During a Fox News interview on Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) slammed President Biden for his decision to entirely withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, saying the disastrous withdrawal will end up costing more than if the U.S. had just maintained operations there.
“Let’s talk about the decision to withdraw itself,” McConnell said. “We were spending about 1 percent of the Pentagon budget every year to keep the lid on in Afghanistan. We hadn’t lost a single American soldier in combat in the last year. It was working.”
“It was working, because we went there, we went there to prevent Al Qaeda from being back in full operational mode under the Taliban and to sort of keep the lid on,” he continued. “My guess is, we’re going to end up spending way more trying to evacuate people with this slipshod operation. It’s an embarrassment. It’s a stain on our national reputation.”
“There are up to 15,000 Americans stranded out in the country who presumably have to beg the Taliban to let them get to the airport, not to mention the interpreters who worked with us and other Afghans who are in danger because they cooperated with us.” McConnell said. “All of this is the aftermath of the decision first to withdraw and then to withdraw in a precipitous and incompetent way.”
Later in the interview, McConnell argued that the withdrawal would motivate other terrorist organizations. He said, “one thing we know for sure, the terrorists around the world are cheering. They are cheering, the terrorists in Syria, in Iraq, in Yemen, in Africa. They’re all watching the Taliban flag fly over the capital in Afghanistan, over the presidential palace in Kabul.”
“The Taliban has, in effect, in their eyes, defeated the United States of America. It’s an utter embarrassment. Our allies won’t trust us. This was an incredibly incompetent step,” McConnell added.
