THE HEAT HIS PREDECESSORS REFUSED TO TAKE:

Hours after the last US military flight out of Kabul, President Joe Biden began a meeting in the White House Situation Room with praise.

"You all did a helluva job," Biden told his top national security aides, according to a White House official. He feels the same way about his own performance.

His conviction was not melted by a weeks-long blowtorch of criticism for the chaotic conclusion to the nation's 20-year military involvement in Afghanistan. The flames, as broad as they were intense, came from Democrats as well as Republicans, Americans who voted for him and those who didn't.

They have eroded his political strength and stalled momentum for his economic agenda at home. Biden responded with heat of his own.

He has heard, and rejected, all the principal indictments. Publicly and privately, he and his aides dismiss the charge that they neglected fundamentally better alternatives for ending America's longest war.

They acknowledge failing to anticipate the lightning collapse of the Afghan government and security forces as the Taliban advanced amid US troop withdrawals. But even if they had anticipated it, they say potential options -- starting mass evacuations earlier, or handing the country to the Taliban directly -- would have produced the same chaotic rush for the exits.

They accept that they could have processed special visa applications for Afghan allies faster. But given the scale of demand, they say that would have only marginally swelled the tens of thousands ultimately flown to safety.

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