US President Joe Biden believes that American troops should have withdrawn from Afghanistan immediately after the elimination of Al-Qaeda (banned in Russia) leader Osama bin Laden.
"Once bin Laden was taken out, we should have moved on because it was out of our hands," Biden said at a press conference following a NATO summit in Washington. He noted that he has always been "categorically opposed to the occupation and attempts to unify Afghanistan."
In a previous interview with CNN, Biden expressed that it made no sense for Washington to try to unify Afghanistan and that it was wrong to believe Iraq possessed nuclear weapons.
On April 14, 2021, Biden announced the decision to end the operation in Afghanistan, which had become the longest overseas military campaign in American history. The war, launched by the US in October 2001, saw Western forces in Afghanistan peak at over 150,000 personnel from 2010 to 2013. The withdrawal of US troops began in May 2021, with the main combat units of the US and NATO leaving Afghanistan in 2014.
On March 20, 2003, an international coalition led by the United States launched a large-scale military operation against Iraq. Subsequent investigations by UN inspectors and the US military concluded that Baghdad had no weapons of mass destruction programs and did not maintain ties with Al-Qaeda at the time the hostilities began, contrary to accusations from Washington.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: official website of the President of the Russian Federation
Based on materials from TASS