Former US president Donald Trump on Thursday hit out at his successor, President Joe Biden, in the wake of the suicide bomb attacks at the Kabul airport that left at least 100 people, including US military personnel, dead.
In a video statement, Trump described the Kabul attacks as "savage and barbaric" and "an act of evil". Trump described the US servicemen killed in the attacks as "American heroes", whose memory would be honoured forever.
Trump declared, "This tragedy should never have taken place. It should never have happened and it would not have happened if I were your president." Trump referred to the "sorrow" felt by US military veterans and others over the course of events in Afghanistan in recent weeks.
In a written statement, Trump noted, "This tragedy should never have been allowed to happen, which makes our grief even deeper and more difficult to understand."
In an interview with radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt on Thursday, Trump defended his administration's agreement with the Taliban in Doha, which critics had blamed for giving the group legitimacy.
Trump told Hewitt, "We would not have stood for any soldiers or any Americans being killed or shot at or hurt in any way... That was in there [in the agreement]. And Hugh, for 18 months, not one American soldier was killed. Not one. Eighteen months. And that was because of the agreement."
Trump added, "It was conditions-based. Now there were many other parts of the agreement also. And if they violated them, you know that, we went in and bombed the hell out of them, and they never would. They never would have come into Kabul."
Trump also told Hewitt he would not have closed Bagram airbase. Trump told Hewitt, "with the exception of Bagram, which I would have kept, I would have bombed all of the bases, because I don’t want to give those bases to Russia, China, or even the Taliban. I would have bombed every base. I would have evacuated them".
Trump also described former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani as a "thief" who had influence with US lawmakers."...Ghani was a thief. Ghani had great power in the United States Senate. He had senators and congressmen that were his friend. His whole life was the US Senate. And that gave him power. But he was basically and inherently a thief who had no control over the country other than he was powerful within the United States Senate in particular, which is terrible, by the way," Trump said.
A number of Republican figures lashed out at Biden over the Kabul airport attacks.
Senator Josh Hawley said, "Joe Biden is responsible... It is now clear beyond all doubt that he has neither the capacity nor the will to lead. He must resign."
Representative Elise Stefanik tweeted that Biden had "blood on his hands". She argued, "The buck stops with the President of the United States. This horrific national security and humanitarian disaster is solely the result of Joe Biden’s weak and incompetent leadership. He is unfit to be Commander-in-Chief.” Republican minority leader of the House Kevin McCarthy demanded Congress be reconvened before August 31 to be briefed about the situation in Afghanistan.
