Cheney: What we’re seeing now in Afghanistan is actually the opposite of ending war

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) criticized President Biden on Sunday over his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan in the wake of reports that the Taliban entered Kabul on Sunday, arguing the move by the president is “not ending the war.” 

“This is not ending the war. What this is doing actually is perpetuating it. What we have done and what we’re seeing in Afghanistan is instead of keeping 2,500 forces on the ground, which with air power, working with the Afghans, we were able to keep the Taliban at bay,” Cheney said during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week”

“This has been an epic failure across the board, one we’re going to pay for years to come,” Cheney, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said.

Her comments come as report indicated on Sunday that the Taliban has entered Kabul, demanding a peaceful surrender of power from the country’s government.

“What we’re seeing now is actually the opposite of ending war. What we’re seeing now is a policy that will ensure — ensure, that we will in fact have to have our children and our grandchildren continuing to fight this war at much higher costs,” Cheney told co-anchor Jonathan Karl on Sunday.

During the interview, Cheney was pressed about polls showing higher support for U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan from the past several years.

“Look, as leaders we have an obligation no matter what, the issue is to tell the American people the truth. And we have an obligation to explain what’s necessary,” she said. “There’s one question, one question that matters when it comes to Afghanistan or any other deployment of U.S. Forces, and that question is, ‘What does American security require?’”

“And if American security requires that our enemies can’t establish safe havens to attack us again, then our leaders across both parties have the responsibility to explain to the American people why we need to keep the deployment of forces on the ground,” she said.

Biden and other Democratic lawmakers have defended his decision to withdraw from the war in recent weeks, pointing to the billions of dollars spent over the past two decades and the thousands of troops that have died, arguing further time in the region won’t make much difference. 

“The complete, utter failure of the Afghan National Army, absent our hand-holding, to defend their country is a blistering indictment of a failed 20-year strategy predicated on the belief that billions of U.S taxpayer dollars could create an effective, democratic central government in a nation that has never had one,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said this past week.

“Staying one more year in Afghanistan means we stay forever, because if 20 years of laborious training and equipping of the Afghan security forces had this little impact on their ability to fight, then another 50 years wouldn’t change anything,” Murphy added.