Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said in a Wednesday press conference that President Joe Biden’s plans to remove all troops from Afghanistan by September 11, 2021 could cause another 9/11.
“I am certain that our military advised against a unilateral withdrawal without conditions being met to protect the American homeland and our way of life from a future attack emanating from Afghanistan,” Graham said. (RELATED: ‘Handing A Propaganda Tool To The Taliban’: Dana Perino Blasts Plan To Set Afghanistan Exit For 9/11)
Sen. @LindseyGrahamSC on Afghanistan Troop Withdrawal: “With all due respect to President Biden,
you have not ended the war, you’ve extended it. You have made it bigger not smaller.”Full video here: https://t.co/muYPmzQVaA pic.twitter.com/9vgzaK7F4K
— CSPAN (@cspan) April 14, 2021
Graham said he told Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security advisor, he would support the president if he kept a residual force of several thousand soldiers as an insurance policy to prevent another 9/11.
“The result of this decision today by President Biden is to cancel an insurance policy that in my view would prevent another 9/11 because I believe with all my heart and soul after 50-something trips to the region, that a few thousand Americans watching over there would make it hard for Al-Qaida and ISIS to reorganize to hit us over here,” Graham said. “Those eyes and ears will be gone. I don’t trust the Taliban to look out for American interests, but we are finding ourselves in a very precarious situation.”
“There are no great outcomes but this is the worst possible outcome, to pull up and leave and hope that things will turn out well,” Graham said. “That did not happen in Iraq and that did not happen here.”