The clock is ticking for thousands of Americans and allies trapped in Afghanistan, with an evacuation deadline in exactly one week. Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Farrell J. Sullivan, one of the two American generals in charge of the operation to evacuate American citizens and Afghans, said they’d “get as many out as we possibly can with the time we have available.”
Sullivan and U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Christopher Donahue, commander of the 82nd Airborne, spoke with ABC News’ Ian Pannell in an exclusive interview at Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport about the evacuations taking place there. Both Donahue and Sullivan have served multiple tours in Afghanistan over the last 20 years, but in the wake of the Taliban retaking control of the country, Sullivan acknowledged that his Marines are managing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.
“I think whether you’re in a combat situation or a humanitarian operation, the human element is always there,” Sullivan said. “But this event is an unprecedented event. I have my years of deploy[ment] into combat and to other crisis areas… I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
