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Germany Rejects Greek Bailout Plan; America's Forgotten Translators; Imagine a World

Aired February 19, 2015 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN HOST (voice-over): Hello, everyone. Tonight on the program: Greece asks for a debt extension. Germany says no.

So what'll Athens do now?

And later in the program, with military advisers back on the ground in Iraq, we ask what happens to those who help soldiers, even us journalists,

in times of conflict?

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HOLMES: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Michael Holmes in for Christiane again.

A major setback for Greece in its bailout battle with Germany. Berlin has rejected a request from Athens to buy more time to renegotiate the

terms of its $200 billion debt deal. The existing program expires next Friday and Greece must renew it or face running out of money.

Greece's newly elected leftist government believes the conditions of the new deal are too tough and proposed a six-month extension, but Germany,

Europe's powerhouse, shot down the request, saying it wasn't a substantial solution.

Eurozone foreign ministers will meet in Brussels on Friday to try to work out a solution. But Greece is finding itself low on time and options.

Let's turn now to Constantine Michalos. He is president of the Athens Chamber of Commerce and Industry and joins us now.

Thank you so much for doing so.

Syriza was elected, of course, to dismantle crushing austerity measures. You say they've backtracked from their campaign promises and

their latest proposal is quite rational and fair.

Tell me so.

CONSTANTINE MICHALOS, ATHENS CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY: Yes, it is, indeed, and I have to report that only 25 minutes ago, the main

source from the German finance ministry indicated that the Germans are taking a softer position than the one they took earlier on in the day.

So there seems to be a discussion on the table tomorrow because the feeling that we have throughout the day was that a large number of Eurozone

ministers were much more favorable to this last statement made by the Greek government.

HOLMES: What happens if the Germans do hold firm though?

What then? What happens?

MICHALOS: Well, we do hope that this inflexible and rigid position taken by Germany is not going to be staying right through the renegotiation

level and at that point they'll be able to draw up enormously mutually beneficial agreement with the Greek government. Should we ever get to a

point where the expiry date, which is the 28th of February, exceeds the discussions, then there is a serious liquidity problem because obviously

the DLA finance tool would not be available to Greece and with the capital flight that we have been enduring over the last month, month and a half,

it's going to be extremely difficult for the banking sector to remain standing up. And of course the business community is feeling the pinch in

an extremely hard way because with the lack of liquidity and the political instability that has been created once again, as a result of the Grexit

term surfacing once again, you can imagine it's extremely difficult to operate on a daily basis.

HOLMES: You mentioned capital flight and that's an important issue. Millions and millions of dollars being pulled out of banks by ordinary

people and businesses as well.

Can you see that the government might have to introduce capital controls to stem the flow?

MICHALOS: Oh, if worse comes to the worst and there is no agreement and the date that we have already has expired, I think that there will be

no other solution but to impose capital controls, which, of course, will be absolutely catastrophic for the business community in such an event.

HOLMES: Now you know, from your perspective with the Athens Chamber of Commerce, I mean, debt obviously is bad. But there is the economic

argument that it was used in the United States of course that you can't get growth without spending. Austerity won't get you out of the hole on its

own.

What are your thoughts about that? Is there an appetite for that sort of theory where you are?

MICHALOS: This is the major problem. On the one hand, we've got the fiscally disciplined Germany and on the other hand the anti-austerity

Greece. However, I have to say that with a Greek argument, we've seen corroboration from the IMF and from the E.U. Commission. It's evident that

the austerity measures that have been imposed on the Greek economy over the last 4.5 years haven't paid off. And it is a miracle in some cases how the

Greek business community has survived these austerity measures.

So we need to have a growth enhanced policy where you're seeing that even the Eurozone and the European Union is changing course after Mr.

Draghi following 18 months of effort has managed to put on the table a quantitative easing policy, which we have to remain standing. We have to

remain alive so that Greece can also take advantage of this quantitative easing process in the coming months as well as the so-called Juncker (ph)

investment package of 315 billion. Because it seems evident that austerity, not just in Greece but in Southern European countries simply

isn't paying off. And we need to change course.

HOLMES: And there are those, on the other side, who would say, why should Europe forgive Greek debt? Isn't the sheltered Greek business elite

evasive of the tax man? They don't pay their share, unrealistic pensions, government spending.

There are those who say that's -- you got yourselves into this, Greece.

MICHALOS: We have to make it very clear there has never been any official discussion concerning forgiveness or any so-called haircut on the

debt. We do not propose to make such a discussion to be put on the discussion table, on the dialogue because we feel that we need to pay our

debts. All we need is breathing time so that we can be allowed to pay these debts.

So it's an absolute mess as far as the haircut is concerned. We fully recognize the responsibilities and obligations that we have. However, the

Greek government needs to have this breathing space so that we don't endanger the efforts, the harsh efforts and deep sacrifices that the Greek

people have endured over the last five years.

HOLMES: Which, on the face of it, the Germans are saying no to it at the moment, although you say there could be developments on that.

Do you see this as a dispute between Greece and Europe, Greece and Brussels or between Greece and Germany, specifically?

MICHALOS: I don't it's so much Greece and Germany. Obviously the powerhouse as far as the economy is concerned in Europe is Germany. But

you've got to take into consideration that the size of the Greek economy within the Eurozone economy is a mere 1.9 percent of the total Eurozone

economy.

But on the other hand, there are other countries in a almost similar situation as Greece. I remind you that Italy is a time bomb at the

moment; Prime Minister Renzi is called upon to make cuts of -- to the tune of 51.5 billion for 2015. And of course Spain is in an almost similar

predicament.

So it's I think probably unfortunate as to the timing that Greece is looking to renegotiate the debt agreement simply because if there's room

given to Greece, it is perhaps in some German politician's mind that then Italy or Spain or even Portugal can raise their own issues.

But I don't think that that's a fair way to confront the situation because this is not just a currency union; it's the European Union and I

think that we all have visions of unity, primarily unity. And we're all partners. If we're discussing simply with lenders, it's a different

question.

But we don't see it this way. We see the Eurozone and the European Union as a wider European family and we need to have different kind of

sentiments and decisions must be reached on a different kind of level.

HOLMES: It seems extraordinary, but there are those talking about a Greece departure from the Eurozone. What would that look like? What would

that be like?

MICHALOS: Well, no one in Greece wants to imagine such a scenario because as I said earlier on, the Greek people have sacrificed a great deal

to (INAUDIBLE) members of the European Union and even more to become members of the Eurozone. So I think that following the latest force that

we've seen in Greece (INAUDIBLE) 2 percent of the Greek population is in favor of remaining in the euro; the government is well aware of the

support. And that's the mandate that they have. Yes, as far as renegotiating certain parts of the debt agreement, but up to a certain

point, we are entitled this as return to realism in the sense that they have to stop exactly where the danger zone begins and that is any danger

whatsoever as to our European -- as to our euro identity.

But logic will prevail from all sides so that we will find a solution; if not, by the end of this week, in the next few days.

HOLMES: Well, everybody hopeful that that indeed happens. I want to thank you for your time tonight from Athens for joining us here and giving

us some sort of perps.

Constantine Michalos, the president of the Athens Chamber of Commerce and Industry, our thanks to you.

Well, Greece battling for better terms and more time with its European allies. Well, when we come back, imagine fighting a war only to leave your

allies behind. America's forgotten translators -- after this.

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HOLMES: Welcome back to the program.

America's combat mission in Iraq and Afghanistan may officially be over. But thousands of the military's local interpreters have been left

behind and many say their lives are at risk.

In a moment, one veteran fighting to bring them to America but first the story of one translator, a teenager I met in Iraq nine years ago.

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HOLMES (voice-over): There are no shortage of war stories in Iraq nor close calls. Take this one.

SARAH: My other guys went around, they started shooting them while they were shooting mortars at us. I got injured from mortars. I got

scars.

You want to see the scars?

HOLMES (voice-over): She's on patrol with the U.S. military, except Sarah is no soldier. In a country full of dangerous jobs, one of the

riskiest is hers, being an Iraqi, translating for American soldiers.

SARAH: I learned this life fears. This has become my life. I can't just leave it.

HOLMES: The diminutive Sarah might be short on height, but she is long on courage, say her U.S. friends, who asked us to hide her face, even

if she won't.

SARAH: I'm serving my country, I'm serving the U.S. Army. It's fun, but dangerous at the same time. But I like it.

SGT. FRANK FORTNER, U.S. ARMY: For lack of a better way to put it, she's got more guts than a lot of the men interpreters we've got.

HOLMES (voice-over): Sarah stands out for all kinds of reasons. Just 19 years old, she's been doing this three years already and has braved too

many encounters with insurgents to count.

1ST LT. WILLIAM PHILLIPS, U.S. ARMY: I admire her courage. It's kind of hard to say you're scared of something when you have a 19-year-old girl

sitting there beside you who is half your size who's unafraid of anything that's going on.

HOLMES: It is a crucial job because these people are not just dealing in words, they are dealing in people's lives, American and Iraqi. For

example, Iraqis have died because they have not understood orders shouted to them in English or because their actions have been misunderstood.

SARAH: I feel like I'm responsible, because one word from me, a guy can live or can get shot.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Comanche 36, Comanche 36, this is Blue on Bravo.

HOLMES (voice-over): On this patrol, one of hundreds Sarah has been on, house searchers. Sarah, explaining to locals why and what to do.

SPEC. GERARD CALLOWAY, U.S. ARMY: She's the best there is. She does good on questioning people and she knows when the dirty man's around. So,

she's a big help and a big asset to this team. That's what she is, she's a part of our team.

HOLMES: Sarah says her unit, her military base is her home now. She says she can't go back to her old life, but that life isn't important now.

SARAH: I'm not scared. Only God can take my soul.

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HOLMES: She was so brave she did not want her face blurred. We did it for her safety.

I have some good news, though. I'm pleased, very pleased to say that Sarah -- still not her real name -- lives in America now. The U.S.

government gave her a visa. But thousands of others, many thousands, not so lucky.

Veteran Matt Zeller helps Iraqi and Afghan translators get visas and resettle in America. He joins us now from Washington.

And Matt, it's great to see you again. This, as we've discussed before, is very personal for you. When you were a captain in Afghanistan,

your life literally saved by Janus (ph), your translator. He picked up a weapon and killed two Taliban who were coming up behind you; you didn't

know about, right?

MATT ZELLER, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Absolutely, yes. It was my 14th day in country. And I -- you described it perfectly. I would not be sitting

here talking to you right now if my translator had not literally saved my life.

HOLMES: Do we even know how many others are still in Afghanistan and Iraq who are waiting to get out of -- Janus (ph), of course, did get out,

thanks to you. But so many others did not and are still waiting.

Do you know how many?

ZELLER: The estimate is in the tens of thousands. The last official figure I saw released was only in pertaining to Afghanistan and it was that

there was a 12,000-person waiting list for one of the 4,000 available visas over the next two years.

So there's already an 8,000-person deficiency. That was as of December.

Sadly, in Iraq, the visa program has been on hold since last summer due to the fact that ISIS got so close to Baghdad that most of the embassy

staff were actually evacuated and it's unfortunately the staff that processed a lot of these visas.

HOLMES: The problem was it wasn't moving very fast before that. We've had more introduced, visas made available. Quite simply though, not

enough and importantly they weren't being processed with any level of priority.

Were they?

ZELLER: No, not at all. In fact, the State Department -- just to give you some numbers, if you look at Afghanistan, from 2009-2013, they

were roughly supposed to be handing out around 1,500 visas a year. Well, they handed out approximately 1,000 for those four years cumulatively.

Or to put it in real perspective, in 2011, they handed out three for the entire country.

HOLMES: You and I have worked with these guys. And when I hear things like, it makes my blood boil, given the contribution they made.

The other thing that makes my blood boil is the process itself is so incredibly complex, especially for someone who is in Iraq or Afghanistan,

has communication problems; they've got to navigate an often ridiculous bureaucracy and unreasonable demands.

ZELLER: Yes, no, the average time it takes for someone to get through is about 3-3.5 years. There's many different hurdles that they have to

clear. It's actually quite expensive as well. They've got to pay for themselves for medical examinations that can cost hundreds of dollars per

family member. These examinations are often only good for a couple of months and the tragedy is that by the time their visas are actually cleared

through the system, their medical clearances have expired, they then have to go back and get another very costly expensive medical procedure in terms

of an examination. It's just insult to injury. When you think about at the end of Vietnam, we were able to get 177,000 people out in about a month

as Saigon fell. I don't understand how we could do that in the '70s, now we're in the 21st century and we still can't seem to figure out an

efficient way to get these people -- who I consider to be veterans -- to safety.

HOLMES: Absolutely. You know, I was last in Iraq last year and I met a guy called Omar Hamid (ph). And we've got video of him; we'll show it --

a former Iraqi police officer, worked closely with U.S. intelligence, credited on paper by U.S. commanders with saving American lives.

He was then targeted by insurgents who put a sticky bomb on his car, loses both his legs and when I saw him last January, he was still battling

bureaucracy and getting nowhere, having to move between houses to keep ahead of those who still wanted to kill him.

I checked in on him just before the program; he's still waiting.

What do you think of that?

ZELLER: I think that is absolutely unreal and it's a tragedy. And unfortunately, it's also the norm. A lot of people would recall on the

movie that came out a couple of years ago about the lone survivor. And the man, the Afghan man who came to save the Navy SEAL's life in that film --

it's a true story -- that Afghan man still doesn't have a visa to the United States and is actually targeted by the Taliban daily for his very

survival because of the assistance he rendered to somebody almost a decade ago.

I mean, the reality is we made promises to these people. And if we don't uphold these promises, the consequences of the next conflict are

going to be profound because our word is going to become to be deemed as meaningless, without value. And I'm a veteran and I will not stand for my

country to not honor its commitments to these people.

HOLMES: And to that point, give those who do not understand, who think that these are just local hires who walk around with U.S. troops,

give people a sense of what they are putting on the line.

ZELLER: Everything. First off, you can't just walk up to a base and say, hey, I speak English. Would you hire me? They have to go through a

month-long application process. They're polygraphed every six months. They have no privacy. Their communications are monitored; their movements

are highly controlled. And they do this because they're patriots to their country. Every single translator I ever met said I'm here because I want

to make my country better. They never said, oh, I'm just trying to get a U.S. visa. And as a result of that, they're taking on a tremendous burden.

They're putting themselves on the front line. They're the people that the Taliban, that ISIS in Iraq remember first because they're the people who

they could speak with most easily and readily.

And they were the ones who are going to be most likely left behind once my unit and others went home. So who do you think you're going to get

revenge on first, the American who's thousands of miles away or the local guy who is assisting them because he believed in the idea of a better

future for his country?

They also afterwards are basically blacklisted. They've now been come to -- especially in Afghanistan -- seen as friends of the occupiers, from

this point, a very indiscriminate Afghan population who's not welcome quite much of the American presence.

And as a result, these guys tell me they can't get jobs, that they can't get basic government services, that the police don't want to protect

them because they say, well you were just actually American informants. We created this problem and the old saying, if you break it, you buy it, well,

I say we own this and it's the right thing to do. I have yet to meet a single person who says, no, to hell with these people. Let's just let them

languish and be killed by our enemies.

HOLMES: Couldn't agree more.

Two seconds: you've got a website. Just say it.

ZELLER: It's nooneleft.org. We need all the help you can send.

HOLMES: It's a terrific website. Matt, I admire you and I respect what you're doing and thank you. Keep doing it.

ZELLER: Thank you so much, my friend, it's a pleasure.

HOLMES: Matt Zeller there, one of many who I met in Iraq who are still working on this.

I should add that this is clearly a personal issue for many of us here at CNN, who spent time in Iraq. Our own local staff risking their lives to

work with us; two of them died doing so. By my count, at least six or seven of them still waiting for visas to leave. They've been waiting for

years. Their lives still in danger, their contributions not forgotten.

After a break, imagine a world where one day in one city out of the shadow that stretches across the entire year, looking back on the bloodiest

day in Ukraine's recent past. That's when we come back.

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HOLMES: Welcome back. A final look to Ukraine tonight, where the cease-fire agreed in Minsk is falling apart at the seams, leading to yet

more talks to try to shelter people from the violence. Now at the ongoing conflict comes as Ukraine marks a bloody first anniversary. The uprising

in Kiev's Independence Square or the Maidan as it was known, an event that triggered monumental change, the election of Petro Poroshenko, the

annexation of Crimea, the conflict in Eastern Ukraine we see today and the crumbling cease-fire still trying to silence the guns.

Well, imagine a world reborn in a fiery revolt. One year ago, more than 50 protesters lost their lives in the most violent day of Ukraine's

revolution, that toppled President Yanukovych and set the country on a troubling and uncertain path.

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HOLMES: That is our program for tonight. Remember you can always see the whole show online at amanpour.com, and follow me on Twitter @HolmesCNN.

Thanks for watching. Goodbye for now from Atlanta.

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