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What U.S. Troops Face in Afghanistan; Poppy Seeds as Currency; More Trouble Bubbles up in Afghanistan; Afghanistan Parliament Passes Laws that Women Fear Will Degrade Their Rights Further. The Afghanistan War Becomes Obama's War

Aired July 25, 2009 - 16:00   ET

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

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: All right, much more straight ahead. The beginning of our 4:00 Eastern hour now.

All right. Violence is ratcheting up again in Afghanistan today. The Taliban has launched multiple suicide attacks on government buildings and this comes on top of the record death toll for U.S. forces and the Taliban holding a U.S. soldier hostage. This hour we're taking a closer look as U.S. forces take on the Taliban.

But first, before we get to that, we want to give you a quick look at all the top stories happening right now.

The White House is moving forward with an aggressive campaign to win support for President Obama's plan to overhaul health care. In his weekly internet and radio address, the president talked about a new White House study. It suggests small businesses pay far more per employee for insurance than big companies. And Mr. Obama says the disparity is unaccepted. He had hoped for Congress to vote on health care reform by its August recess. But he now says he expects a bill by the end of the year.

And new moves are underway to calm the uproar over the arrest of an African-American professor by a white Cambridge, Massachusetts police officer. Henry Gates, a noted scholar at Harvard says he is pleased President Obama invited him and the officer, Sergeant James Crowley, to the White House. And Gates says he wants the incident to be used as a teaching moment to improve racial relations in America.

In dozens of cities, on six continents, protesters are gathering today to put pressure on Iran. They're calling for the release of hundreds of Iranians who were arrested during protests over the country's disputed presidential election.

All right. Now, taking on the Taliban. All hour we're taking a look at the U.S.-led offensive in Afghanistan. The faces of the conflict. The drug trade fueling it and the U.S. strategy and what's being dubbed President Obama's war and let's catch you up right now.

All right. July, already the deadliest month for American service members in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion. 37 casualties this month. Two just yesterday. And caught in the conflict, U.S. Army private Bowe Bergdahl. He was captured in Afghanistan three weeks ago. This video released by the Taliban last weekend, the first indication that he is still live. Afghanistan's drug trade is bank rolling the Taliban and U.S. forces have set their sights on that.

And just this week the U.S. military destroyed 300 tons of poppy seeds in an effort to cut the enemy's money flow.

All right. We want you to be part of the conversation which has already begun on our blog. We're taking your comments, your questions on Facebook at Fredricka Whitfield CNN and you can e-mail us at weekends@cnn.com, or post a message on our blog CNN.com/fredricka.

Ivan Watson is in the area. He brings us up to date on all that's taking place today.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): There were a series of attacks today in the eastern town, (INAUDIBLE), in a province that borders Pakistan Fredricka. And what happened is according to the ministry of defense spokesman for the Afghan government, at least seven attackers armed with suicide vests and weapons attacked a series of buildings in that town today, attacked the Kabul Bank there, attacked the police stations, attacked a military hospital as well and wounded at least 14 civilians, we're being told.

A NATO spokesman also said that they tried to plow into the police station using a car bomb, a suicide car bomb and then tried to attack. That situation reportedly under control, again according to Afghan NATO defense officials. Now, what is important here is that this is not an isolated incident, Fredricka. Just last Tuesday, you had a series of similar attacks on two other eastern towns. The town of Gardez, where a group of bombers came in also wearing suicide vests and attacked government buildings, and also the city of Jalalabad, also in the east. This is a tactic that the Taliban insurgents have developed. It has evolved over the past several years. It is a deadly means of attacking. If somebody blows themselves up. Blows away some of the security precautions and then other people file in shooting everywhere. A terrifying tactic.

WHITFIELD: And Ivan, let's talk about these tactics which are much more sophisticated and much more effective from the Taliban's point of view. The use of the suicide vests. The use of IEDs, car bombs, et cetera. What's the explanation as to how there is an increase in the use of these tactics?

WATSON: Well, this has been the bloodiest month, Fredricka for the NATO and American forces in Afghanistan and part of that is the result of these types of attacks. The deadliest number one danger, the biggest threat to the foreign forces on the ground in Afghanistan are the roadside bombs, the IEDs that we heard about in Iraq. We'll they've gotten increasingly deadly here in Afghanistan as well. That is the number one threat that people are worried about here. Also, the suicide attack.

One little fact that people may not know is throughout Afghanistan's 25 years of conflicts and civil war and Soviet occupation, suicide bombs were not a method that was used by Afghans in these conflicts. This is a new phenomenon and it is developed over the last five or six years and unfortunately it is probably part of this globalization of terrorist tactics that have moved over from conflict zones like Iraq.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: All right. Those are the developments going on there. It's ongoing. Things seem to be ratcheting up in Afghanistan. Gretchen Peters spent 10 years covering Afghanistan and she wrote the book "Seeds of Terror," how heroin is bank rolling the Taliban and Al Qaeda. She's joining us now from Denver. All right, Gretchen, so good to see you.

GRETCHEN PETERS, AUTHOR "SEEDS OF TERROR": Thank you for having me.

WHITFIELD: At this juncture with this war on going, I guess the conventional wisdom would be that this was should be tampering down. It should be reduced to somewhere close to some resolution. Instead it seems it's going in a complete opposite direction. What's your view as to what's happening here?

PETERS: Well I think a lot of mistakes were made immediately after the October 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and we're seeing the affects of those mistakes now.

WHITFIELD: Eight years later?

PETERS: Yes. I mean, first of all, the Bush administration went in and the international community in general with a light footprint approach. Afghanistan was dramatically under resourced compared to other post-conflict situations, other places including Kosovo, East Timor, Cambodia, must, much less money into re-construction and trying to help rebuild Afghanistan and went into Iraq and as well as we discussed Iraq, of course, it really was in 2003 when Washington was ramping up towards the invasion of Iraq that things started to spin out of control in Afghanistan. That was really the beginning of what we see now.

WHITFIELD: But if the criticism could be, you know, that the U.S.-led military tactics in Afghanistan, then what has happened that has allowed the Taliban to take on this resurgence and even become more sophisticated in the way it is taking out and targeting British and U.S. forces and even harming more Afghan civilians as well?

PETERS: Well, there are a number of things going on. First of all, until recently, until the last few years, there were very view international troops in the rural parts of Afghanistan, particularly in the south, in the southeast and in the east. The very areas where we see the most violence today. So that's one of the problems is that these areas were simply a vacuum. They were lawless and ungoverned and very little effort was made to try and bring stability and rule law to those areas as well.

What I've documented in my book was the Taliban in southern Afghanistan became very, very closely tied to the enormous opium trade there and is earning hundreds of millions of dollars a year off of that. That has given them the money to launch all sorts of operations that they were not able to do in the early days, post 2001.

WHITFIELD: Money which is helping the Taliban strengthen, but then how do you explain the change in the insurgency and how they're taking out, you know, the enemy? They're using vests(ph) as we said in Ivan Watson's report. They're using suicide vests, they're using IEDs. There's a 55 percent increase in the use of IEDs in just a year's time. How do you explain that. What's going on. It has to be bigger than the Taliban but something else which is helping in this sophistication of warfare.

PETERS: Well, I think the use of suicide bombers, IEDs, roadside attack, these kind of small hit-and-run ambushes, are exactly the type of tactics that any insurgent force would use up against a much more powerful enemy. I don't think there's anything specific to -

WHITFIELD: But they weren't using it early on in Afghanistan.

PETERS: That's right. They weren't. Well - the first suicide attacks in Afghanistan started around 2005, and when - and as Ivan said, it wasn't a tactic that was used by Afghan fighters in the past. There's quite clear evidence that Arab and other extremist groups came in and helped train the Taliban in Pakistan's tribal regions. There's some evidence that neighboring states including Iran and Pakistan may play a hand in training some of the militants in some areas, not all of them. It's, you know, it's a very complex situation but what I have noticed is that and talked about in "Seeds of terror" is that there are connection with the drug trade and other criminal activity has actually made the Taliban and the other extremist groups operating along the border much more ruthless, much more violent than they were before. And of course, they were hardly warm and cuddly bunch before 2001.

WHITFIELD: OK. And Gretchen we're going to talk some more about the whole poppy trade. How that is fueling the insurgency et cetera a little bit later on. We've also been asking people to send us their comments and their thoughts and questions, and these are some of what already folks are saying on Facebook. And Rene Shavers said - Maggie Crawford says, thank you for the update, however saddening on the war. I am so fearful that people will forget we are in three deadly conflicts. We must remain focus in ending them all regardless of the name and political party of the commander in chief.

And Nazanin Hasseini (ph) says why are U.S. forces still there? July would have been so deadly - would not rather, however, been so deadly if the U.S. forces weren't there. This story is getting too old. It's about time U.S. forces leave the Middle East alone and come back home and treat the veterans.

And Rick Mitchell writes why is this Obama's war. As I recall, the was started because the Taliban harbored the terrorists who planned 9/11 and the entire world is behind it. This is not a war belonging to a single person. This war belongs to the worlds. The sooner people remember and realize that this is the fact, the sooner things might actually go right in Afghanistan.

We're going to hear much more from Gretchen Peters and you'll also be hearing from Ivan Watson again.

And now why a small Idaho town feels dangerously close to Afghanistan.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right. He is 23, an American serving in Afghanistan and one week ago, we had visible proof that he is in the hands of the Taliban. Pictures showing Private first class Bowe Bergdahl in Taliban captivity. They surfaced on the internet. He is from a small town in Idaho. And in the video released by the Taliban, Bergdahl talked about his family.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PFC. BOWE BERGDAHL, TALIBAN CAPTIVE: I have a very, very, very good family that I love back home in America, and I miss them every day that I'm gone. I miss them. And I'm afraid that I might never see them again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: So the people in his home town of Haley, Idaho, well they're worried about him too. And this week, there were a number of vigils that took place. They've been saying their prayers and this is the message that they are hoping that he'll receive.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is Bowe Bergdahl in a high seas adventure. That's him in the green jacket. Before joining the military, Bergdahl found a job fishing for salmon off the Alaska coast. It was on this adventure that Dillon Fomer (ph)first met his hometown buddy.

DILLON FOMER, BERGDAHL'S FRIEND: He's a good kid. He's strong as an ox.

REPORTER: Fomer (ph) spent almost three months on this boat with Bergdahl sleeping in a cramp cabin. At night Fomer (ph) says Bergdahl dreamed of riding his bike around the world hopping on boats, carrying only the bare necessities.

(on camera): He's telling you wanting to bicycle around the world. What do you think of that?

FOMER: This kid is crazy. You know? There's no land all the way around the world and then he explained the whole boat process. But I guess biking around the world, that's one heck of a feat right there.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): Those who know Bergdahl talked of his adventurous spirit. He worked for Sue Martin at this coffee shop where 'Get Bowe Back!' signs hang in the window.

SUE MARTIN, BOWE BERGDAHL'S FRIEND: You know, he captures you. Bowe is not something in the corner. He captures you. You engage and he engages very well.

LAVANDERA: He's a renaissance man. He learned ballet at this dance studio, took up the sport of fencing and avid outdoorsman. He rode motorcycles, learned to sail on an expedition that took him from the Atlantic to the Pacific, all by the age of 23.

(on camera): So it seems like he was fascinated by the world out there, you know.

FOMER: Yeah. He wanted to go see it. Wanted to go see it.

LAVANDERA (voice-over): Bergdahl waited tables and worked construction jobs to pay for these adventures which sometimes involved long, rustic bike rides through the Idaho wilderness.

SHERIFF WALT FEMLING, BLAINE COUNTY, IDAHO: Bowe never owned a car. He doesn't like them.

LAVANDERA (on camera): Bowe's parents live a quiet life along this dirt road on the outskirts of Haley, Idaho. They live in this home nestled here in the mountain valley. It is here we understand that Private Bergdahl was home schooled growing up. But what Sue Martin says she loves most about Bergdahl, is the man who displayed quiet chivalry.

MARTIN: When I'd go out to my car after a big day in a big snowfall and Bowe would have been out there and swept the snow off my car. And I'd walk out there in you know, just like, Bowe's been here and he'd never say anything.

LAVANDERA: That's the Bowe Bergdahl the people in his hometown can't wait to welcome home.

Ed Lavandera, CNN, Haley, Idaho.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Bowe Bergdahl becoming the face of the war in Afghanistan. Lots of prayers going out for his safe release from the Taliban capture.

All right. The Afghan war, it is intensifying. What is fueling the Taliban?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right. There's more than one war being fought in Afghanistan. In addition to fighting the Taliban, the U.S. and its allies are fighting the drug trade. The two wars are intertwined with opium profits funding the insurgency.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD (voice-over): They may be beautiful, but Afghanistan's poppies are the source of an estimated 90 percent of the world's opium. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (through translator): when it's harvest time we slice the capsule then leave until the next day. Then we collect the opium the next morning.

WHITFIELD: In 2000, Afghanistan's Taliban rulers banned poppy farming for heroin production calling it un-Islamic. But after the U.S. backed overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, the poppy made a swift comeback. In a vexing irony, profits from the opium trade now fund Taliban efforts to regain power.

ADM. MICHAEL MULLEN, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: Very clearly funding the insurgency, we know that. Strategically, my view is it has to be eliminated.

WHITFIELD: Eliminating poppy cultivation is a daunting challenge. It is Afghanistan's premiere cash crop, and so far attempts to get farmers to switch to other props have been met with limited success. A former state department official talked about the challenges last year.

THOMAS SCHWEICH, FORMER STATE DEPT. OFFICIAL: One of the myths that I tried to debunk is if we do just a lot more development assistance, help the poor farmers down there and give them irrigation and alternative crops, the problem will be resolved. That's actually not proving to be the case. We give them alternative crops, they don't take them because the opium's more valuable.

WHITFIELD: And efforts to destroy poppy fields can be dangerous. Eradication crew sometimes come under attack. Then there's the battle for hearts and minds, and the fear that farmers who see their poppy fields plowed under will throw their support to the Taliban.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: So eradicating poppy fields, not easy. Our Ivan Watson who again is in the region and has an even better explanation as to why.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WATSON: The issue is, do you try to wipe out the livelihood for so many impoverished Afghans by trying to get rid of poppy and thus going after the opium and the booming heroin industry here or do you just let it thrive. And what we saw from the U.S. marines over the course of the last week is that they actually went in to formerly Taliban-controlled towns. They've captured tons of poppy seeds and then made a huge shell bombing those stores of poppy seeds, 1,000- pound bombs, with fighter plane, scraping them with helicopters, basically sending a very strong message that that kind of activity will no longer be tolerated. It's striking because just a year ago the Marines were telling me we're not in the poppy eradication business.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: And Gretchen Peters is back with us. She is the author of the book "Seeds of Terror," how heroin s bank rolling the Taliban and Al Qaeda. So a couple points, Gretchen. One, exactly what Ivan was talking about. U.S. forces who said, hey, we didn't want to be in the business of now being narcotics police, but in part that's what they're being asked to do, and then after you kind of assessed for me that, I want a little bit more about the options for these farmers?

PETERS: Well, in part the military is having to take part in fighting narcotics in Afghanistan because first of all, the Afghan police are not functioning particularly well in this. In fact, in many places, the police have been completely corrupted by the drug trade. And in fact, are engaged in it and profiting as much or more than the Taliban. So that means that western forces in these areas step into a law enforcement vacuum and they have to fill it. But the other issue now is that the strategy is shifting towards going after the traffickers as opposed to going after the poor farmers. And I think that -

WHITFIELD: Who would be doing that? Again, U.S. and British forces who are there as part of the solution?

PETERS: There appear to be more efforts to track down the major trafficking groups. The DEA is sending another 80 agents to the region. Other law enforcement advisers are working with American troops as many as 150 former police -

WHITFIELD: Is that a realistic option in trying to go after the drug kingpins in Afghanistan, we already known given the terrain for one how difficult it is to traverse that country, to find even the Taliban and we already know how difficult it is to find a drug king pin the other country. It's been a challenge for drug agents.

PETERS: Right. Well it is a challenge. I'm not suggesting it will be simple. However, there's actually a fairly small number of people who are known to be the major facilitators and kingpins behind Afghanistan's drug trade. A lot of experts estimate that it's less than two dozen people, at the very top of the command chain. Now, one of the challenges, Fredricka, is that they're not all in Afghanistan. We talked about this as Afghanistan's drug problem, but the big cartels that are doing a lot of the smuggling of the opium grown in the regions that the Taliban dominate are actually in western Pakistan. A lot of the money laundering is going on in places like Dubai and Abu Dhabi. So this really is a regional problem and that is a challenge, I believe.

WHITFIELD: And if we're talking about trying to cut this drug trade, the poppy growing at the knees, by reportedly, you know, one incentive the U.S. is trying to offer to a lot of these farmers, these poppy growers, you know what, we will make sure that you get paid for growing nothing. So allow the eradication of these fields. You will still have your source of income because a lot of these farmers need the money in order to help feed their families and they say, you know what, they are also being intimidated by the Taliban and others that they're almost forced to grow this. So it's a much bigger problem. How in the world can the U.S. or any coalition force get to the bottom of that? PETERS: Well, I personally advocate that the western forces in these areas take a community approach. Community level approach. I don't think that there's going to be one blanket solution. As you said in some areas farmers are being forced to grow poppy. In other places there are large landowners who grow poppy because they make so much money off of it. In other areas, farmers will tell you that they can't grow anything else because the roads have been destroyed. They can't get their crops to market. Poppy seeds and opium doesn't rot -

WHITFIELD: And when you also hear the U.S. saying, well we want to give them incentive to grow something else, like wheat, something that they can market domestically or maybe even export, well now you got irrigation and we're talking about a very dry place and, poppy, kind of can grow anywhere.

PETERS: It is dry. The irrigation system, particular in Helmand province where the Marines are pushing into now have been destroyed by decades of war. Afghanistan before the Soviet invasion in 1979 was a food exporting nation. There's no reason it can't be again. But there's going to have to be sustained development. There's got to be sustained efforts to interdict and arrest the traffickers. They're going to have sustained efforts to interdict and arrest the traffickers sustained efforts in some areas to do eradication.

Counter narcotics is a three-legged stool. Eradication, interdiction and alternative livelihoods. The problem I think has been that the three legs of the stool have never been balance under policy, post 2001 policy. Now they're trying to provide incentives for farmers to grow other crops. Do the development work that will allow them to do so and to go after the traffickers. They're going to have to do all of those things.

WHITFIELD: Wow, tough task. All right. Gretchen Peters, thanks so much. Tough tasks being made. That much more tough. All right. Appreciate that.

We've been hearing from you on some many different levels. Laura in Iowa is writing this on my blog. As an Army mom, when I saw the Taliban's video of Private First Class Bowe Bergdahl's forced comments, I realized every word was meant to feed the mind and heart of every mother, every military member. The mind of every other parent of every military member. I knew how fast the internet will collect or demand ad citizens and inform our leaders as to our wishes. And I realized that we are in a war of thoughts and feelings that arms can't win.

And from guy, this one is another disaster in the making, putting the whole region and the U.S. in further trouble. Civilians are as usual - or as usual, rather, the victims in an overwhelming majority. We should hear more about the cost to the civilian population. How many were killed and wounded as compared to combatants of all sides?

This from D.J. Kumar. The greatest damage the Taliban has done is to the people in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India. Taliban ancestors named part of the Himalayan range extending between northern Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan, Hindu Kush mountain centuries ago. Kush means killer. Today Taliban simply continues the historic violent ways of Islam against other religion.

And course, we're receiving a lot more of your comments about what the U.S. military strategy should be at this point? And how in the world do you try to fight this narcotics war as well? We'll be joined by Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right. All this hour we're discussing the increasing violence in Afghanistan. Before we continue, let's look at the other stories in the headlines right now.

Exiled Honduras President Jose Manuel Zelaya made another trip to Honduras. Nicaragua -- to the border with Nicaragua and Honduras. And today he set up camp at the border. Zelaya clams he was ousted illegally and is still this country's legal president.

This rally taking place in New York today was one of many demonstrators in 100 cities on six continents gathered to voice of anger at the Iranian government. They demanded the release of opposition activists jailed during protests that followed Iran's disputed presidential elections.

This hour we're talking about Afghanistan, and how the insurgency seems to be bubbling up there. The Taliban gaining strength and momentum, and all this at time when the U.S. is beginning to send more U.S. troops from Iraq to Afghanistan, beefing up the number of U.S. troops there.

Early in this week, this is what Defense Secretary Gates had to say about the situation in Afghanistan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT GATES, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: The persistent pace of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last several years has steadily increased the number of troops not available for deployment in the Army. These additional forces will be used to ensure that our deploying units are properly manned, and not to create new combat formations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: And joining us now, retired Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt. He was the deputy secretary of State until earlier this year, and now joining us from Washington.

Good to see you.

GEN. MARK KIMMITT, FORMER DEPTY SECRETARY OF STATE: Good to see you.

WHITFIELD: What is troubling or alarming about what's taking place in Afghanistan?

KIMMITT: Well, nothing, really. It's a tough fight. Our soldiers on the ground know it's a tough fight. The recent activity that the Taliban may be because they believe there's an opportunity. They perhaps see weakness on our part. But I think we've got the right strategy on the ground and I think over time our troops are going to do what needs to be done.

WHITFIELD: Really? Nothing really troubles you about what's taken that place now? It seems this war is taking a new shape. It seemed to be quieting down in terms of U.S. casualties, British casualties. And then in the recent months, casualties on both sides, U.S. and British, have been going up and we're seeing an insurgency that much more sophisticated and brutal.

KIMMITT: There's no doubt about that. It may be in response to what they had seen as a lack of clarity on the part of the international community to fight this war. The enemy is going to take advantage when they see weakness. If they see strength, they see persistent, they see a response, I feel very confident that over time that we can get Afghanistan where it needs to be.

WHITFIELD: Do you feel the Taliban is exhibiting that they feel they have the advantage, particularly since there is Private First Class Bowe Bergdahl in captivity? They boldly released this tape last week showing him in captivity. Is this the Taliban's way, or whoever may be responsible for that, trying to say, we've got the upper hand?

KIMMITT: Well, if the do think they have the upper hand, it becomes even more important to the international community and for our forces to demonstrate that that is a fleeting moment and that we can get the upper hand back for the Afghan citizens themselves.

WHITFIELD: What are your concerns for those U.S. troops making their way to Afghanistan from Iraq? It's a very different kind of war. There have been some military personnel who say that it is difficult to make that kind of transition. And many of those troops who are being relocated from Iraq to Afghanistan are being put at a disadvantage. What do you say to that?

KIMMITT: First of all, I'm not certain we are actually taking forces from Iraq and sending them to Afghanistan. In most cases, it was units that were otherwise going to be going to Iraq that will now be going to Afghanistan. I would be troubled if they didn't get sufficient training while they were back in the states or in Europe before they deployed. They need to get that training. Otherwise, it's a very, very unwelcome and hostile territory they'll be coming into.

WHITFIELD: What kind of concerns do you have that the focus for a number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan has to be now on the poppy fields? On the farmers? On trying to weed out what is a cash cow and what's fueling the Taliban? Is it a concern to you that some of the U.S. efforts, the focus is being changed, all because of the poppy growth, the poppy fields?

KIMMITT: When you go after an army, you not only go after his forces, but his sources of supply and sources of strength. If, in fact, the Taliban is being fed by the poppy harvest, we've got to take that capability away from them.

As was said earlier, that's really a role for the civilian institutions, such as the drug enforcements agency and U.S. Embassy, but there is a role for the military to support that effort to enable that effort.

WHITFIELD: All right, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, thanks so much for joining us. Appreciate your time.

KIMMITT: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: All right. Much more straight ahead involving all that's taking place in Afghanistan. The Afghan people, the civilians, particularly the women, have growing concerns about their rights and perhaps losing even more.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: More now on the focus of Afghanistan. Women's rights, already limited in that country and now, new concerns that it's worsening.

Here now is CNN's Atia Abawi.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ATIA ABAWI, CNN NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Women in Afghanistan have few rights enjoyed by men and now some may have even fewer. The Afghan parliament pass add bill intended to give the minority Shia community their own identity, but the latest draft appears to strip women of rights as simple as leaving the house without permission from a male relative, and as extreme as allowing a man to have sexual intercourse with his wife even if she says no.

Critics of the bill wonder about what amounts to rape in marriage can be passed by parliament and signed by President Hamid Karzai into law. And some lawmakers are baffled as well.

(on camera): This is the conference room of the lower house of the parliament, initially debated the Shia law. Out of the 249 members in the lower house, 68 are women, and some of those women actually voted for the bill to pass.

Fawzia Koofi voted against it, a rare voice for women's rights in a male-dominated country. Following her father's food steps, she went into politics and is a member of the Afghan parliament. She says that after the vote there was confusion. Some had no idea what they were voting for. And now those without voices will suffer.

FAWZIA KOOFI, AFGHAN PARLIAMENT MEMBER: My fear is that women and children of Afghanistan are always the victim of political games. They don't have the gun to fight. They cannot create a mass.

ABAWI: For the international community, the law's a problem. It wants a free Afghan to make its own decisions, but this law an affront to the principle of donors. And Fawzia Koofi says they should not be silenced.

KOOFI: I think in certain cases the international community also forgets the truth. We don't mean or I don't ask the international community to come and make laws for us. But they have to make the government of Afghanistan accountable for their commitment to women and children's situation. And basically the human rights situation in this country.

ABAWI: Critics of law hope the Supreme Court might rule it's at odds with Article 22 of the Afghan constitution, which promises equal rights to all citizens, man and woman. Most Afghans haven't yet heard of the law but at least one Shia man thought it appropriate.

MOHAMMED ZAHIR, SHIA RESIDENT (through Translation): Shia people are in Afghanistan. They are a part of Afghanistan and there needs to be a law that they go by and follow.

ABAWI: The women? they're harder to find and less ready to speak up.

Atia Abawi, CNN, Kabul.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Our next guest has a special interest in what happens in Afghanistan, particularly as it pertains to women. Was born there, but her family fled when she was just 2. And in her soon-to-be- released book, "However Tall the Mountain" she tells her story and the story of several girls with whom she kept touch with over the years. And she joins us now from Philadelphia.

Good to see you.

AWISTA AYUB, AUTHOR "HOWEVER TALL THE MOUNTAIN": Thank you for seeing me.

WHITFIELD: Is it your feeling the women in Afghanistan as a whole want the same things that the Afghan women who are now currently living abroad, such as yourself, and people you know who are living in the united states, do you all want the same thing for the women in Afghanistan?

AYUB: Sure. I mean, I would say on the very surface, yes, it is easy to say we want the same things, but I haven't experienced the struggles and know what it's like more so on a daily basis to know what they're up against. I think very much so when it comes to women's rights, it has to be organic and come locally. It's not enough for me to tell them what they need. But really, they have to speak up for themselves.

In your piece you just showed, with Fawzia Koofi, who is a very prominent member of the parliament, as a woman, is doing that. And it's much more important and more critical that she speaks up, because I am not there every day and she is. And she is the one who better knows the struggles that women in her own country face. WHITFIELD: What has happened for women in Afghanistan? Because immediately after the fall of the Taliban, shortly after 2001, there was this great rise of hope for women, because the Taliban being accused of holding women down in so many different levels. But not all of the sudden in the past year or so, a bubbling up of talk of endorsements of Shia laws, that women are losing a lot of the rights that they gained just in the past seven to years.

AYUB: Sure. I mean, I think there is so much hope and optimism. Soon after 9/11, and when the insurgency -- when the Taliban retreated from Kabul. Sadly, a lot of that hope and optimism is gone. What's happened really, too, is there hasn't been a concentrated effort to bring up also men within the community? And in my own book I talk about that. That just as much as the women that have suffered, they garnered the most amount of attention. It's also the men who've suffered alongside them.

To some degree you're seeing some sort of resentment. I've worked with youth there and I've talked to the men and boys and a lot of times they too say, where are opportunities for us. They're only focusing on the women.

When you look at the development the past several years, that was one area where maybe we should have focused more, is working and looking at the people as a whole, versus looking at one segment of the population, and not alienating others along the way.

WHITFIELD: I mentioned Shia law. When we talk about these young boy, young men, and some of them are feeling a little neglected because of so much attention on what's happens -- what can become of the girls, what can become of the women? Do some of these young men aspire to -- are they hopeful. Are they encouraged by the Taliban, this rising power? Or is that a very antiquated view of things?

AYUB: I think right now the alternatives and the options for many of the youth boys and girls, that's something that I speak often is that they don't have many options as a whole. Regardless of what gender they are, as long as they don't have a solid form of education, and if their basic human needs are met, certainly any alternative become as very lucrative idea.

WHITFIELD: What's your hope out of this war and what are the, I guess, signals of hope as you see this war evolve and change? It's taking lots of different shapes and forms within recent months. What's the realistic hope of what could come out of this?

AYUB: Well, there are two things. My work in Afghanistan with the youth has shown me that if you do focus on them, they will respond. They will be very receptive to opportunities that are provided to them. For me, my work is mostly with the girls' soccer program, whether on the field or off.

I would say that the current administration fortunately has what the previous administration sadly didn't have, to no fault of their own. But that's experience. We've been in Afghanistan seven years and we have to be able to look at those seven years and figure out where we went wrong, but also where we went right. And I think moving forward, this current administration needs to assess the situation honestly and openly and be constructive how to move forward. To say that we might have failed in some areas isn't a bad thing. It's certainly a good thing to be able to assess that.

I think where it can go, it can only go up, but I think the moment is critical and the time is critical now for this administration to really figure out how we can work to move it forward. And I think particularly when you look at the youth, they don't have much of a voice at all within the political process. And oftentimes, their voice gets lost. What I tried to do -- and you read the book. It's giving them a voice now and it's important to understand what they've gone through, about how there is hope for the future. And I think if there's any hope down the road that, I think, in 20 years, it starts now. The seeds are planted today.

WHITFIELD: Awista Ayub, and the upcoming book "However Tall the Mountain."

Thanks for your time. I appreciate that.

AYUB: Thanks for having me.

WHITFIELD: You made reference to the Obama administration and how and what it will do to respond to this war. A lot of people are calling this Obama's war. And just looking at the blog and Facebook, many of you are taking issue with that.

We will be talking with our Bill Schneider about exactly what is at stake and what this current administration can or should be doing as it pertains to Afghanistan.

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WHITFIELD: The fighting in Afghanistan might have started with the U.S. invasion in 2001 under the Bush administration, but it is President Obama's war now. So is his administration going about it the right way?

This week, Vice President Joe Biden did an interview with the BBC saying -- I'm quoting here now -- "It is worth the effort. We are making a sacrifice that is being felt and more will come. It is a place that, if it doesn't get straightened out, will continue to wreak havoc on Europe and the United States."

CNN's senior political analyst, Bill Schneider, joins us live from Washington.

So this war, inherited by the Obama administration, but why is it being called the Obama war? Why is now he bearing the responsibility of either ending it or offering some resolution to it? BILL SCHNEIDER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: It's not Obama's war. He wasn't there when the invasion happened a few months after 9/11. He was in Illinois. This is America's war. And even more that it is the war fought by the entire western alliance. NATO has troops. All the countries in NATO are supporting this war in Afghanistan to protect European and North American civilization, Western civilization from the terrorist threat. To call it Obama's war, that's something that's done by Obama's critics and it's quite unfair.

It is, however, a difficult war and it's a war that Americans are becoming more wary about as casualties mount, as Americans begin to be taken prisoner, as we hear news of suicide bombings, of mines going off and, of course, the tragic deaths of Afghan civilians as a result of this war.

WHITFIELD: So a lot at stake. The British have lost a number of people, just as the U.S. has lost, particularly a lot of people, too. The British have 9,000 soldiers in Afghanistan and this month alone have lost 19 soldiers. The Americans so far -- we're talking about 30 Americans that have died in the first few weeks of July, surpassing June's total of 28. So an awful lot at stake for both Great Britain, as well as the U.S. But might the alliance between the U.S. and Britain, might be jeopardized? Could it be that Great Britain is saying, not sure if we really want to stay in this that much longer? If so, what kind of blow would that be for the U.S.?

SCHNEDIER: I was recently in London, and the newspapers and television news reports were full of criticism of the Afghan war. The principle criticism was that the British government, the government of the Labor Party, Gordon Brown, was not giving the British troops enough arms, enough equipment, and enough protection. They were pinching pennies. They weren't giving them enough support. And that was one reason why they were under equipment and why so many British soldiers were being lost.

There is a mounting volume of criticism, however, in Britain of their effort in Afghanistan, of what this war is being fought for. A poll was taken and showed the British public still is in support of this war as is the American public. There is a growing wariness. The question is not the justifications of the war. You don't find the rage you found over the Iraq war, which was really fought on a deception about weapons of mass destruction and links to 9/11. Know question the Taliban in Afghanistan protected al Qaeda and were linked to 9/11.

The issue is what is the United States, Britain and the western alliance, what will constitute victory? What are they fighting for? Is it a military victory? Is this a political war? That has yet to be clarified.

WHITFIELD: All right. CNN Political Analyst Bill Schneider thanks so much for joining us from Washington. Appreciate it.

Thanks so much to many of our guests joining us this hour for this discussion, Ivan Watson out of Afghanistan; journalist, Gretchen Peters, who also joined us at the top of the hour; Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt; and author, Awista Ayub; and, of course, our Bill Schneider there as well.

I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Thanks to you for contributing with your questions and comments throughout this hour. I'll see you again tomorrow.

The next hour of the CNN NEWSROOM, just minutes away.

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