WASHINGTON One hundred and thirty-nine days after promising to leave Afghanistan responsibly, deliberately and safely, President Joe Biden declared success Tuesday despite an evacuation that wound up being none of those.

Weve been a nation too long at war. If youre 20 years old today, youve never known an America at peace, Biden said in a 26-minute speech from the White Houses State Dining Room.

The stagecraft reflected the significance he and his team placed on the end of Americas longest war: Photographers and camera crews were arranged so they would record Biden walking down the long, red-carpeted hallway that runs the length of the White House residence, which then served as the backdrop during his remarks.

Brave and honorable service. After 20,744 American servicemen and women injured, and the loss of 2,461 American personnel, including 13 lives lost just this week, I refuse to open another decade of warfare in Afghanistan, Biden said. When I was running for president, I made a commitment to the American people that I would end this war. Today, Ive honored that commitment.

In an April 14 speech announcing that he would pull the remaining few thousand troops out of Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that sparked the U.S. invasion of the country, Biden promised an orderly departure.

We will not conduct a hasty rush to the exit. Well do it well do it responsibly, deliberately, and safely, he said then, from the very room that former President George W. Bush had announced the start of airstrikes to remove the Taliban from power.

On July 8, in response to a reporters question comparing Afghanistan to the fall of Saigon in 1975, Biden asserted : The Taliban is not the North Vietnamese army. Theyre not theyre not remotely comparable in terms of capability. Theres going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy from Afghanistan. It is not at all comparable.