In Tuesday's White House press briefing, as usual, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was joined by someone else from the Biden administration to kick off the day. This time, it was the National Security Council's John Kirby, who was previously press secretary at the Pentagon.
Asked about the U.S. drone strike in Kabul over the weekend that killed Al Qaeda's leader and 9/11 plotter Aiman Al-Zawahiri, Kirby attempted to change the facts that President Biden delivered to the country one year ago during his disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Kirby claimed that the Biden administration always knew that members of Al Qaeda remained in Afghanistan during and after Biden's withdrawal, but that's not what President Biden said one year ago. As Katie reminded on Monday evening, the president had said Al Qaeda was "gone" from Afghanistan in one of many attempts to justify the United States' departure.
Kirby is claiming the administration said last summer that Al Qaeda was still in Afghanistan. President Biden did not say that. Biden said Al Qaeda was “gone.” pic.twitter.com/hnHF9Wn3TW
— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) August 2, 2022
Peter Doocy called Kirby out on the contradiction and for his attempt to rewrite history during the briefing and the Biden spox didn't do a great job rectifying the two opposing statements of supposed fact.
"I mean, in a major way, Al Qaeda was not playing... a major role uh, in operations, uh, or resourcing or planning in Afghanistan," Kirby asserted. "But Peter — I know specifically because I was at a different podium a year ago — and we talked about the fact that Al Qaeda had a presence in Afghanistan, but small, and not incredibly powerful or potent," Kirby claimed. "I think, again without getting into numbers we would still assess that to be the case."
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Peter Doocy takes John Kirby to task over President Biden saying Al Qaeda was "gone" from Afghanistan.
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) August 2, 2022
KIRBY: "We talked about the fact that Al Qaeda had a presence in Afghanistan but small..." pic.twitter.com/lYDlpZl8X1
But Biden, of course, did not make any of those qualifications one year ago in his speech from the White House. He said unequivocally that Al Qaeda was "gone" and therefore the U.S. didn't have an interest in Afghanistan. But that didn't keep Biden from taking a victory lap on Monday night when he announced the successful strike on the leader of a group he said was no more.
Kirby also used Tuesday's briefing to rewrite current reality and claim that Biden's withdrawal hadn't in fact handed Afghanistan over to a bunch of terrorists — including the Taliban, ISIS-K, and Al Qaeda — and then contradicted his comments earlier on Tuesday:
Afghanistan is run and controlled by the Taliban. The Taliban was harboring Ayman al-Zawahiri. This morning, Kirby told CNN Al Qaeda is actively using Afghanistan as a safe harbor to plan attacks. https://t.co/qAJhLzmgv2
— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) August 2, 2022
As August continues and more one year anniversaries of the Biden administrations disastrous — and deadly — withdrawal from Afghanistan go by, it's safe to assume there will be more revisions of history coming from the White House podium as the Biden administration seeks to erase the damaging record of a haphazard and rudderless departure that shocked America's allies and emboldened our foes.
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