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Pope Francis Makes Stunning Announcement; Top CIA Chief in Afghanistan Has Cover Blown by White House; Obama Speech on U.S. Troops in Afghanistan.

Aired May 27, 2014 - 14:30   ET

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

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BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Bottom of the hour, I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Even after an exhausting whirlwind three-day trip to the Middle East, the 77-year-old Pope Francis still managed enough energy to make some stunning news today. Speaking with reporters on that plane for about an hour back to Rome, the pope told them that allowing priests to marry some day isn't out of the question.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POPE FRANCIS (through translation): Celibacy is not a dogma. It is a rule of life that I appreciate very much. And I think it is a gift for the church. But since it is not a dogma, the door is always open.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: The door is always open.

John Allen is our senior Vatican analyst and associate editor at the "Boston Globe."

You were on that plane, you heard him say this. And all of this, of course, comes after we talked about the letter that the pope got from the priest's girlfriend, wanting to change the rules on marriage and sex. Can you interpret what the pope was really saying there?

JOHN ALLEN, CNN SENIOR VATICAN ANALYST & ASSOCIATE EDITOR, BOSTON GLOBE: Well, first of all, Brooke, just indicate how remarkable this was. You indicated this came at the end of the three-day, incredibly difficult trip to the Middle East. You know, the pope came out to do this press conference. He was into it for about a half hour. His spokesperson tried to cut it off at that point and the pope said, no, I want to keep going. These comments about celibacy came on the other end of that attempt to wrap things up. His reservoir of energy is remarkable. He's the energizer bunny of popes.

BALDWIN: I'm going to quote you on that, John Allen.

ALLEN: Please do. But to come to this point about celibacy, look, Brooke, we should say this is absolutely nothing new. Anybody who has commented in officialdom on the rule of priests and celibacy will tell you, this is a discipline, not a dogma. That is, it's a tradition, but it's not something that comes from the law of god. In fact, the Catholic Church already has married priests. There are 22 eastern churches, there is the great Catholic Church in the Ukraine, for example, or the Coptic Church in Egypt, that has married clergy. They're also in the United States, a few hundred priests who came into the Catholic Church, either from the Episcopalian Church or Lutheran Church, who were married before they came into the Catholic Church became priests and were allowed to remain married. There's already precedent. It's simply a question of whether you want to expand that precedent.

You asked me to interpret what Francis is was saying. I think what he was saying is he's not ready to expand that precedent right now, but he's open to the possibility of doing it somewhere down the line.

BALDWIN: Thus leaving the door open. Can I just ask you, because I've never been on a plane with the pope, John Allen? Of course, we remember that plane trip leaving Brazil, heading home, when he made the news talking about homosexuals, saying, who am I to judge. And after this whirlwind trip to the Middle East, talking not just about priestly celibacy and sex abuse and his retirement, his reservoir, as you point out, is this totally unprecedented?

ALLEN: Well, it's not exactly totally unprecedented. In the early John Paul years, John Paul II would come back to the press compartment of the pal plane, and he would move around by language experts. He would do a few minutes with the Italians and a few minutes with the English speakers and a few minutes with the French and so on. But I will tell you, that in recent experience, because, of course, as John Paul got old, that was no longer possible. During the Benedict years, he would do brief encounters with the press, but they were often choreographed affairs. But with the pope addressing the entire press corps, and taking any question under the sun, that is unprecedented. When you cover the Vatican you lay awake at night dreaming of these moments where you'll have these no-holds barred of completely unfiltered and unscripted moments with the pope, to talk about what's on his mind. With Pope Francis we've gotten them. All I can say, is God bless him for doing it for us.

(LAUGHTER)

BALDWIN: John Allen, you have an amazing beat, especially with this pope right now.

Thank you for joining me from Rome. I truly appreciate it tonight.

Moving on, as President Obama gets ready to make a huge announcement about Afghanistan, the CIA's top agent there is no longer under cover. The Kabul station chief's name appeared on this list of people who briefed President Obama during a surprise trip over the weekend to meet with those troops. It was a "Washington Post" reporter who was a student, that caught the error, but not before the White House blasted the list to more than 6,000 media.

Former CIA officer, Gary Bernsten, worked as a station chief in Africa and the Middle East, and joins me now.

Gary, welcome.

GARY BERNSTEN, FORMER CIA AGENT: Pleasure to be with you.

BALDWIN: You not only worked for the CIA, you spent a significant amount of time working in Afghanistan. We don't know this individual who has been yanked out of Kabul, you know, put in hiding presumably perhaps. The White House is declining comment. What would you think is probably happening with this individual right now?

BERNSTEN: Well, let me just say, first off, it was a mistake. It wasn't malicious.

BALDWIN: Right.

BERNSTEN: Unfortunately, these types of things do happen. But I'm not seeing it on a scale where it was sent out to 6,000 people. That's taking it to a new height. But that individual's career will be negatively affected. They won't be able to serve in certain places around the world which might have been a follow-up assignment to that assignment. Look, there's no secret the CIA operates and is involved, especially involved in the invasion that the CIA had a presence there. And the area that the agency operates, within the official, you know, green zone there, sort of area, you know, they continue their assignment. The station chief is in charge of the ambassador. I expect they should be able to continue to play that. But it will hurt that person's individual career long term. I don't see it anywhere near as damaging as what happened to Edward Snowden. Snowden's 1,000, this is a one.

BALDWIN: But on this one, as you point out, it would affect future assignments, I'm also wondering, because you have to assume this person has created inroads on the ground there, connections to sources, how much of that effort would it affect?

BERNSTEN: With a senior person like that, a senior CIA officer managing major programs, they're not going to be running around meeting with people in cafes. They're there mining the major program, advising the senior staff, and senior military command there. They're not going to be out on the streets alone. They would have significant security. They can manage this thing. The director of the CIA has been around a long time. So it's yet a career in the agency. It's an unfortunate thing that happened. And things like this do happen. Unfortunately, it's human intelligence and people make mistakes.

I'll say this, though, in my career, mistakes were never made in the Congress, in the sense that House Permanent Subcommittee on Intelligence, or the Senate Select Committee for Intelligence, we didn't have mistakes there. Mistakes were traditionally made out of the White House, young staffers that did not have experience in Washington. That's almost always the case.

BALDWIN: So if that is the case, just quickly, what degree of punishment do you think this person should receive?

BERNSTEN: Well, someone will probably get at least a security violation. They'll probably lose their job for what's happened. BALDWIN: OK.

BERNSTEN: Probably lose their job.

BALDWIN: Gary Bernsten, thank you for joining us. Appreciate your perspective there, former CIA.

Coming up next, we're watching the White House very closely. Live pictures from the Rose Garden. Because the president will be making an announcement there regarding the war in Afghanistan, involving specific numbers when it comes to American troop levels. We will bring those comments to you live right here on CNN. Stay with me.

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington, for CNN special coverage.

President Obama only moments away from a historic milestone. The lectern out in the Rose Garden for the commander-in-chief to announce to the country, and indeed to the world, that America's war in Afghanistan, he said America's longest war, only months away from concluding.

Under the plan, America's force structure in Afghanistan, still about 32,000 troops, would shrink going into the start of 2015, to 9,800 U.S. troops. They would be there for training purposes only, plus, some specific counter-terror operations. By 2016, he's planning to cut that force under 5,000 troops. They would be stationed solely in the capital of Kabul, as well as the Bagram Air Base. Beyond that, normal embassy security personnel with special provisions for security in the Afghan capital beginning in 2017 would continue.

This is the war that started less than a month after al Qaeda, using Afghanistan as a launching base, launched the attacks on September 11th, 2001. Nearly 2,200 Americans have died in the war in Afghanistan. The war also has claimed the lives of an estimated 20,000 Afghan civilians.

There's lots to understand right now. Let's bring in our senior White House correspondent, Jim Acosta; Jake Tapper, our chief Washington correspondent; our chief political analyst, Gloria Borger; as well as our senior international correspondent, Nick Paton Walsh; and our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr.

Jim Acosta, you're our man at the White House right now. Set the scene for us. The president about to walk into the Rose Garden.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf. We'll hear the president a few moments from now. He is expected to be on time. Expected to lay out what will be the final chapter in the war in Afghanistan. You laid out the four-structure schedule for the next several years, 9,800 troops, next year half of that, by the end of next year, embassy personnel by the end of 2016. Wolf, that is bringing a full stop to the war in Afghanistan.

And we just heard over my shoulder a few moments ago, a two-minute warning to the president.

A couple of things important to point out. Senior administration officials just wrapped up a conference call with reporters in the last several minutes. And during that conference call, a senior administration official made it very clear that Afghan security forces, Wolf, will be responsible for the security needs of the Afghan people starting next year, that the U.S., as you just said, Wolf, will be there for training purposes and specific counterterrorism operations. But they're not there to fight. The U.S. combat operation is coming to an end at the end of this year. You will hear the president say it in just a few moments.

And of course, all of this depends on the next president of Afghanistan. Hamid Karzai, the current president, said he's not signing that bilateral security agreement. The next president -- and there's going to be a run after next month between two men -- who indicated they will sign that agreement. But during the conference call, senior administration officials said absent that BSA, that Bilateral Security Agreement, there will be no U.S. forces in Afghanistan at the end of this year.

So the president going to lay that all out on the table before he goes up to West Point tomorrow to put this announcement for Afghanistan in a larger foreign policy picture. That speech at the commencement at West Point tomorrow morning -- Wolf?

BLITZER: The president will simply make a statement now, Jim, he's not going to answer reporters' questions, right?

ACOSTA: That's right. But I think you can expect several of us to try to ask him some questions before he leaves here. We do think that this will be a lengthier statement than you might typically see here in the Rose Garden. I don't think this is going to be a brief statement, Wolf. This could go on for several minutes as the president tries to lay out specifically how this will all work. It is a complicated plan. There are still critics up on capitol hill who are saying, and Lindsey Graham, Republican Senator from South Carolina, was tweeting earlier today, the president is not ending wars, he's losing wars. He's sharply critical of this plan in Afghanistan. So is John McCain as well, that this rapid drawdown over a two-year period from 100,000 troops from a couple of years ago to zero by the end of 2016, except for embassy security. That's a pretty dramatic end to the war in Afghanistan -- Wolf?

BLITZER: Stand by, Jim. We're going to talk to you after the president's speech.

Jake tapper is here. Gloria is here.

Jake, is this what they wanted for next year in Afghanistan?

JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: The military doesn't -- Oh, there's President Obama right now.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As you know, this weekend, I traveled to Afghanistan to thank our men and women in uniform, and our deployed civilians on behalf of a grateful nation, for the extraordinary sacrifices they make on behalf of our security. I was also able to meet with our commanding general and ambassador to review the progress that we've made. And today I'd like to update the American people on the way forward in Afghanistan and how this year we will bring America's longest war to a responsible end.

The United States did not seek this fight. We went into Afghanistan out of necessity, after our nation was attacked by al Qaeda on September 11th, 2001. We went to war against al Qaeda and its extremist allies with the strong support of the American people and their representatives in Congress, with the international community, and our NATO allies, and with the Afghan people who welcomed the opportunity of a life free from the dark tyranny of extremists.

We have now been in Afghanistan longer than many Americans expected. But make no mistake, thanks to the skill and sacrifice of our troops, diplomats and intelligence professionals, we have struck significant blows against al Qaeda's leadership. We have eliminated Osama bin Laden. And we've prevented Afghanistan from being used to launch attacks against our homeland. We've also supported the Afghan people as they continue to the hard work to build a democracy. We've extended more opportunities to their people, including women and girls. And we've helped train and equip their own security forces. Now we're finishing the job we started.

Over the last several years, we've worked to transition security responsibilities to the Afghans. One year ago, Afghan forces assumed the lead for combat operations. Since then, they've continued to grow in size and in strength while making huge sacrifices for their country. This transition has allowed us to steadily draw down our own forces, from a peak of 100,000 U.S. troops to roughly 32,000 today. 2014, therefore, is a pivotal year. Together, with our allies and the Afghan government, we have agreed that this is the year we will conclude our combat mission in Afghanistan. This is also a year of political transition in Afghanistan.

Earlier this spring, Afghans turned out in the millions to vote in the first round of their presidential election, defying threats, in order to determine their own destiny. And in just over two weeks, they will vote for their next president. And Afghanistan will see its first democratic transfer of power in history.

In the context of this progress, having consulted with Congress and my national security team, I've determined the nature of the commitment that America's prepared to make beyond 2014. Our objectives are clear, disrupting threats posed by al Qaeda, supporting Afghan security forces, and giving the Afghan people the opportunity to succeed as they stand on their own.

Here's how it will pursue those objectives. First, America's combat mission will be over by the end of this year. Starting next year, Afghans will be fully responsible for securing their country. American personnel will be in an advisory role. We will no longer patrol Afghan cities or towns, mountains or valleys. That is a task for the Afghan people. Second, I've made it clear that we're open to cooperating with Afghans on two narrow missions after 2014, training Afghan forces and supporting counterterrorism operations against the remnants of al Qaeda.

Today, I want to be clear about how the United States is prepared to advance those missions. At the beginning of 2015, we will have approximately 98,000 U.S. -- let me start that over. Just because I want to make sure we don't get this written wrong. At the beginning of 2015, we will have approximately 9,800 U.S. servicemembers in different parts of the country together with our NATO allies and other partners. By the end of 2015, we will have reduced that presence by roughly half. And we'll have consolidated our troops in Kabul and on Bagram Airfield. One year later, by the end of 2016, our military will draw down to a normal embassy presence in Kabul, with a security assistance component just as we've done in Iraq.

Now, even as our troops come home, the international community will continue to support Afghans as they build their country for years to come. But our relationship will not be defined by war. It will be shaped by our financial and development assistance, as well as our diplomatic support. Our commitment to Afghanistan is rooted in the strategic partnership that we agreed to in 2012. And this plan remains consistent with the discussions we've had with our NATO allies. Just as our allies have been with us every step of the way in Afghanistan, we expect that our allies will be with us going forward.

Third, we will only sustain this military presence after 2014 if the Afghan government signs the bilateral security agreement that our two governments have already negotiated. This agreement is essential to give our troops the authorities they need to fulfill their mission, while respecting Afghan sovereignty. The two final Afghan candidates in the runoff election for president have each indicated that they would sign this after take office. So I'm hopeful we can get this done.

The bottom line is, it's time to turn the page on more than a decade in which so much of our foreign policy was focused on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. When I took office, we had nearly 180,000 troops in harm's way. By the end of this year, we will have less than 10,000. In addition to bringing our troops home, this new chapter in American foreign policy will allow us to redirect some of the resources saved by ending these wars to respond more nimbly to the changing threat of terrorism, while addressing a broader set of priorities around the globe.

I think Americans have learned that it's harder to end wars than it is to begin them. That this is how wars end in the 21st century, not through signing ceremonies, but through decisive blows against our adversaries, transitions to elected governments, security forces who are trained to take the lead and ultimately full responsibility.

We remain committed to a sovereign, secure, stable and unified Afghanistan. And toward that end, we will continue to support Afghan- led efforts to promote peace in their country through reconciliation. We have to recognize Afghanistan will not be a perfect place. And it is not America's responsibility to make it one. The future of Afghanistan must be decided by Afghans.

But what the United States can do, what we will do, is secure our interests and help give the Afghans a chance, an opportunity to seek a long overdue and hard-earned peace. America will always keep our commitments to friends and partners who step up, and we will never waver in our determination to deny al Qaeda the safe haven they had before 9/11. That commitment is embodied by the men and women in and out of uniform who serve in Afghanistan today, and who have served in the past.

In their eyes, I see the character that sustains American security, and our leadership abroad. These are mostly young people who did not hesitate to volunteer in a time of war. And as many of them begin to transition to civilian life, we will keep the promise we make to them, and to all veterans, and make sure they get the care and benefits that they have earned and deserve. This 9/11 generation is part of an unbroken line of heroes who give up the comfort of the familiar to serve a half a world away, to protect the families and communities back home and to give people they thought they'd never meet a chance to live a better life. It is an extraordinary sacrifice for them and for their families. But we shouldn't be surprised that they're willing to make it. That's who we are as Americans. That's what we do.

Tomorrow, I'll travel to West Point and speak to America's newest class of military officers, to discuss how Afghanistan fits into our broader strategy going forward. And I'm confident that if we carry out this approach, we cannot only responsibly end our war in Afghanistan, and achieve the objectives that took us to war in the first place, we'll also be able to begin a new chapter in the story of American leadership around the world.

Thanks very much.

BLITZER: So there he is, the president of the United States, wrapping up an announcement, saying that the U.S. combat troops in Afghanistan, for all practical purposes, will be done with at the end of this year. He's reducing the number of U.S. troops who will be in Afghanistan starting next year to 9,800. They'll be backed up by a few thousand NATO troops as well, and then under 5,000 in 2016. All U.S. troops will be out of Afghanistan by the end of 2016, according to his timetable laid out by the president.

We've got our reporters and our analysts standing by for a full analysis of what we just heard from the president. Jake Tapper and Gloria Borger with us.

Let's go to you, Jake, first. You spent a lot of time in Afghanistan. You've written a book about fighting going on there. What do you make of it?

TAPPER: It doesn't surprise me. It was interesting that he mistakenly referred to 98,000 troops being there at the beginning of next year as opposed to 9,800. Because President Obama is the president who tripled the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. It was about 100,000. And according to conversations I've had with aides close to him, I don't think he would do that again today if he knew then what he knows now. He wouldn't have done that. He has come to believe that there are limits to what U.S. military force can do.

The concern that many experts have, many in the military have, is not so much with Afghan security. President Obama said he was reassured after being in Bagram over the weekend. It's the logistical support. This is not a sexy issue. But anytime you send 5,000 troops, you need 3,000 troops to support them, the resupply of ammunition, the medical and food.

The concern that I heard, when I was in Afghanistan last, was that the Afghans were not up to the task. One night, I was embedded with a medevac unit and we picked up a wounded Afghan border security guard, border security guard, and it took half an hour sitting on the tarmac at this Afghan base for the ambulance to come out. And that is where there's going to be a lot of work by this residual 9,800 force in the support for Afghan troops. I don't know if they'll be able to get up to speed from 2015 to 2016.

BLITZER: The criticism already coming in from some Republicans. John McCain issued a statement, together with Lindsey Graham, Kelly Ayotte, saying, "The president's decision to set an arbitrary date for withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan is a monumental mistake in a triumph of politics over strategy. This is a short-sighted decision that will make it harder to end the war in Afghanistan responsibly."

You're not surprised by that criticism?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: No, I'm not surprised by that criticism. I think that's why you heard the president today say it's harder to end a war than it is to begin a war. This is a prelude to the president's speech tomorrow at West Point.