WASHINGTON D.C. (CBS) — Washington should be prepared for any possible development in Afghanistan as the U.S. troops are withdrawn from the country, Biden’s Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in an interview with CBS aired on Sunday.

“Are you prepared for a worst case scenario in Afghanistan, where the U.S. -backed government fails, and the Taliban takes over?” Blinken was asked. The Secretary of State replied: “We have to be prepared for every scenario, and there are a range of them.” He continued:

We’ve been engaged in Afghanistan for 20 years, and we sometimes forget why we went there in the first place, and that was to deal with the people who attacked us on 9/11. And we did. Just because our troops are coming home doesn’t mean we’re leaving. We’re not. Our embassy’s staying, the support that we’re giving to Afghanistan when it comes to economic support, development, humanitarian, that that remains. And not only from us, from partners and allies.

On April 14, 2021, Joseph Biden announced plans to begin U.S. troop pull-out from Afghanistan in May and complete it by September 11, 2021 even though the previous administration headed by President Trump signed a peace agreement with the Taliban in February 2020, vowing to withdraw all American and allied forces by May 1, 2021. Such a backtracking from previous agreements has caused great discontent among the Taliban, who have virtually declared that they consider themselves, in this case, free of the obligations assumed under the Doha agreement.