Biden: U.S. war in Afghanistan will end Aug. 31

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Thursday said the United States will complete its withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan by Aug. 31, ending a nearly 20-year war launched in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

In a White House speech, Biden defended his decision to pull out of the country, even as the Taliban gains ground against the U.S.-backed Afghan government.

"We did not go to Afghanistan to nation-build," Biden said from the East Room. "It's the right and the responsibility of the Afghan people alone to decide their future, and how they want to run their country."

Biden said the United States had met its objectives in Afghanistan, "to get the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11" and keep the country from " becoming a base from which attacks could be continued against the United States."

In April, Biden set a deadline to withdraw from Afghanistan before this Sept.11, 20 years after the deadliest foreign attack on U.S. soil, but on Thursday he moved up the deadline to Aug. 31.

The administration of former President Donald Trump previously had negotiated a May 1 withdrawal deadline with Taliban leaders.

But Biden and Pentagon officials delayed the move, arguing the Taliban was not living up to its commitments under the agreement.

Last week, the United States and NATO allies abruptly vacated the Bagram Air Base that long had served as a central hub to coordinate military action.

This week, the Pentagon said the United States has withdrawn nearly 90% of troops and equipment from the country.

More than 2,500 U.S. troops were stationed in Afghanistan when Biden took office in January, down from a peak of 100,000 in 2011 during the Obama Administration.

The United States is expected to keep about 650 troops in Afghanistan to secure the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and the country’s main airport, according to the Pentagon.

The Taliban have stepped up attacks on the U.S.-backed Afghan National Security Forces.

That prompted U.S. Army Gen. Austin Scott Miller, the top military official overseeing the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, to raise concerns about the increasing civil strife in Afghanistan and the possibility of the Taliban regaining control over the country.

"We should be concerned. The loss of terrain and the rapidity of that loss of terrain has to be concerning," Miller told ABC’s "This Week" last Sunday.

Biden dismissed suggestions that a Taliban takeover is inevitable.

"I trust the capacity of the Afghan military, who is better trained, better equipped, and more competent in terms of conducting war," Biden said, noting there are 300,000 U.S.-trained Afghan National Security Forces on the ground.

Biden acknowledged the challenge of maintaining a long-term military presence in Afghanistan, noting that "no nation has ever unified Afghanistan."

"Empires have gone there and not done it,’’ Biden said.

Speaking to those who have argued against a withdrawal, Biden asked: "How many more — how many thousands more Americans, daughters and sons — are you willing to risk?"

More than 2,300 U.S. military personnel have died in Afghanistan since 2001, according to the Pentagon.

"I will not send another generation of Americans to war in Afghanistan with no reasonable expectation of achieving a different outcome," Biden said.

He argued that the "United States cannot afford to remain tethered to policies," that were created to respond "to the world as it was 20 years ago."

"We need to meet the threats where they are today," Biden said.

"Today the terrorist threat has metastasized beyond Afghanistan," he said. "So, we are repositioning our resources and adapting our counterterrorism posture to meet the threats where they are now significantly higher, in South Asia, the Middle East and Africa."

The president pushed back on comparisons between the Afghanistan withdrawal and the departure of U.S. troops from Vietnam, saying the two wars were "not remotely comparable."

Asked if he was declaring "mission accomplished" in Afghanistan,

Biden responded: "There’s no mission accomplished."

The "mission was accomplished in that we got Osama bin Laden, and terrorism is not emanating from that part of the world," Biden said of the al-Qaida leader who was killed in 2011 by U.S. Special Forces.