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Amanpour

Hamid Karzai Reacts to Taliban Talks; Remembering Richard Holbrooke; Imagine a World. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired May 04, 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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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST (voice-over): Tonight: a rare interview with the still influential former Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, as talks

between the Taliban and government officials take place. Is there any chance for peace?

Also ahead: a new film about the late diplomat and U.S. point man on Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, reveals what really was going on behind the

scenes. The director, his son, David, joins me later.

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AMANPOUR: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Christiane Amanpour.

Neither side wants to call them peace talks, but Afghan political figures and Taliban militants have met in Qatar for talks aimed at ending their

long war of attrition. Just today, a suicide bomber, though, hit a bus carrying government employees in Kabul, killing at least one and wounding a

dozen more.

And a recent push by the Taliban in the north highlights more of a desire to fight than to talk.

That hasn't deterred the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, who's recently been trying to win global and regional support for his peace initiative.

But former president Hamid Karzai is concerned about Ghani's so-called tilt towards Pakistan and his gamble on reaching a peace deal with the Taliban.

Now back in 2001, the U.S. had routed Al Qaeda and the Taliban and Hamid Karzai and his men were billeted in the palace that Mullah Omar had

deserted. It was just before he became Afghan leader and here's a snapshot of his early optimism back then.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HAMID KARZAI, FORMER PRESIDENT OF AFGHANISTAN: It's an exciting time. It's a new beginning for Afghanistan. After many years of disasters and

bloodshed and suffering for our people, we have a new opportunity, a new opportunity that the Afghan people must grasp, must take, a new opportunity

that the world must use to help us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Thirteen years and two presidential terms later, Hamid Karzai joins me now from Kabul.

Welcome to the program. Welcome back to the program, Mr. Karzai.

KARZAI: Welcome. I'm happy to be with you, Christiane. Good to talk to you.

AMANPOUR: President Ghani has made negotiating with the Taliban a priority and also getting closer to Pakistan in the hope that that might help a

peace deal.

Do you agree with that?

Is that a policy that you support?

KARZAI: I very much agree with -- and actually this has been one of my primary goals as well, in the past 13 years, to talk to the Taliban, to the

ones who are Afghans and to bring them to peace talks and to bring them to our country and band this country together.

With regard to relations with Pakistan, improvement of relations with Pakistan, this is also something that the Afghans want but an equal

relation between two sovereign countries. This is what we all seek and between two sovereign countries, a relationship will only be established

when radicalism is no longer used as a tool by our neighbor, Pakistan. We hope that will happen soon.

AMANPOUR: Mr. Karzai, let me ask you another issue and see whether you agree.

President Ghani is, I think, trying to get the Obama administration to keep its forces in Afghanistan for a little bit longer and this year has been

very deadly; last year was the deadliest on record and everybody predicts more and more attacks and more and more deaths inside Afghanistan.

Do you support the idea of U.S. forces staying a bit longer?

KARZAI: Well, the United States and NATO's arrival in Afghanistan in 2001 after the tragic attacks on New York and Washington was welcomed by the

Afghan people because we both, Afghanistan and our partners in the international community, wanted to free Afghanistan from terrorism and

issue crit (ph) foreign invasion.

That initial stage was extremely successful. We were liberated. We are grateful for that.

Subsequent to that when it came to the fight against

[14:05:00] terrorism and extremism, we did not get the results we want and the Afghans suffered a lot. That's where we had a difference of opinion.

Now on the U.S. staying further in Afghanistan, we have no problem with that provided the United States presence in Afghanistan will strengthen the

unity of the Afghan people, will not work against the unity of the Afghan people and that it will not try directly or indirectly to subdue us to a

foreign country, to another country.

AMANPOUR: Now how is there going to be a rapprochement with the Taliban or some kind of peace deal if they haven't even been able to work out a cease-

fire at these talks, which were not official peace talks, but in Qatar they have not even been able to come up with a cease-fire and the Taliban

continues to say we're not going to play ball until every last foreign force, every last American is out of the country?

KARZAI: My advice to the Taliban is that they must give up on this demand, which is more an excuse for creating misery for the Afghan people, for

causing civilian casualties to Afghanistan, for preventing Afghanistan from making progress.

My request rather the Taliban is that they must come to Afghanistan and that the moment we have peace here, we have stability here, then we can

then work together towards an Afghanistan that does not need any more foreign help in whatever way that may be.

AMANPOUR: It was generally acknowledged that by the end of your term in office, relations between you and the Obama administration were poisonous.

That's what people used to say. They were poisonous. There had been so many months and perhaps years of very, very tense relations.

Do you support President Ghani's wholehearted effort to improve relations with the United States?

KARZAI: I had no ideological difference with the United States. I have immense respect for the American people and for the help that the American

people have given to Afghanistan. My job as the president of Afghanistan was to protect the life of the Afghan people and to defend the sovereignty

of Afghanistan.

I simply wanted to protect the life of the Afghan people and the sovereignty of the Afghan people where the American people, the U.S.

government have helped Afghanistan in education, in health, in the building of roads and the improvement of the economy we are grateful.

Where we have suffered because of military operations we are not happy about that and I wanted that to end. The civilian casualties, the presence

in Afghanistan where Afghans were killed and similar actions that caused us hurt.

So, no, no ideological difference. I very much want relations with America. I wanted it then; I want it today. But I want a relationship in

which America will benefit and Afghanistan will benefit as well, in peace, stability and dignity.

AMANPOUR: Well, briefly, there are still considerable numbers of airstrikes in Afghanistan by U.S. forces.

Do you support President Ghani's efforts at rapprochement? And you know, just to get that relationship back on a solid footing under the current

circumstances?

KARZAI: I don't support any airstrikes in Afghanistan. I did not support it then. I don't support it now.

AMANPOUR: All right. Let me move forward on another issue that was also very, very tense and we're going to be discussing the legacy of Richard

Holbrooke later after a break.

So I want to ask you there were some very tense times between you both, even Robert Gates, who was Defense Secretary and CIA director, said in his

book that Richard Holbrooke tried to undermine you and wanted anybody but you to be president.

There were incandescent rows between him and you. He shouted at you and accused you of rigging the Afghan election in 2009.

Did you make amends with Richard Holbrooke?

How bad was that for the ability to make peace?

KARZAI: Well, Richard Holbrooke is no longer with us. He has passed away. And about someone that's no longer with us, it's not proper for me to talk.

But on the elections, yes. We all know the story. Robert Gates, the then- Defense Secretary, has written about it. That's a part of history that was not a happy one, not a good one.

But that is the past. Now Afghanistan and America should begin a new beginning and one in which Afghanistan will benefit and so will the United

States.

So in other words,

[14:10:00] I want America to be friends with Afghanistan and stay with Afghans but where the Afghan interest is also very much kept in mind and

promoted.

AMANPOUR: The film that his son has made says that you informed the administration after a little bit after this row, that you were ready to

let bygones be bygones. But the film says the administration did not fully back Richard Holbrooke's diplomacy.

Were you aware that the U.S. point man, the diplomat for Afghanistan and Pakistan, was not fully backed by his own administration?

KARZAI: That was not my impression, no. I -- my impression was that the administration and Mr. Holbrooke were walking the same trail, talking the

same practice.

AMANPOUR: One final question: what are your greatest regrets and your greatest triumphs after your two presidential terms?

What sticks out in your mind?

KARZAI: Well, Afghanistan became a respected member of the international community. Afghanistan's flag is flying all over the world. Afghanistan

reemerged as a sovereign nation.

Afghanistan became the home of all Afghans. Thousands and thousands and hundreds of thousands Afghan youths got educated. Millions of our children

went to school. A free press, a democratic order, a better economy, better roads, those are the triumphs of my year in -- as the president.

The saddest part of my presidency is casualties to the Afghan people, people getting bombed in their homes and people being sent to prisons in

their own country and some other aspects of the past 13 years.

So on the whole, it's a happy and sad book.

AMANPOUR: Well, on that note, Mr. Hamid Karzai, thank you very much indeed for joining me today.

KARZAI: Good to talk to you. Very happy to talk to you.

AMANPOUR: Thank you so much.

And after a break, we will speak to Richard Holbrooke's son, David, about the film that he's made, delving into his father's life and the secret

tapes the diplomat was dictating while Afghan diplomacy was going on, exposing the private truth behind the politics.

But first, back when he first burst onto the world stage, top designer Tom Ford called Hamid Karzai "the chicest man on the planet." Also he was

something of an anglophile. Karzai is now donating one of his traditional chapan coats to the British museum.

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

We've just heard from former Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, who was in the midst of one of the

[14:15:00] most pressing tasks for the incoming Obama administration, which was trying to finally secure that elusive peace in Afghanistan. Now the

point man would be the renowned diplomat, Richard Holbrooke, who started his career in Vietnam and later helped broker peace in Bosnia.

Holbrooke died of heart complications in 2010 before the Afghan task was done. And now his son, David, has just made a new film called "The

Diplomat," in which he uncovers a raft of his father's private letters and secret taped.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's weird, you know. He's always kept these papers, he always had just a sense of his own history. This file cabinet as well

behind you, all of these.

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GEORGE PACKER, BIOGRAPHER: This is his letters. These are letters from your father to your mother.

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AMANPOUR: Now the film, which will be released on HBO in the fall, reveals that in fact Holbrooke did not have the backing of his own administration

as he conducted Afghan diplomacy, which was an unprecedented situation.

Richard's son, David Holbrooke, now joins me from Colorado.

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AMANPOUR: David, it's a pretty amazing film and you started out by really wanting to get to know your father, get to know him better in terms of his

public diplomacy.

Were you surprised by what you found?

DAVID HOLBROOKE, FILMMAKER: I was. I was surprised at how hard it was for him to do his job, especially in the third act of Afghanistan. There were

so many pincers coming at him, so many different pressures that I think made it incredibly hard to do what he had to do, which was bring peace to

Afghanistan.

AMANPOUR: You found some tapes. And we just showed a little clip of George Packer, showing you the archives. And he of course is the official

biographer and a book will come out shortly by him on Richard Holbrooke's life and diplomacy.

We're going to play a little bit of a tape that you secured for this film and then we'll talk about it.

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RICHARD HOLBROOKE, DIPLOMAT: Hillary has delivered the all-important memo to the president, seeking negotiating routes out of this thing. Finally

the president is focused on it. Maybe we'll look back on it as one of the most important memos we ever wrote. But that remains to be seen.

That's all for tonight.

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AMANPOUR: It is really incredible to hear his voice all these years later, speaking from the grave about --

(CROSSTALK)

DAVID HOLBROOKE: Amazing, right?

AMANPOUR: -- it -- how did you feel when you found those and listened to them?

DAVID HOLBROOKE: They were revelatory. We had his voice in the first act through the letters to my mother, the session Vietnam. And then Bosnia, he

was so alive. He had also written his own book and had journals.

But he was so vibrant.

In the third act in Afghanistan, we were really missing that, all those public presentations; he was deflated, almost defeated, so to hear him --

hear his voice unedited was really revelatory.

AMANPOUR: But particularly to hear him talk about what was going on inside the administration as he was trying to do what he thought was going to

bring peace to Afghanistan. For instance, he absolutely wanted to negotiate with the Taliban or rather arrange and facilitate those

negotiations as a way to end the war.

What did you get from the tapes as to how he thought the administration viewed that?

DAVID HOLBROOKE: He thought it was a long shot, just to begin with but made longer by the fact that he had to fight his way through the

administration to do that. You know, wasn't so much negotiating with the Taliban or dealing with the Afghan government. It was navigating the

treacherous waters of the Obama administration and that became so problematic.

You see that in the tapes. I mean, you knew him well through the tapes, kind of wide ranging. It's movie reviews. He did not like dinner for

schmucks. It's things like that.

But then he really goes into all the issues that he's facing. But that all-important memo that he just mentioned, that he -- from the clip you

ran, that's very clear that that's about reconciliation.

And we have a quote from Vali Nasr, his senior aide, in the film, where Vali says that reconciliation was a taboo word in the administration for

the first year.

But to my father, that was the only way we were ever going to be able to end this war, was to get to that peace process.

AMANPOUR: And beyond the substance of what he was trying to do, he felt -- and it certainly shows itself in his memos that he's dictated and it shows

itself in the conversations he had with Bob Woodward of "The Washington Post."

He thought that people like Tom Donilon, inside the White House, were more political than strategic.

Explain how he thought the thinking inside the White House was shaping up on Afghanistan.

DAVID HOLBROOKE: Yes, he thought it was very sort of politically centered and the strategic sense of how you were going to get to a peace process,

how you were going to get to a negotiated settlement wasn't clear to them. And that was really only coming out of the State Department, his

[14:20:00] office with the support of Secretary Clinton.

And it was very frustrating to him because here he was caught. He was caught because he had a vision but that vision wasn't able to see through.

And President Karzai earlier was speaking to this.

And I think he was an obstacle. But as you asked him, in the end, Rina Amiri, my father's senior aide, tells us that President Karzai's people

really were wanting to work with the -- work with my father, that as I said, let bygones be bygones and move forward.

But then they would ask, from Kabul, saying, but we can't tell who's in charge, who should we really be talking to?

Because I think there was a lot of confusion within the U.S. government. My father's job was special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Yet there was somebody he was -- he was ostensibly supposed to be working with but ultimately against him, named Doug Lute, who was special assistant

to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

So I think the whole idea was sort of ill-conceived and then my father was just undercut, time and again, by people in the White House, who didn't

trust him, who didn't believe he was the right guy; yet he was still in this job. So it was an impossible situation for him.

AMANPOUR: How do you feel, as his son and, you know, the guy who obviously misses him and who's put all this together and who's found all this out?

Because really in the film you see the pictures of Richard from Afghanistan until his death; he just looks like he's getting more and more tired and

more and more.

DAVID HOLBROOKE: Terrible. Well, it was really hard to see this and, you know, I saw it live, to some extent. But he was gone so much and so caught

up in the drama of the administration that he was distant.

Uncovered it posthumously was really hard because I felt he was never given the voice that he needed to carry out this impossible mission.

I mean, when he got the job, he said to me, Dave, I know how to be secretary of state. I think I could make a great deputy to Hillary, but

they've given me the hardest job in the administration.

And I asked Hillary Clinton that, who said by many metrics she thought that was true.

But it was really difficult. I'm sure it was difficult for you as well, as someone who had known him, especially when he was at sort of the height of

his powers and his achievements during Bosnia.

I mean, I think anybody who knew him was heartbroken by this.

AMANPOUR: Well, let me just end on one of his great triumphs, and that is Bosnia, which obviously I covered and he became really world famous for

that and for the Dayton Agreement. It's 20 years this summer since the massacre of Srebrenica, which eventually enabled Richard's diplomacy.

How do you feel, 20 years on, seeing Bosnia at peace and your father's connection to it?

DAVID HOLBROOKE: I feel very proud of what he achieved with the Dayton Agreement.

However, I also know that he thought Dayton was a transitional document and it's become a de facto constitution. And he never wanted that; he never

liked that. And if he were alive, he would be pushing to say let's pay some more attention to Bosnia because Bosnia matters still.

And I hope that the Clinton campaign, President Clinton, and other people will really look and see, OK, this was a great accomplishment. But it

needs a lot of freshening up. And it won't take a lot of attention from America to make that happen.

And my hope is that the film -- my father's voice stays alive through the film and that will pay some more attention to this important issue.

AMANPOUR: David Holbrooke, thank you so much. A really, really wonderful film, "The Diplomat," which as I said, will air on --

DAVID HOLBROOKE: Oh, thank you, Christiane.

AMANPOUR: Thank you.

And the film will air on our sister network, HBO, later on in the year.

And of course it's no secret and it says it in the film that Richard Holbrooke wanted to be secretary of state one day to cap his career. So we

just note the doings of the current holder of the title on this day, taking a selfie with a baby elephant. Alas, when John Kerry tweeted out the photo

a little later, it was missing most of the elephant.

When we come back, imagine better news from the Mediterranean, a triumph of compassion and fortitude to avert more watery graves for more desperate

migrants. That's next.

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AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, just two weeks ago some 900 people died in one weekend, trying to cross from Libya to Italy. The worst-ever disaster

to hit the Mediterranean, it transformed the sea into a cemetery. Now imagine a world where thousands of migrants are saved from the ocean's

clutches in a similarly brief period.

The Italian navy, leading the charge, pulling almost 7,000 people from the depths in three days, working alongside the navy were Italian American

philanthropists Regina and Christopher Catrambone, with their own private rescue operation.

They saved almost 400 migrants. And last month I asked Christina (sic) what motivates them to take this risk.

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REGINA CATRAMBONE, THE MIGRANT OFFSHORE AID STATION: Because there were people dying out at sea and we couldn't just be staying there without ACTA.

So we decided to answer to their people of the boat (ph) and the people of Italy that to join them, to helping them.

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AMANPOUR: Now among the saved this weekend, the navy rescued a newborn baby girl, whose mother had gone into labor on one of the crowded,

unseaworthy boats.

And on that note, that is it for our program tonight. Remember you can always see the whole show online at amanpour.com, and follow me on Facebook

and Twitter. Thank you for watching and goodbye from London.

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