Former US Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday ripped President Joe Biden over his handling of the crisis in Afghanistan.
In an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, Pence accused Biden of showing "weakness" toward the Taliban.
Pence argued that the Trump plan for exiting Afghanistan by May 1 was sound, and that Biden caused the current crisis by delaying the withdrawal and showing "weakness" toward the Taliban.
"There was no plan to transport the billions of dollars worth of American equipment recently captured by the Taliban, or evacuate the thousands of Americans now scrambling to escape Kabul, or facilitate the regional resettlement of the thousands of Afghan refugees who will now be seeking asylum in the U.S. with little or no vetting," he wrote.
“The Biden administration’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan is a foreign-policy humiliation unlike anything our country has endured since the Iran hostage crisis,” charged Pence.
“It has embarrassed America on the world stage, caused allies to doubt our dependability, and emboldened enemies to test our resolve. Worst of all, it has dishonored the memory of the heroic Americans who helped bring terrorists to justice after 9/11, and all who served in Afghanistan over the past 20 years,” he added.
Pence noted that “Once Mr. Biden broke the deal, the Taliban launched a major offensive against the Afghan government and seized Kabul. They knew there was no credible threat of force under this president. They’ve seen him kowtow to anti-Semitic terrorist groups like Hamas, restore millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinian Authority, and sit by earlier this year while thousands of rockets rained down on Israeli civilians.”
“Weakness arouses evil—and the magnitude of evil now rising in Afghanistan speaks volumes about the weaknesses of Mr. Biden. To limit the carnage, the president has ordered more troops to Afghanistan, tripling our military presence amid a supposed withdrawal,” he added.
Pence further wrote that “the manner in which Mr. Biden has executed this withdrawal is a disgrace, unworthy of the courageous American service men and women whose blood still stains the soil of Afghanistan.”
Biden has come under fire in the past day following his speech in which he justified the decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and said he “stands squarely behind” that decision.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan was "an unmitigated disaster."
"So against everyone's advice, including the current president’s own military, he decided to withdraw and to withdraw rapidly. What we have seen is an unmitigated disaster, a stain on the reputation of the United States of America," McConnell said.
"Every terrorist around the world, in Syria, in Iraq, in Yemen, in Africa, are cheering the defeat of the United States military by a terrorist organization in Afghanistan," he added.
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said Biden “chose a dangerous and dishonorable path in Afghanistan, and he has no one to blame for this debacle but himself.”
Former US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, said that the US withdrawal - which allowed the Taliban to take control of Afghanistan - "gave the terrorists a win."
Earlier, she had tweeted, "Biden is trying to distract and imply his option was to either send more troops or end a war. That wasn’t the case. It has always been about protecting America. This exit from Afghanistan and the way it was done was pathetic. He gave the terrorists a win and he knows it."