Critics say Biden’s national security adviser should have considered the worst case scenario
On the afternoon of 30 August, a White House aide brought a note into the Oval Office confirming that the last US military plane had left Afghan airspace, marking the moment America’s longest war had come to an end.
Joe Biden was with a team of advisers and on receiving the news he asked two of them, secretary of state Tony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan, to accompany him to his private dining room to mark the moment with a call to the defence secretary, Lloyd Austin.