Jake Sullivan said the Biden administration was surprised by the speed of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan but remains committed to withdrawing U.S. forces.
The national security adviser to President Joe Biden said on TODAY Monday that the administration has been surprised at the speed in which the Taliban have taken over Afghanistan after Biden had previously said it was"highly unlikely" that they would overrun the Afghan government.
"It's certainly the case that the speed with which cities fell was much greater than anyone anticipated including the Afghans, including many of the analysts of who looked hard at this problem," Sullivan said. "I think the worst-case scenario for the United States would be a circumstance in which we were adding back in thousands and thousands of troops to fight and die in a civil war in Afghanistan when the Afghan army wasn't prepared to fight itself," he said."That was the alternative choice Joe Biden faced."
The U.S. State Department had planned on keeping the embassy open in Kabul as recently as Aug. 12, but the speed of the Taliban's assault resulted in it being evacuated by Sunday night.
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