Former Vice President Mike Pence said Sunday that President Biden is to blame for the U.S. withdrawal out of Afghanistan, where 13 American service members were killed during an attack as they worked to evacuate allies from the country.
“We went 18 months without a single American casualty to the day at that Kabul airport that we lost 13 brave American service members,” Pence told CBS’s Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation.” “The blame for what happened here falls squarely on the current commander in chief.”
An unclassified State Department review published Friday found that both the Trump and Biden administrations contributed to a chaotic and fatal end to the decades-long U.S. presence in Afghanistan. Among other findings, the report said that senior officials did not prepare for the worst-case scenario nor how the situation could quickly escalate.
Despite the Trump administration, in which Pence served, having laid out the plan the Biden administration ultimately executed, Pence blamed the lack of movement by the administration when the Taliban began their swift take over of major cities.
“And under our administration, I promise you, that while — while it was our — it was the intention of the president, the former president to pull our troops out, when the Taliban broke the deal and moved into Mazar-e-Sharif and Joe Biden did nothing, that set into motion the catastrophe that became Afghanistan and the heartbreaking end to 20 years of conflict,” Pence said on Sunday.
When asked if he would have kept American troops in Afghanistan past the deal made in 2020, Pence said he thinks he would have. He said that under the Trump administration, the withdrawal from Afghanistan would not have happened like it did under Biden.
“I will tell you with deep conviction that that disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan would never have happened under our administration, because we would have held the Taliban to the deal,” he said. “And I believe at the end of the day, Afghanistan would be a much different place today.”
“And frankly, our security and our long-term interests would be far better off. No whitewash from the Pentagon is going to change that,” he added. “The responsibility for that disastrous withdrawal falls squarely on President Joe Biden and the American people know it.”