pretty much. i mean first is our duty of care for those people who worked for the united states or worked for journalistic o rganizations. they ve made use of many afghan interpreters and fixers and others. somebody has got to make sure they get out. and what happened was that only 2,000 had really been removed from afghanistan out of a population that s probably ten times that by the time kabul fell. so they re behind the eight ball on that. the big question about why an embassy of 4,000, including 1,400 americans, wasn t dramatically reduced in size much earlier since everybody s known since february of 2020 when president trump signed his deal that we were getting out. seems to be a dearth of organization and planning. i do i do fear for those translators and fixers and
visually at least, tell a different story. cnn s jake tapper asked blinken about that on sunday. reporter: president biden is intent on avoiding a saigon moment. that s a reference, of course, to the hasty and humiliating evacuation from vietnam. but with this troop surge to air lift americans out of afghanistan, aren t we already in the midst of a saigon moment? no, we re not. remember, this is not saigon. we went to afghanistan 20 years ago with one mission. and that was to deal with the folks who attacked us on 9/11. and we have succeeded in that mission. the objective that we set, bringing those who attacked us to justice, making sure that they couldn t attack us again from afghanistan, we ve succeeded in that mission. and in fact we succeeded a while ago. and at the same time, remaining in afghanistan for another one, five, ten years is not in the national interest. you know, the british were there for a long time in the 19th century. the russians were there for a long time in
so? right? go with us and find millions of flexible options, all in our app. expedia. it matters who you travel with. welcome back to state of the union. as the biden administration scrambles to evacuate americans from afghanistan top biden officials are briefing all members of the house of representatives this morning on the rapidly deteriorating situation. after 20 years, trillions of dollars, thousands of americans and afghan lives lost, some lawmakers not to mention veterans who fought in the war and lost friends are wondering what was it all for?
and those afghan translators could get out. that is what i m talking about. then you have to send people back in. that is the definition of oh, we shouldn t have taken those troops out because now we have to send twice as many back in i think it shows we were prepared. the president was prepared for every contingency as this moved forward. we had the forces on hand. and they were able to deploy very quickly again to make sure we could move out safely and securely as the situation on the ground changed. let me just ask you is the biden administration right now offering the taliban anything in exchange for a promise of safe passage for americans and others out of afghanistan? no. we haven t asked the taliban for anything. we ve told the taliban that if they interfere with our personnel, with our operations, as we re proceeding with this drawdown, there will be a swift and decisive response. how many americans are left in kabul do you think and how long will it take to get them
white house flat footed. on saturday after pulling out almost all of the 2500 service members there when he took office, president biden said he would deploy more than more u.s. troops, 5,000 now total for the limited mission of getting americans and others fleeing sa safely out of kabul warning of a, quote, swift and strong u.s. response if the taliban interfere. with the constant thereon of helicopters overhead sources tell cnn this morning a total of americans from our embassy in kabul is well under way and should be completed by tuesday. that is a sharp turn-around from six weeks ago when president biden called it highly unlikely the taliban would overrun the country an assessment that even at the time struck many experts in biden s own administration as unrealistic. now as american diplomats rush to shred embassy documents and escape it seems shocking that president biden could have been so wrong. the u.s. has not yet been able to evacuate the 18,000 afghan