Biden unveils Afghanistan troop withdrawal plan from the same room where Bush announced the war in 2001

• Biden on Wednesday unveiled his plans to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan.
• He spoke from the same room that then-President George W. Bush used to announce the start of the war.
• Both sets of remarks were given nearly 20 years apart.

President Joe Biden on Wednesday unveiled his plans to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan, addressing the nation from the same room where then-President George W. Bush announced the start of the war in 2001.

"It is time to end America's longest war," Biden said from the Treaty Room in the White House, nearly 20 years after Bush spoke against the same backdrop. "It is time for American troops to come home."

Biden noted that he was standing in the same spot Bush had announced the first US airstrikes on terrorist training camps in Afghanistan on October 7, just weeks after the attacks on September 11, 2001.

Bush told Americans at the time that the US' goal was to "disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations and to attack the military capability of the Taliban regime."

Biden on Wednesday said the US fulfilled its military mission in Afghanistan years ago, and now will work to establish a diplomatic presence in the country as forces begin to exit on May 1.

"We went to Afghanistan because of a horrific attack that happened 20 years ago," Biden said. "That cannot explain why we should remain there in 2021."

"We went to war with clear goals. We achieved those objectives. Bin Laden is dead, and al Qaeda is degraded in Iraq and Afghanistan," he added.

The president also said he spoke with Bush on Tuesday about his decision to pull troops from the war-torn nation.

"While he and I have had many disagreements over policy throughout the years, we're absolutely united in our respect and support for the valor, courage and integrity of the women and men of the United States armed forces who served," Biden said.

Biden mentioned that he has become the fourth US president to preside over the Afghanistan war, and that he "will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth."