President Biden appeared to be wrong about math during his speech to the nation on Tuesday about the withdrawal from Afghanistan by misrepresenting the percentage of Americans who managed to get out of the war-ravaged country.
In his statements, Biden proclaimed the chaotic evacuation of Americans, Afghan allies and third-country nationals from Hamid Karzai International Airport outside Kabul, which was an “extraordinary success” and estimated that “some 100 to 200 Americans remain in Afghanistan with some intention of marching, “the same figure quoted by Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday.
“The end result: 90% of Americans in Afghanistan who wanted to leave were able to leave,” the president said.
However, the official transcript published by the White House replaced the word “ninety” with a stroke and added “ninety-eight” in parentheses.
The administration has not yet provided an exact count of either the number of U.S. citizens who left Afghanistan during the withdrawal operation or the exact number remaining.
On Monday at the Pentagon, U.S. Central Command Commander General Kenneth “Frank McKenzie” told reporters that U.S. military planes evacuated 6,000 Americans.
Later in the briefing, McKenzie tweaked his statement and said, “We have evacuated more than 6,000 American civilians, who we believe represent the vast majority of those who wanted to leave at this time.”
In his statements Tuesday, however, Biden reduced the number of U.S. citizens evacuated, placing him at “more than 5,500.”
Similarly, while Biden and Blinken say the number of U.S. citizens trapped in Taliban-controlled territory is between 100 and 200, McKenzie would only say Monday that the figure was in the “very low hundreds.” Before Biden spoke on Tuesday, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told MSNBC that while the military believes “we took out the vast majority of U.S. citizens,” the number that remained was “probably in the low hundreds … And there were also several hundred more that I didn’t want to leave “.
If Biden gave the correct number of Americans evacuated and if the correction of his White House statement gave the correct percentage, the number of Americans remaining in Afghanistan who want to leave is at least 110 .If the evacuation numbers given by McKenzie are more accurate, the number is at least 120.
If Biden’s uncorrected statement were accurate, the number would be much higher, between 550 and 600.
“For the rest of Americans, there is no deadline,” the president said. “We remain committed to removing them if they want to leave.”
In all, the evacuation operation took 123,000 people out of Afghanistan, although the administration has not said how many of these are permanent legal residents in the United States – or holders or applicants for special visas. immigrants (SIV) according to their work with U.S.-led NATO forces during the 20-year war that ousted the Taliban from power before returning them.