The White House said it won’t get into private diplomatic conversations or leaked transcripts of phone calls, but what was reported as Biden’s last advice to Ashraf Ghani remained Biden’s public advice for Afghan leaders, according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
“What the President conveyed publicly, and certainly privately as well, repeatedly, to Afghan leaders — as did our national security officials — is that it’s important that the leaders in Afghanistan do exactly that: lead and show the country that they are ready to continue to — the fight against the Taliban; that they have the will for the Afghan National Security Forces to continue that fight even as our US forces leave,” the press secretary said.
According to Reuters, the last phone call between Biden and Ashraf Ghani took place on July 23, just 23 days before the Taliban took over Kabul, and neither leader appeared to be aware of the impending Taliban takeover. Biden promised Ghani close air support during that call and advised him to rally Afghan leaders to change the world’s perception that the Taliban were winning.
As a result of this advice, Ashraf Ghani informed Biden that the country was facing a full-scale invasion, and that the Taliban were not alone, as over 10,000 to 15,000 Pakistani terrorists were already inside the country.
The White House said that Biden has been consistently conveying this to the Afghan leadership that they were required to lead. “The President has consistently conveyed — and I just noted an example — publicly that the Afghan leadership, at the time, needed to do exactly that: lead. They needed to come together in a cohesive manner. They needed to be united. They need to just show the country and the Afghan people they were going to fight and they are going to lead through this transition, even as US forces left. That is entirely consistent with what he has said publicly throughout,” the press secretary said.
