'Give me a break!: Joe Biden was on vacation when Taliban stormed Kabul in 2021, says new book
NEW DELHI: The shocking speed with which the Taliban retook control of Kabul in August 2021 as US troops pulled out of Afghanistan, not only took the world by surprise but also top officials in the US administration, including President Joe Biden, who was on vacation when news broke that Afghan president Ashraf Ghani had fled the country.
President Biden had an explosive reaction when he was told Ghani had fled Kabul ahead of the Taliban's takeover, according to the forthcoming book "The Last Politician" by journalist Franklin Foer, which describes the inner workings at the White House during the calamitous withdrawal from Afghanistan.
"Biden exploded in frustration" when he heard the news and exclaimed, "Give me a break!" according to Foer.
According to the book, Biden had left DC for Camp David on August 12. Just three days later, the Taliban marched into Kabul.
The Biden White House had expected a gradual handover of responsibility to the Afghan government until August 31, 2021, when the Taliban would begin to take an active role in governing the country. Instead, the Taliban rapidly took over territories and were marching on Afghanistan before Ghani fled, fearing for his life.
Besides Biden, multiple high-ranking White House officials had left for vacation when the takeover began. Biden went to Camp David, Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in the Hamptons, and then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki took her family to the beach.
As the pullout became more chaotic with US sympathisers scrambling to get into evacuation planes, shocking pictures came out of people grabbing on to the landing gear in a desperate attempt to escape as the plane took off.
Upon seeing the "images of Afghans falling from the sky", Psaki immediately returned from her beach vacation.
According to Foer, Psaki wrote to then-White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain: "I’m contemplating coming back," and Klain responded: "I'm sorry. I think you need to."
The Biden administration eventually evacuated more than 120,000 people from Afghanistan as the country collapsed under Taliban pressure. However, that "improvised feat of logistics" failed to overcome the impression that the Biden administration was reacting slowly, Foer wrote.
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