The buck stops with him, he said. He defended his decision to withdraw. One more year or five more years wouldn’t matter. He conceded the collapse was quicker than expected. He laid blame for that on a failure of Afghan leaders to deliver on promises and failure of its military. He said he’d use “devastating force” to defend Americans should it be necessary.

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He’s being pilloried in the media. Polls say the people want troops out of Afghanistan. He said the troops would leave and they will, albeit in a chaotic way. We’ll see how it shakes out.

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