Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Wednesday that the United States military will evacuate individuals in Afghanistan “until the clock runs out or we run out of capacity,” raising questions about whether the Biden administration could end up leaving some American citizens stranded in the Taliban-controlled country.
A transcript is as follows:
REPORTER: You have 5,000 U.S. personnel on the ground securing the area. You have small groups of potentially Taliban fighters outside there who are holding up potentially the second largest area that could be undertaken. They have the capability to get there, but how to you get those people inside so they can actually get on those planes? Both of you have served in command roles inside Afghanistan. Did you not see the possibility that the Afghani security forces were not up to this fight?
DEFSEC LLOYD AUSTIN: We continue to work with the State Department officials on the ground to improve the procedures at the entry points to make sure we can speed up the process of getting people in and move them onward. State is deploying more consulate officers to help with that. As I stated earlier, we’re going to push more military assistance down to the entry points to facilitate these efforts. We’re really working hard through as people. And quite frankly, we’re not close to where we want to be in terms of getting the numbers through. We’re going to work that 24 hours per day, seven days a week. And we’re going to get everyone that we can possibly evacuate, evacuated. And I’ll do that as long as we possibly can, until the clock runs out or we run out of capability.