Despair in Kabul Undercuts Biden on Rescue Effort

C M Y K Nxxx,2021-08-21,A,001,Bs-4C,E1

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President Goes on Defensive as Criticism of U.S. Evacuation Grows Louder

By MARK LANDLER LONDON — The desperate said the baby was sick, received scenes at the Kabul airport rever- treatment and was later returned berated around the world on Fri- to his father. day, forcing President Biden to de- Many more people were simply fend his handling of the chaotic turned away, repulsed by reddish evacuation and fueling recrimina- clouds of tear gas and volleys of ri- tion from American allies that are fle fire above their heads. A Tal- struggling to get their own citi- iban fighter put a gun to the head zens out of Taliban-controlled Af- of one man and warned him, “Go ghanistan. back to your home or I will shoot Mr. Biden insisted the Ameri- you,” according to a person who can-led operation made “signifi- witnessed the encounter. cant progress” after a rocky start, While the south side of the air- with nearly 6,000 American field — the site of anguished troops evacuating 5,700 Ameri- scenes earlier in the week — was cans, Afghans, and others on calmer on Friday, a witness re- Thursday. Flights were sus- ported that the gate at the north pended for several hours on Fri- side, where American troops are day to process the crush of people VICTOR J. BLUE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES in control, was mobbed. Ameri- at the airport, but they were re- Khalil Haqqani, who leads a powerful Taliban faction and is on the U.S. terrorist list, is playing a major role in the new government. suming, he said. can-trained Afghan special forces “We’re acting with dispatch,” units pushed back the crowds, Mr. Biden said at the White House. some shooting in the air. The stac- “Any American who wants to cato pops of gunfire mixed with come home, we will get you the roar of planes taking off. Benefit Cutoffs Bad Bet Hurts Efforts to Expand Covid Screening home.” On the airport’s eastern pe- The president’s reassuring rimeter, hundreds of Afghans jos- Failing to Ease terested companies that it cannot words, however, conflicted jar- tled with British soldiers as they By SHERI FINK Company Destroyed Its equip their testing programs in ringly with the grim reality in Ka- tried to get into a British-con- the near future. CVS, Rite Aid and bul, where panic reigned and the trolled compound. In video posted For weeks in June and July, Walgreens locations have been to social media by the BBC, troops Labor Shortfall workers at a Maine factory mak- Test Supplies Just as Taliban encircled the airport in a selling out of the at-home version, ring of terror. While Mr. Biden ordered people away from the en- ing one of America’s most popular and Amazon shows shipping de- pledged not to abandon American rapid tests for Covid-19 were giv- U.S. Cases Soared Continued on Page A6 lays of up to three weeks. Abbott is citizens or Afghans who helped By BEN CASSELMAN en a task that shocked them: take scrambling to hire back hundreds the United States, he left untold The cutoff of federal unemploy- apart millions of the products they of workers. others in a dangerous limbo, con- ment benefits in much of the coun- had worked so hard to create and As virus cases in the U.S. plum- America was notoriously slow ceding, “I cannot promise what try was meant to bring a flood of stuff them into garbage bags. meted this spring, so did Abbott’s in rolling out testing in the early the final outcome will be.” workers back to the job market. So Soon afterward, Andy Wilkin- Covid-testing sales. But now, amid days of the pandemic, and the Thousands of Afghans contin- far, that flood looks more like a son, a site manager for Abbott a new surge in infections, steps story of the Abbott tests is a mi- ued to besiege the airport gates, trickle. Laboratories, the manufacturer, the company took to eliminate crocosm of the larger challenges begging to get on planes as Tal- A total of 26 states, all but one stood before rows of employees to stock and wind down manufactur- of ensuring that the private sector iban militants menaced them with with Republican governors, have announce layoffs. The company ing are proving untimely — hob- can deliver the tools needed to sticks and rifle butts. Anxious moved to end some or all of the ex- canceled contracts with suppliers bling efforts to expand screening fight public health crises, both be- crowds were pressed up against panded unemployment benefits and shuttered the only other plant as the highly contagious Delta fore they happen and during the blast walls, with women and chil- that have been in place since the making the test, in Illinois, dis- variant rages across the country. twists and turns of an actual dren hoisted into the arms of pandemic began. The governors, missing a work force of 2,000. Demand for the 15-minute anti- event. American troops on the other side. along with many business own- “The numbers are going down,” gen test, BinaxNOW, is soaring “Businesses crave certainty, In one harrowing image, a Ma- ers, have argued that the benefits he told the workers of the demand again as people return to schools and pandemics don’t lend cer- rine leaned over razor wire to VICTOR J. BLUE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES discourage returning to work for testing, saying it wasn’t their and offices. Yet Abbott has report- tainty to demand,” said Stephen S. grasp a wailing baby from out- Taliban troops escorting Mr. when many employers are strug- fault. “This is all about money.” edly told thousands of newly in- Continued on Page A11 stretched hands. The Pentagon Haqqani in Kabul on Friday. gling to hire. Several recent studies, however, have concluded that the extra payments have played only a small role in this year’s labor Taliban Employ A Presidency shortages. And they found at most a modest increase in employment in states that abandoned the pro- Tweets to Push And Its Values grams — most of them in June — even as millions of jobless work- Distorted View Put to the Test ers have had to cut spending, po- tentially hurting local economies. “The idea was that there were By PAUL MOZUR By PETER BAKER lots of jobs — it was just that peo- and ZIA ur-REHMAN For most of the last week, in ple weren’t looking. That was the In one video, a Taliban official the fires of the worst foreign narrative,” said Arindrajit Dube, a reassured female health workers policy crisis of his young admin- University of Massachusetts that they could keep their jobs. In istration, the president who won economist who was an author of another, militants told Sikhs, a mi- the White House on one of the studies. “I don’t think nority religious group, that they NEWS a promise of compe- that story holds up.” ANALYSIS were free and protected. Still oth- tence and compas- Data released Friday by the La- ers suggested a new lawfulness in sion has had trouble demonstrat- bor Department provided the lat- Kabul, with Talib fighters holding ing much of either. est evidence. It showed that the looters and thieves at gunpoint. states that cut benefits have expe- The chaos in Kabul and his The Taliban, who banned the in- own conflicting messages have rienced job growth similar to — ternet the first time they con- and perhaps slightly slower than left President Biden struggling to trolled Afghanistan, have turned assert command over world — growth in states that retained social media into a powerful tool to events and seemingly more the benefits. That was true even in tame opposition and broadcast intent on washing his hands of the leisure and hospitality sector, their messages. Now firmly in Afghanistan than expressing where businesses have been par- control of the country, they are us- concern over the humanitarian ticularly vocal in their complaints ing thousands of Twitter accounts tragedy unfolding on the ground. about the benefits. ADRIANA ZEHBRAUSKAS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES — some official and others anony- Overall, the U.S. labor market mous — to placate Afghanistan’s Mr. Biden’s team argues that it has come a long way since last Frustration Building in Haiti terrified but increasingly tech- will not matter in the long run because Americans agree with Continued on Page A14 Waiting for food in Les Cayes, where scuffles broke out over supplies a week after a quake. Page A8. savvy urban base. The images of peace and stabil- his decision to pull out after 20 ity projected by the Taliban con- years of war and do not care trast sharply with the scenes what happens in Afghanistan as broadcast around the world of the long as their fellow citizens are New ‘Jeopardy!’ Host Leaves, Putting a TV Institution in Chaos chaotic American evacuation extracted safely. Afghanistan is from the Kabul airport or footage America’s longest war, stretching through four presidencies, and day at the Sony Pictures lot in Cul- Friday after revelations of offen- of protesters being beaten and shot at. They demonstrate the dig- none of those presidents found a This article is by Michael M. Gryn- ver City, Calif., Sony revealed that sive and sexist comments he Offensive Observations ital powers the militants have way to disengage successfully. baum, Nicole Sperling and Julia Ja- the “Jeopardy!” studio would be made on a podcast several years honed over years of insurgency, But the tumultuous endgame cobs. renamed for Alex Trebek, the be- ago, nine days after Sony an- on Podcast Resurface offering a glimpse of how the Tal- of Mr. Biden’s withdrawal has loved host who died last year. Mr. nounced his new role with great Mike Richards’s first and, as it iban could use those tools to rule nonetheless undercut some of Richards smiled as cameras rolled fanfare. He wrote in a staff memo turned out, last day of filming as Afghanistan, even as they cling to the most fundamental premises and Mr. Trebek’s widow and chil- that “moving forward as host the host of “Jeopardy!” began dren looked on. stand how a television institution their fundamentalist religious of Mr. Biden’s presidency — that with a gathering that executives would be too much of a distraction tenets and violent proclivities. unlike his erratic, self-absorbed Less than 24 hours later, Mr. and staple of the American living for our fans and not the right move at the long-running quiz show room could have botched a suc- Afghan social media may be a predecessor, he brought foreign Richards had quit his hosting role, for the show.” hoped would symbolize a fresh “Jeopardy!” production was cession plan after 37 years of sta- poor indicator of public sentiment. policy seasoning, adults-in-the- “Jeopardy!”, which first aired in start. placed on hold, and the show’s bility and success. Many of the Taliban’s critics and room judgment and a surfeit of In a taped ceremony on Thurs- fans were struggling to under- Mr. Richards stepped down on Continued on Page A15 Continued on Page A5 Continued on Page A7

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