No Guarantees on Afghanistan After Troop Pullout, Says Top Biden Aide

WASHINGTON - No one can say with any certainty what will happen in Afghanistan once U.S. President Joe Biden withdraws the remaining 2,500 to 3,500 U.S. troops by September 11 to end the country’s longest war, a top White House official said Sunday.

"I can't make any guarantees about what will happen inside the country. No one can," White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told the “Fox News Sunday” show. "All the United States could do is provide the Afghan security forces, the Afghan government and the Afghan people resources and capabilities, training and equipping their forces, providing assistance to their government,” he said. “We have done that and now it is time for American troops to come home and the Afghan people to step up to defend their own country." Biden’s decision to withdraw the remaining troops has drawn a mixed reaction in Washington. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called it a grave mistake and “a retreat in the face of an enemy.” Senator Lindsey Graham said it was “dumber than dirt and devilishly dangerous.” Even some Democrats were concerned by the decision, including Senator Robert Menendez, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, who worried the U.S. may “lost what we were seeking to achieve.” But other lawmakers say it was long past time for the U.S. to withdraw the troops it sent to Afghanistan to defeat the al-Qaida terrorists who masterminded and carried out the September 11, 2001, attacks in the U.S. that killed nearly 3,000 people. But critics of Biden’s decision to withdraw troops 20 years later say it could lead to creation of a new terrorist haven in Afghanistan.