ABC Raddatz: Biden is conflating the withdrawal with the evacuation

ABC News’ Martha Raddatz called out President Joe Biden following his speech on Tuesday marking the end of the 20-year war in Afghanistan.

“It was a very successful evacuation. We did get more than 120,000 people out of there,” said Raddatz. “But he’s conflating the withdrawal with the evacuation… they did not realize the Taliban would take over so quickly.”

“They did not realize the Taliban would fall in 11 days and that’s why you ended up with this chaos,” she continued. “That’s why you ended up with so many desperate people.”

Raddatz cited Biden’s pledge on July 8 that there wouldn’t be a situation like the one in Saigon, Vietnam, in 1975 when people were lifted off the roof of a U.S. building. In Kabul, however, there were evacuations of U.S. personnel from the embassy in the Afghan capital to the city’s airport.

Raddatz also mentioned Biden’s pledge last month to ensure the safety of Afghan interpreters that helped the United States during the war in Afghanistan. However, thousands of Afghan interpreters remain in Afghanistan.