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| Photo Credit: AP. |
President Joe Biden vowed Sunday the U.S. is committed to preventing another attack on the country as he marked the September 11 attacks at the Pentagon. The president who honored victims of the 9/11 attacks said despite pulling out of Afghanistan, his administration was committed to hunting down terrorists who threaten the American people.
At a
wreath-laying ceremony at the Pentagon, Mr. Biden paid tribute to “extraordinary
Americans” who gave their lives to defend the country during its troubled
times, The Associated Press reported.
Last year
Mr. Biden organized one of the most chaotic and disorganized withdrawal from
Afghanistan in a bid to end the most costly war both in terms of personnel and
cash. The September 11, 2001 attacks were masterminded by Al Qaeda leader Osama
bin Laden who was killed during the administration of former President Barack
Obama. The US under then George W. Bush launched a full scale military action
against the Taliban led government and toppled the government accusing it of
hosting bin Laden. But the war did not end as the country continued to fight
the terrorists for almost 2 decades.
In August the
Biden administration announced it had killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri
who along with bin Laden plotted the September 11, attacks.
“We will
never forget, we will never give up,” Biden said at the Pentagon, The
Associated Press reported. “Our commitment to preventing another attack on the
United States is without end.”
Family members
of the fallen, first responders who had been at the Pentagon on the day of the terrorist
attack, and Defense Department leadership also marked the ceremony in New York
City, the Pentagon and Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
Yet in
August 2021 as the American forces prepared to leave the country, terrorists
infiltrated the airport where a mass evacuation was taking place and denoted an
explosive killing 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. service personnel in the Hindu Kush.
How many American soldiers were killed in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2021?
Biden said Sunday
an “incredible debt” was owed to the U.S. troops who fought the insurgents in
Afghanistan as well as their families. The U.S. lost over 2,200 services
members in the more than a decade long war while more than 20,000 service
members were wounded during the nearly 20 year period, The Associated Press
quoted the Pentagon as saying.
Biden also
promised that the nation will “never fail to meet the sacred obligation to you
to properly prepare and equip those that we send into harm’s way and care for
those and their families when they come home — and to never, ever, ever forget,”
according to The Associated Press.
The president’s
lackluster and chaotic withdrawal is still being criticized by top Republicans.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell Thursday criticized Biden’s handling of
the withdrawal process.
“Now, one
year on from last August’s disaster, the devastating scale of the fallout from
President Biden’s decision has come into sharper focus,” McConnell said, The
Associated Press reported. “Afghanistan has become a global pariah. Its economy
has shrunk by nearly a third. Half of its population is now suffering critical
levels of food insecurity.”