Kabul airlift ramping up but still running far short of capacity
20 August 2021
The U.S. is ramping up the airlift in Kabul but is still only using a fraction of its total capacity to evacuate Americans and Afghans.
Breaking it down: The U.S. has enough aircraft available to meet its goal of getting 5,000–9,000 people out of the country each day, Gen. Hank Taylor told reporters on Thursday, but it's only evacuated 7,000 people in total since Saturday — 2,000 of them in the previous 24 hours.
- The airport remains secure and operational for now, but it’s unclear how long that will remain the case.
- President Biden has said U.S. troops will remain until all Americans who wish to get out can, even if that’s after Aug. 31. There are believed to be upward of 10,000 Americans still in the country.
- But that pledge does not apply to the tens of thousands of Afghans, many of whom worked with U.S. troops, who are now seeking refuge.
There are several snags in the airlift operation.
- One is the difficulty of processing all of those who are at the airport. That effort sped up on Thursday, according to State Department spokesperson Ned Price, who said around 6,000 people had been approved and are now in the queue for evacuation.
- Another major hurdle is getting to the airport. The Taliban have agreed to offer safe passage to U.S. passport holders, and Americans have been urged to make their way to the airport, the State Department says.
- But multiple news organizations have reported that Afghans, including some with documentation from the U.S., have been turned away and even beaten at Taliban checkpoints. One Afghan interpreter told the BBC he’d tried on three separate occasions to travel to the airport but turned back each time due to the danger to his family.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday that the U.S. forces lack the “capability” to pick up large numbers of Americans stranded in Kabul and bring them to the airport, and he said the U.S. did not plan to extend the safe zone beyond the airport.
- That means the success of the operation hinges on the cooperation of the Taliban.
- Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley has said it will be the second-largest civilian airlift operation in U.S. history, after Saigon.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.