Biden AGAIN stands by his decision to withdraw and blames ex-Afghan president Ghani for fleeing to another country and the 'collapse' of the 300,000 troops they trained who dumped their weapons for the Taliban

President Biden said Wednesday it was a 'simple choice' to stand by his decision in withdrawing US troops from Afghanistan, even as chaos unfolds across the country and the Taliban assert control.

The president again laid blame on Afghan security forces for the astonishingly rapid fall of Kabul.

'When you look at what's happened over the last week, was it a failure of intelligence, planning, execution or judgment?' ABC News' George Stephanopoulos asked the president in a sit-down interview. 

'Look, it was a simple choice, George,' Biden said. 'When you had the government of Afghanistan, the leader of that government, get in a plane and taking off and going to another country; when you saw the significant collapse of the Afghan troops we had trained, up to 300,000 of them, just leaving their equipment and taking off -- that was, you know, I'm not, that's what happened. That's simply what happened.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled his country on Sunday - reportedly with $169 million in cash - as the Taliban encroached on Kabul. Ghani, who confirmed he was in the United Arab Emirates, said he was in 'consultation' to return to Afghanistan and had only fled to avoid more bloodshed. 

'And so the question was, in the beginning, the threshold question was, do we commit to leave within the timeframe we set, do we extend it to Sept. 1, or do we put significantly more troops in?' Biden said. 

It was the president's first time taking any questioning from the press amid fresh scrutiny of his Afghanistan withdrawal strategy with the fall of Kabul. 

He delivered an address on Afghanistan Monday, but took no questions. He gave remarks again on Wednesday, where he focused on Covid-19 matters and did not address the situation in the Middle East. 

Biden, in the ABC interview, asserted the exit could not have been handled any better, and said he didn't know how to exit without chaos ensuing.  

'So you don't think this could have been handled -- this exit could have been handled better in any way, no mistakes?' Stephanopoulos questioned.  

'No, I don't think it could have been handled in a way that, we're gonna go back in hindsight and look -- but the idea that somehow, there's a way to have gotten out without chaos ensuing, I don't know how that happens. I don't know how that happened,' Biden replied.

Biden seemed pleasantly surprised the Taliban were letting the US evacuate Americans from Afghanistan without issue, but said his administration was having 'more difficulty' evacuating Afghanis who helped the US military and now have Taliban targets on their backs. 

'One of the things we didn't know is what the Taliban would do in terms of trying to keep people from getting out. What they would do. What are they doing now?

'They're cooperating, letting American citizens get out, American personnel get out, embassies get out, et cetera, but they're having -- we're having some more difficulty having those who helped us when we were in there,' the president said.   

Biden noted that violent conflict in Afghanistan had paused in recent months only due to a peace deal signed under President Trump that promised US withdrawal. 

'I had a simple choice. If I said, 'we're gonna stay,' then we'd better be prepared to put a whole lot hell of a lot more troops in,' he concluded. 

'I had a simple choice. If I said, 'we're gonna stay,' then we'd better be prepared to put a whole lot hell of a lot more troops in,' Biden said, noting he was bound by Trump's February 2020 peace deal 

'So you don't think this could have been handled -- this exit could have been handled better in any way, no mistakes?' ABC's George Stephanopoulos asked the president 

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled his country on Sunday - reportedly with $169 million in cash - as the Taliban encroached on Kabul. Ghani, who confirmed he was in the United Arab Emirates, said he was in 'consultation' to return to Afghanistan and had only fled to avoid more bloodshed

At one point the president became indignant as the ABC News anchor pressed him on the heart-wrenching scenes from the Hamid Karzai airport, where Afghanis desperate to flee Taliban rule clung to US aircraft as they taxied down the runway. 

'That was four days ago, five days ago,' Biden said, asked about the images of Afghani stowaways plunging to their death as they clung to a US plane departing Kabul.

'What did you think when you first saw those pictures?' Stephanopoulos asked. 

'What I thought was, we have to gain control of this. We have to move this more quickly. We have to move in a way in which we can take control of that airport. And we did,' Biden said.

Taliban fighters have formed a wall around the airport and are blocking many from even entering the grounds. 

The US said that on Tuesday it had successfully evacuated 3,200 people from Afghanistan, including all embassy personnel, save a handful of diplomats working at the airport. Officials have said they hope to be able to ramp up to 9,000 evacuations per day.   

At one point the president became indignant as the ABC News anchor pressed him on the heart-wrenching scenes from the Hamid Karzai airport, where Afghanis desperate to flee Taliban rule clung to US aircraft as they taxied down the runway

US Embassy personnel from Afghanistan boarding a Qatar Airways flight to Kuwait on Aug. 17

Taliban forces stand guard outside Hamid Karzai airport, where they are patrolling who is allowed to enter 

Biden has stood by his decision to bring troops home by Aug. 31. For now, they are there on humanitarian grounds to help Americans and allies to America evacuate

On Monday, Biden had defended his decision to bring home troops and put the spotlight on Afghanistan leadership. 

'I stand squarely behind my decision,' Biden said. 'After 20 years I've learned the hard way. That there was never a good time to withdraw U.S. forces. That's why we're still there.'  

'I am president of the United States of America,' he said. 'And the buck stops with me.'

But only up to a point. He said the blame for such a rapid disintegration lay not with him, but his predecessor as president and Afghanistan's leaders.

'The truth is - this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated,' he said, his eyes narrow.

'So what's happened? Afghanistan's political leaders gave up and fled the country.

'The Afghan military collapsed, sometimes without trying to fight.'