President Joe Biden's national security team appears to be in damage control mode Monday morning, trying to distance the panicked scenes coming out of Afghanistan as civilians try to flee the Taliban from the US's defeated withdrawal from Vietnam in 1975.
Over the last day as Taliban insurgents took over the war-torn country with alarming speed, Biden has been criticized for unequivocally denying any comparison to the fall of Saigon in early July remarks.
After a weekend at Camp David, Biden will speak to the nation on Monday afternoon from the White House following intense criticism over his silence.
'There will be no situation where you see people being lifted off the roof in the embassy to the United States from Afghanistan,' Biden had pledged.
But the world watched Sunday as Chinook helicopters rushed US embassy officials to Hamid Karzai International Airport after the Taliban reached the city.
'To be fair, the helicopter has been the mode of transport from our embassy to the airport for the last 20 years,' National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told NBC's Today. 'That's how we move people back and forth.'
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan brushed off Kabul comparisons to Saigon by saying helicopters have been used to shuttle diplomats from the embassy to the airport for decades
Host Savannah Guthrie challenged the Biden official's excuse.
Sullivan pivoted to concede that insurgents' takeover of Afghanistan was faster 'than anyone anticipated.'
He blamed the war-torn country's military for its swift collapse, which happened soon after US troops withdrew and left them to fight on their own.
'At the end of the day, despite the fact that we spent 20 years and tens of billions of dollars to give the best equipment, the best training, and the best capacity to the Afghan national security forces, we could not give them the will,' Sullivan said.
'They ultimately decided that they would not fight for Kabul and their would not fight for the country that opened the door to the Taliban to come into Kabul.'
Images of chaos are still coming out of Hamid Karzai airport on Monday as civilians try to flee
A volunteer carries an injured man at Kabul's airport as dozens of others can be seen waiting for help
Biden, he also said, was ready to work with other leaders in trying to protect Afghans.
'He is prepared to marshal the international community on this issue. He cares passionately about these human rights questions, and we will stay focused on them in the period ahead,' he said.
'But that was not a reason for the United States to enter a third decade of war in the middle of an internal conflict in another country.'
Sullivan said Biden would address the nation 'soon' as he remains holed up at Camp David on Monday after spending the weekend largely out of sight while Afghanistan crumbled into chaos.
With the United Nations Security Council and European ministers due to hold crisis meetings to address the rapid return of the Taliban, Biden and his officials kept a low profile amid mounting questions about their bungling departure from Afghanistan.
Sullivan said only a small amount of civilians were left to evacuate as of Monday morning
U.S. Marines guard the evacuation of civilians at Tan Son Nhut airbase in Vietnam while under Viet Cong fire, during the fall of Saigon in April 1975
Email enquiries sent to White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki over the weekend received an automated out-of-office response saying she would return on Aug. 22.
While U.S. military planes flew in an out of Kabul airport to rescue American nationals, scenes of chaos also unfolded there as Afghan civilians tried to flee.
Pictures from the airport Monday show scenes of chaos as civilians try to climb over the walls guarded by US military and desperately attempt to cling to American planes to escape.
Sullivan said the civilian presence remaining there now is 'very small' and said more evacuation flights would 'proceed over the coming days.'
He brushed off international criticism of the US evacuation, claiming the rushed operation was the best outcome under the circumstances.
'The alternative that we face to physically protect people in Afghanistan was to put American men and women in large numbers back in harm's way fighting and dying in a civil war that its own forces wouldn't fight in,' Sullivan said.
That, the president wasn't prepared to do.'
National Security Adviser said the nation would hear from President Biden 'at the right point' as criticism mounts of his decision to stay away from Washington amid deepening crisis
Afghans climb on top of a passenger jet at Kabul's airport amid chaotic scenes as civilians try to find safe passage out of the Afghan capital after Taliban takeover
The White House released an image of President Biden at Camp David as officials fend off growing criticism of his absence from Washington
That will not, apparently, be Monday. The official White House schedule listed no public events for the president.
Former President Trump mocked Biden's absence.
'The outcome in Afghanistan would have been totally different if the Trump Administration had been in charge,' he said in an emailed statement.
'Who or what will Joe Biden surrender to next?
'Someone should ask him, if they can find him.'
The nature and speed of the Afghan government's collapse in the face of a Taliban advance poses the most serious test of Biden's presidency so far.
Five people were reported killed during chaos at Kabul airport on Monday, as U.S. troops guarded the evacuation of embassy staff a day after the Taliban seized the Afghan capita virtually unopposed.
A day earlier President Ashraf Ghani flew out of the country.
The result is an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe and questions about how a president who trumpeted his foreign experience during last year's campaign could have got things so wrong.
But on Monday, Sullivan admitted that the administration was surprised at how quickly Kabul had fallen.
'It is certainly the case that the speed with which cities fell was much greater than anyone anticipated,' he told NBC's Today show.
Like other officials, he tried to distance the Biden administration from the collapse, blaming Afghanistan's government and armed forces and said staying longer would have made little difference.
Taliban fighters stand guard on the road to the Hamid Karzai International Airport, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Aug. 16, 2021.
Afghans crowd on to the apron at Kabul airport as they try to flee the country
'Part of the reason for that... is because at the end of the day, despite the fact that we spent 20 years and tens of billions of dollars to get the best equipment, the best training and the best capacity to the national Afghan security forces, we could not give them the will,' he said.
Biden, he also said, was ready to work with other leaders in trying to protect Afghans.
'He is prepared to marshal the international community on this issue. He cares passionately about these human rights questions, and we will stay focused on them in the period ahead,' he said.
'But that was not a reason for the United States to enter a third decade of war in the middle of an internal conflict in another country.'
Republicans laid the blame squarely with Biden.
In a joint statement, three former security officials in the Trump administration said withdrawal was the right decision but had been badly botched.
'The difference between then and now is leadership,' said Lt. General (Ret.) Keith Kellogg, former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, and former Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf
'The Biden Administration alone owns this failure, adding Afghanistan to Biden’s long history of, as President Obama’s Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said, being "wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades."'
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