White House: Thousands More to be Evacuated from Afghanistan, Including ‘Significant Number of Americans’

On July 8, President Biden said, “there’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy in the – of the United States from Afghanistan…The likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.” Fast forward to this past weekend, and the “circumstances” are alarmingly worse.

The scenes of hundreds of thousands desperately attempting to flee Afghanistan for their only chance at survival is being compared to the capture of Saigon by the Vietnamese Communists in 1975, ending the Vietnam War. On Sunday, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani confirmed he had successfully fled Afghanistan to Tajikistan, with the somber message that the Taliban had won.

“The Taliban have won by decision of their swords and guns, and are now responsible for the honor, property and self-preservation of their countrymen” said Ghani.  On Sunday evening, the US embassy in Kabul had been completely evacuated, according to State Department official Ned Price who said he had been transferred to Kabul’s airport. Price said the airport was secured by U.S. troops which had been deployed in recent days.

“We can confirm that the safe evacuation of all embassy personnel is now complete” Price said Monday. “All embassy personnel are located on the premises of Hamid Karzai International Airport, the perimeter of which is guarded by the US military.”

On Monday, however, all hell broke loose. Even if embassy personnel had evacuated, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan confirmed there were still many Americans inside Afghanistan. “We intend to carry out those evacuation flights in the coming days after securing the airport” added Sullivan.

The White House still wants to evacuate “thousands of people in total” which “includes a significant number of Americans” he continued. “We are still doing outreach to establish the total number of Americans in [the] country” stated Sullivan.

Where was President Biden as the Taliban eviscerated city after city the past week? How did he allow for a scenario where thousands had not yet been evacuated?