, with our military leaders and intelligence personnel, with our diplomats and our development experts, with the Congress and the vice president, as well as with [Afghan President Ashraf Ghani] and many others around the world, I concluded that it’s time to end America’s longest war. It’s time for American troops to come home,” the president said.

The United States met its objective 10 years ago with the assassination of Taliban leader Osama bin Laden, he said, adding since then, “Our reasons for staying have become increasingly unclear.” Over the past 20 years, “the [terrorist] threat has become more dispersed, metastasizing around the globe: al-Shabab in Somalia, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, ISIS attempting to create a caliphate in Syria and Iraq and establishing affiliates in multiple countries in Africa and Asia,” he said of the terrorism threat.

“With the terror threat now in many places, keeping thousands of troops grounded and concentrated in just one country and across the billions [of dollars spent] each year makes little sense to me and to our leaders,” Biden said. “We cannot continue the cycle of extending or expanding our military presence in Afghanistan — hoping to create ideal conditions for the withdrawal and expecting a different result.”