Former US President Donald Trump on Saturday slammed the "horrible" withdrawal from Afghanistan and the "incompetence" of President Joe Biden's administration during the end to America's longest war, AFP reports.
"It's a horrible thing that took place, a horrible, horrible thing," Trump said in televised comments during a visit to the New York Police Department's 17th precinct on the 20th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
"It looked like we retreated, it looked like we gave up. Like, they use the word surrender," he told officers at the precinct, referring to the final withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan last month following the Taliban takeover of the country.
"And we didn't surrender, our people didn't surrender and our soldiers sure as hell didn't surrender," added Trump.
During his presidency, Trump brokered a deal with the Taliban in February 2020 that would have seen all US troops out by May 2021 in return for security guarantees from the insurgents.
Biden, who carried out the withdrawal, moved the date back to August 31 and lifted all conditions.
The Taliban captured Kabul and the Afghan government collapsed on August 15, giving the US and its allies two weeks to conduct one of the biggest airlifts in history, marked by scenes of desperation as Afghans desperate to flee crowded the airport.
Biden has come under heavy criticism for his handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, but has repeatedly defended his decision to withdraw from the country.
Trump has been one of the most vocal critics of Biden’s withdrawal. In a radio interview last week, he said the Taliban's change in behavior with the change in administrations proves the issue was with the person and not the plan.
In the same interview, Trump also ripped Biden for showing disrespect to the families of the 13 service members who were killed in the blast in Kabul.
"Tremendous disrespect was paid by Biden when he kept looking at his watch over and over again--- every time a coffin came off the plane, he was looking at his watch," Trump charged, adding, "The parents are angry, as they should be. Nobody should've been killed [but] after I got out, Abdul and his group went wild."
The criticism of Biden has come mostly from Republicans such as Trump, former Vice President Mike Pence and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
One Democrat, Rep. Seth Moulton, rebuked Biden’s claim that some Afghans weren’t evacuated from the country sooner because they didn’t want to leave and said, “That’s utter BS.”