WASHINGTON • President Joe Biden has declared that "it is time to end the forever war" in Afghanistan, saying that the United States had long ago accomplished its main mission of denying terrorists a haven in the country and that leaving American forces there was no longer worth the cost in blood and money.
Speaking on Wednesday from the same spot in the White House where President George W. Bush ordered the start of the war after the Sept 11 attacks nearly two decades ago, Mr Biden made a case that there was no longer any justification - if there ever was - to believe that the US military presence could turn Afghanistan into a stable democracy.
The roughly 2,500 American troops on the ground there, he said, would be gradually withdrawn starting from May 1, with the process complete by Sept 11, a timetable intended to signal his determination to end a vexing and largely failed chapter in American foreign policy.
Military officials suggested the exit could be even more rapid, leaving only a token guard force for the US Embassy.
Nato forces, which today have a far larger presence there than the US, would also depart, European officials said.
"War in Afghanistan was never meant to be a multi-generational undertaking," Mr Biden asserted, noting that service members now in Afghanistan had parents who served in the same war.
"We were attacked," the President said in a sombre, 16-minute speech laced with flashes of emotion, referring to the Sept 11, 2001 attacks by militant group Al-Qaeda when hijackers slammed airliners into the World Trade Centre in New York City and the Pentagon outside Washington, killing almost 3,000 people.
The twin attacks led the US to invade Afghanistan the same year and topple the repressive, ultra-conservative Taleban regime, which had hosted Al-Qaeda in the run-up to the attacks on American soil.
"We went to war with clear goals. We achieved those objectives," Mr Biden said on Wednesday.
"I'm now the fourth United States president to preside over American troop presence in Afghanistan," continued Mr Biden, who has been a critic of the American presence for more than a dozen years.
"Two Republicans, two Democrats. I will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth."
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By the numbers: Nato in Afghanistan
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• On Sept 12, 2001, Nato allies invoked their mutual defence clause for the first - and so far the only - time in the Western alliance's seven-decade history, after the Sept 11, 2001 attacks on the United States by Al-Qaeda militants.
• After US-led forces defeated Taleban leaders harbouring Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden, the architect of the Sept 11 attacks, Nato took command of an international coalition in 2003. It aimed to restore peace to Afghanistan and build up Afghan security forces.
In 2015, the mission, known as ISAF, was replaced by the current training operation, Resolute Support. It numbers around 10,000 troops from 36 nations.
• The international military coalition has suffered over 3,500 fatalities since 2001, among them around 2,400 Americans, according to US Congress data. More than 20,000 US troops were wounded in action. The website www.icasualties.org puts the total number of fatalities at 3,577.
• Nato's military presence peaked in 2011, with over 130,000 foreign troops from 51 allied and partner countries in Afghanistan.
Since 2003, Nato has trained hundreds of thousands of Afghan troops and police officers, including establishing an Afghan air force.
• Germany has deployed the second largest military contingent in Afghanistan after the US. In the northern Afghan province of Kunduz, a stronghold of the Taleban, Germany lost more of its troops in combat there than anywhere else in the world since the end of World War II.
• The US alone has spent more than US$140 billion (S$187 billion) in overall aid for Afghanistan since 2002, according to US Congress data. The Pentagon estimated the cost of US combat operations, including support for the Afghan forces, at more than US$820 billion for the same period.
• Afghanistan remains one of the poorest countries in the world. It ranks 169 of 189 countries in the Human Development Index published by the United Nations Development Programme, with an average life expectancy of 64 years and a gross national income per capita of US$2,200.
REUTERS
As at Wednesday, more than 2,400 American service members had died in Afghanistan.
Moments after speaking, Mr Biden travelled to Arlington National Cemetery to visit the graves of service members who lost their lives in Afghanistan.
He said visiting the cemetery made him think of his son Beau, who died of cancer in 2015 after serving in Iraq.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken began an unannounced visit to Afghanistan yesterday to brief officials on Washington's plans to withdraw its troops.
The unconditional withdrawal - four months later than a deadline agreed with the Taleban last year - comes despite a deadlock in peace talks between the insurgents and the Afghan government, which threatens to leave a power vacuum that could plunge the country deeper into violence.
In a statement on Twitter, President Ashraf Ghani of Afghanistan said his country "respects the US decision and we will work with our US partners to ensure a smooth transition".
He added that his country's security forces were "fully capable of defending its people".
From Brussels, Nato foreign and defence ministers echoed Mr Biden, announcing that the alliance would also begin withdrawing its own troops from Afghanistan on May 1.
There are 6,000 to 7,000 Nato troops in Afghanistan, not counting those from the US.
The Nato statement said that despite the troop withdrawal, it would "continue to stand with Afghanistan, its people and institutions in promoting security and upholding the gains of the last 20 years".
"Just because we withdraw from Afghanistan doesn't mean the war ends," said Ms Lisa Curtis, a top national security official of the previous Trump administration who dealt with Afghanistan.
"It probably gets worse."
NYTIMES, REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
