.....May God bless you all, and may God protect our troops. Thank you.
Q Mr. President — do you trust the Taliban, Mr. President?
Q
Is a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan now inevitable?
THE PRESIDENT:
No, it is not.
Q Why?
THE PRESIDENT: Because you — the Afghan troops have 300,000 well-equipped — as well-equipped as any army in the world — and an air force against something like 75,000 Taliban. It is not inevitable.
Q Do you trust the Taliban, Mr. President? Do you trust the Taliban, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: You — is that a serious question?
Q It is absolutely a serious question. Do you trust the Taliban?
THE PRESIDENT: No, I do not.
Q Do you trust handing over the country to the Taliban?
THE PRESIDENT: No, I do not trust the Taliban.
Q So why are you handing the country over?
Q Mr. President, is the U.S. responsible for the deaths of Afghans after you leave the country?
Q Mr. President, will you amplify that question, please? Will you amplify your answer, please — why you don’t trust the Taliban?
THE PRESIDENT: It’s a — it’s a silly question. Do I trust the Taliban? No. But I trust the capacity of the Afghan military, who is better trained, better equipped, and more re- — more competent in terms of conducting war.
Yes, ma’am.
Q Thank you, Mr. President. Given the amount of money that has been spent and the number of lives that have been lost, in your view, with making this decision, were the last 20 years worth it?
THE PRESIDENT: You know my record. I can tell by the way you asked the question.
I opposed permanently having American forces in Afghanistan. I argued, from the beginning, as you may recall — it came to light after the administration was over, last — our administration — no nation has ever unified Afghanistan. No nation. Empires have gone there and not done it.
The focus we had — and I strongly support it — and you may remember I physically went to Afghanistan. I was up in that pass where Osama bin Laden was — allegedly escaped or — out of harm’s way.
We went for two reasons: one, to bring Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell, as I said at the time. The second reason was to eliminate al Qaeda’s capacity to deal with more attacks on the United States from that territory. We accomplished both of those objectives — period.
That’s what I believed, from the beginning, why we should be and why we should have gone to Afghanistan. That job had been over for some time. And that’s why I believe that this is the right decision and, quite frankly, overdue.
East Room 2:09 P.M. EDTTHE PRESIDENT: Good afternoon. Earlier today, I was briefed by our senior military and national security leaders on the status
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