A recently-resurfaced 2007 video of President Joe Biden shows that he knew exactly what was likely to happen when American troops pulled out of Afghanistan — and despite that, he did it anyway in 2021.
Biden made the comments during a campaign stop in Winterset, Iowa, as he was still vying for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination which ultimately went to former President Barack Obama.
With regard to Afghanistan, then-Sen. Biden (D-DE) warned that pulling American troops out would take longer than most people realized — and that if they rushed into a withdrawal and left American military equipment behind, things would be dramatically worse going forward.
WATCH:
🚨 WOW!! Buried 2007 video of Senator Joe Biden discussing troop removal from
Afghanistan. It would be a shame if everyone saw this.."And you leave those billions of dollars of weapons behind I promise they're going to be used against your grandchild and mine some day." (h/t… pic.twitter.com/bavntcRuCB
— TONY™ (@TONYxTWO) October 10, 2023
Biden began by saying that he understood people wanted to see American troops return home, but that even if the war ended right then, they needed to still consider the fact that it would take some time to bring everyone safely home — a year, by his estimate.
“It will take a year to get the American troops out,” he said. “Do you hear me now? That’s the truth. It will take a year to get them physically out.”
“Now, if you leave all the equipment behind, you might be able to do it in seven months,” Biden continued, but he warned that leaving the equipment behind was sure to have repercussions: “You leave those billions of dollars of weapons behind, I promise, they’re going to be used against your grandchild and mine some day.”
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At the time Biden made those comments, there were approximately 20,o00-25,000 American service members in Afghanistan — and the major focus of the War on Terror had shifted to Iraq.
Despite the apparent foreknowledge that a rushed withdrawal would lead to American military equipment and weapons falling into the hands of enemy fighters, Biden’s administration went ahead with just such a withdrawal in late August 2021.
The end result of Biden’s plan was a chaotic and deadly scene at Hamid Karzai International Airport, as desperate Afghans tried anything to get out of the country. A suicide bomb attack at the airport’s Abbey Gate killed 13 American service members. And billions of dollars worth of American equipment fell quickly into the hands of the waiting Taliban, which took control of the country almost immediately.