It’s good to know that creative fiction lives. It’s not so good to know that it lives in the White House Press Briefing Room.
Below are parts of the transcript from the April 6 briefing:
…But while it was always the President’s intent to end that war, it is also undeniable that decisions made and the lack of planning done by the previous administration significantly limited options available to him.
President Biden inherited a force presence in Afghanistan of some 2,500 troops. That was the lowest since 2001. He inherited a Special Immigrant Visa program that had been starved of resources. And he inherited a deal struck between the previous administration and the Taliban that called for the complete removal of all U.S. troops by May of 2021 — or else the Taliban, which had stopped its attacks while the deal was in place, would go back to war against the United States.
…And just to remind: We continue to facilitate the safe departures of Americans from Afghanistan when they tell us they are ready to leave. And we have proudly welcomed nearly 100,000 of our Afghan partners and their family members to the United States. Many of these families left Afghanistan after the withdrawal, and they continue to arrive on a regular basis.
Scott Johnson at Power Line Blog also posted an article about the briefing. That article included two Twitter screen shots: