Thousands of Americans remain stranded in Afghanistan with the Taliban-enforced withdrawal deadline in five days looming over the Biden-Harris administration.
The Pentagon confirmed Wednesday only 4,400 have been extracted with an unknown amount of American citizens remaining behind enemy lines. Last week, the White House revealed about 11,000 Americans were in the country.
The RNC War Room captured the Pentagon’s answer:
Politico reported a leaked State Department cable Tuesday evening that indicated the following total extractions as of August 23:
- 4,407 American citizens
- 21,533 Afghans
- 642 third country/unknown
- 26,582 total
The cable also included additional information about Biden’s deadly withdrawal:
- 128 planned flights in the next 48 hours
- Approximately 13,000 people inside HKIA
- Denmark won’t temp host US SIVs
- Cyprus will host evacuees in the “low hundreds” for 30-60 days
- Netherlands to take 2k people for 60 days
- Flights directly from Kabul to Ramstein start today, AUG 24
- Capacity at Fort Bliss tasked to expand to 13,000, but “behind schedule”
The withdrawal comes as the White House sought congratulations this week for their deadly Afghanistan evacuation they told Americans would not be necessary and which no one can verify.
Biden’s Chief of Staff Ron Klein has tweeted and retweeted evacuation numbers nearly every day this week, ignoring the failed policies that drove the country to collapse, even as thousands of Americans and other potential evacuees remain stranded:
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) boosted the evacuation by applauding “actual results.”
“In fact, it didn’t take 2 weeks to evacuate 50,000,” he tweeted. “It took 10 days. Lots of work still to do, but it might be time for a bit of a reassessment by the media of this operation given the actual results.”
The Democratic National Committee also touted the evacuation as, “President Biden Defies Expectations (Again), Delivers Results in Afghanistan,” issuing a congratulatory press release Tuesday with gushing statements about the evacuation operation.
President Joe Biden speaks in the Roosevelt Room on the continuing situation in Afghanistan and the developments of Hurricane Henri at the White House on August 22, 2021, in Washington, DC. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
But Tuesday’s reports suggest the Islamic State is now a major threat to airport security, with other accounts revealing the Taliban is refusing entry to the Kabul airport.
Biden on Tuesday gave specifics about capitulating to the Taliban’s evacuation deadline.
“We are currently on a pace to finish by August the 31st. The sooner we can finish, the better. Each day of operations brings added risk to our troops,” he said before adding that “the completion by August 31st depends upon the Taliban continuing to cooperate and allow access to the airport for those who were transport- — we’re transporting out and no disruptions to our operations.”
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø