Joe Biden has come under fire from senior British politicians over his defence for withdrawing forces from Afghanistan, with Keir Starmer calling it a “catastrophic error of judgment”. He said: “After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw US forces. The Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, said Biden and Johnson had been left “frozen by events and negligent, unprepared”. Davey told the Guardian that the paralysis in Washington meant the UK should turn its attention to building a coalition in Europe prepared to take tougher action. Leon Panetta, who was Barack Obama’s secretary of defence and CIA director, told CNN: “I think of John Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs.

Source: The Guardian August 17, 2021 12:47 UTC