Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Taliban Frees Captive U.S. Soldier; Flight 370 Search Goes Back to Square One

Aired May 31, 2014 - 19:00   ET

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

RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Randi Kaye, in for Don Lemon.

President Obama just had two special guests with him in the White House Rose Garden, the mother and father of Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl, the soldier who had been held captive by the Taliban nearly five years. Today, the president surprised them with the news that their son was coming home. The deal was made, five terror suspects held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in exchange for Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl.

A few hours, a U.S. Special Forces picked him up and he is safe at a base in Afghanistan.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Sergeant Bergdahl has missed birthdays and holidays and the simple moments with family and friends, which all of us take for granted. But while Bowe was gone, he was never forgotten. His parents thought about him and prayed for him every single day.

JANI BERGDAHL, BOWE BERGDAHL'S MOTHER: We will continue to stay strong for Bowe while he recovers. Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: And joining me now, Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr, senior international correspondent Nic Robertson in London, and former war correspondent and documentary filmmaker Mike Boettcher.

Good to see all of you.

Barbara, this means that there are no longer any American troops being held captive from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I would imagine there is some sense of celebration about that at the Pentagon today.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think that everyone is very pleased, very happy that Bowe Bergdahl is finally out free and on his way home to his family. There is no question about that. This is a place where, you know, lives by the motto, "leave no one behind." They take it very seriously regardless of circumstances, everybody comes home.

And the president referred to that even about when he spoke about those still missing from previous conflicts, about Americans, civilian Americans being held overseas in a number of countries, the U.S. believes very unjustly. You know, the idea is that this should not happen to anybody.

Bergdahl's case, very delicate, however, very sensitive. We do not know what happened with this young man. Almost five years ago, the word was that he walked out of his base in eastern Afghanistan and was quickly kidnapped by the Taliban. But nobody has ever heard from Bowe Bergdahl as a free man to tell the world what happened to him.

Certainly, Army officials are going to be talking to him in the coming hours, trying to get some idea of what did happen, but right now, the real priority is to get him all of the medical care he needs -- any counseling, any assistance, any repatriation assistance back into Western society and get him home to his family.

KAYE: And, Nic, there's certainly another side to Bergdahl's release today. I mean, five men who were detained at Guantanamo are freed as well. What do you know about the back story of how this exchange went down?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We know the Taliban have been demanding the release of these five people in Guantanamo Bay. They are five senior Taliban figures. One of them was a former deputy defense minister and one a former interior minister and one a former deputy head of intelligence, another, a governor of two different provinces under the Taliban' not believed to have had connections with al Qaeda.

But this is the way the Taliban operates. It captures people and done this in Pakistan and done this in Afghanistan, and then demanded the release of their own prisoners who had been held by those particular government. So, this is perhaps nothing new, but it's been in the works for a couple of years. It stalled on a number of occasions but now with the help of Qataris, as the middle man, building confidences on both sides making this happen, not direct talks, indirect talks, again, using the Qatari middle man. It has worked this time.

There are probably very many things that could have gone wrong. Fortunately, for everyone, it didn't this time.

KAYE: Very fortunate.

Mike, you spent some considerable time in Afghanistan for your documentary, "Hornets Nest."

You're familiar with that frontier on border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. I mean, is that a place where, where you can hide a captive for five years easily?

MIKE BOETTCHER, FORMER WAR CORRESPONDENT: Well, you can hide them easily across the border in Pakistan, in North Waziristan province, because that is a strictly no go zone. The Pakistani army doesn't even go there.

And as Nic mentioned earlier, there have been many al Qaeda and Taliban training bases there. Because of the U.S. drone program, the drone attacks in that area, that really killed a lot of top leadership in North Waziristan from the Haqqani Network, which I guess the way to describe Haqqani Network as Taliban on steroids, frankly. They had to break up in smaller camps and he was likely kept in one of those smaller camps and moved around. But along the frontier, Paktika province, the few U.S. soldiers we had along that area always had their eye but it was always suspected he was in Northern Waziristan.

KAYE: And for Barbara, for the viewers might be just joining us, share with us if you would that moment that you told us all about many earlier today about when Bowe Bergdahl was on that helicopter with the commandos and what happened.

STARR: Well, what we are told by several U.S. defense officials, they got him very quickly on to the helicopter. Military helicopters are very noisy. You can't really talk when you're aboard them. You use hand signals or write notes.

Apparently, we are told, Bowe Bergdahl wrote down on paper the initials "S.F.", with a question mark, meaning special forces, are you guys Special Forces? And the troops that had come to rescue him said, yes, we are, we have been looking for you. And, at that point, we are told that Bowe Bergdahl broke down.

I've talked to folks about this here at the Pentagon this afternoon. They take it as a very good sign, after all this time, if he wrote down "S.F.", if he still has the comprehension, the understanding, the memory to realize special forces and that it was most likely special forces that had come to get him in such dire circumstances, actually folks here take it as a good sign that he may be in a good place in understanding what has happened to him.

KAYE: And, Mike, I mean, I'd like to you react to that, because what is your read on that? You've been in his shoes. You were taken as well.

BOETTCHER: You know, it's a traumatic experience. It's going to take a while to come back from that dark period. It took me a while to come back from it. You live each day in the hands of someone else. They feed you, they are the ones that give you shelter, and they are the ones who can decide if you're going to live or die.

And then, the Stockholm syndrome develops where you start to identify with your captors. It's going to be a tough time for him to readjust, to come back, to even speak English again which he probably hasn't been speaking much. And so, he's going to need some of the best counseling that there is out there to re-enter into American society again.

KAYE: Mike and Barbara and Nic, thank you all very much. Appreciate you weighing in on this and your expertise as well. Thank you.

And don't go anywhere because Bow Bergdahl's former roommate will be joining me, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) KAYE: It's our breaking news this hour. An American soldier held captive by the Taliban for nearly five years is coming home. Just a short time ago, President Obama appeared with the mother and father of Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl. The president said it was his honor to break the news to Bowe's parents that their son was coming home -- a happy day at the White House Rose Garden.

It's also a happy day in Bowe Bergdahl's hometown, Haley, Idaho.

I want to talk now to Sherry Horton, who is in Haley right now.

Sherry, you know Bowe. First, tell me, I guess well do you know him? How do you know him? And you just saw his parents with the president, what do you make of that?

SHERRY HORTON, BOWE BERGDAHL'S FORMER ROOMMATE: Amazing. Amazing -- just to even see them at the White House. We have all been dreaming about the day that the president and they got together and made this announcement. So, it's just for everyone in town, it's such an incredible happy day.

I met him a few years ago, he came in to the dance studio and decided he wanted to try to do ballet and became one of my very best students and after that, we became very close friends and, at one point, he needed a place to live, I needed a roommate, and we were just the best of roommates and the best of friends.

KAYE: And how much have you worried about him over these last five years?

HORTON: It's been immense! It's never out of your mind. You just kind of hope that every day, you get kind of good news. You know, the videos we got were always reassuring so that was always a nice positive something to put into our life that we were still seeing proof of life videos. But we always were just hoping for this day. We have been every day for five years.

KAYE: I want to go back to that moment where his parents spoke from the White House rose garden and I want to ask you about that after this.

HORTON: OK.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J. BERGDAHL: Everywhere. We will continue to stay strong for Bowe while he recovers. Thank you.

BOB BERGDAHL, SGT. BOWE BERGDAHL'S FATHER: I'd like to say to Bowe right now who is having trouble speaking English. (SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE) I'm your father, Bowe.

To people of Afghanistan, the same. (SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE).

The complicated nature of this recovery was -- will never really be comprehended. To each and every single one who affected this in this country, in the service branches, at the State Department, throughout the whole of American government, and around the world, international governments around the world, thank you so much. We just can't communicate the words this morning when we heard from the president.

So, we looked forward to continuing the recovery of our son which is going to be a considerable task for our family and we hope that the media will understand that will keep us very preoccupied in the coming days and weeks as he gets back home to the United States. Thank you all for being here very much.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: So, Sherry, let me ask you -- you know Bowe. You know his family. How will they manage to get through this as a family unit?

HORTON: They are a very tight-knit family. They have been that way for as long as I've known them. They have -- Bowe was home-schooled growing up so he is very, very close to his parents through all of the home schooling and their vacations and everything. They have been so strong throughout this entire ordeal.

I know between what they are doing and they will -- they are going to survive this. With a close-knit community like we have here, everyone in the town is very supportive of them and they will get through fine.

KAYE: And what is the plan for when he finally does return back to Hailey?

HORTON: Well, strangely enough, we had already -- every summer, is there a rally for Bowe with thousands of motorcycle riders and it is scheduled for next weekend, and so we are very excited that instead of being an awareness rally it's now going to be a celebratory rally. So, we already have the plans in the making for a big party.

KAYE: A lot to celebrate for sure. Sherry Horton, appreciate your time. Thank you.

HORTON: Thank you very much.

KAYE: Well, it was a devastating blow this week. News that the pings detected in the southern Indian Ocean did not come from Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. So, was the entire search so far a waste? And nearly three months later, are we really any closer to solving the mystery of the missing plane? Our panel will talk it over, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Back to square one. That's the devastating news this week on the search for Malaysian Flight 370. Australian officials now say they don't think the missing plane is in the area of the southern Indian Ocean where underwater pings were picked up last month.

So, has the entire search the last eleven weeks been a complete waste?

CNN's Rene Marsh has more on what's next for missing Flight 370.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RENE MARSH, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Private contractors around the world are vying to take over the search for Malaysia Airline Flight 370, preparing bids that could run into tens of millions of dollars, for a search that most likely won't resume for months.

MIKE PURCELL, SENIOR ENGINEER, WOODS HOLE OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTE: I think people are interested in getting the job because it's potentially profitable because it could be long duration. So, it's certainly -- any company that put their equipment to work and keep it out there is probably going to be successful.

MARSH: While the multinational investigative team may have cancelled its day-to-day search, the Chinese navy is continuing to map the ocean floor, all in an effort to get a head start to whatever private contractor takes over. One hundred and fifty-three of the 239 passengers on board Flight 370 were Chinese.

Complicating matters, the bombshell revelation to CNN this week by one of the U.S. Navy's top salvage experts, who says the pings believed to be from the airplane's black boxes were likely not from the plane at all.

MICHAEL DEAN, U.S. NAVY: If that black box were nearby, we would have picked it up on the imagery data.

MARSH: There is still disagreement about where the next phase of the search should go. Some, including Australia's deputy prime minister, believe contractors should move on from the area of the Indian Ocean where four pings were detected over the course of several days.

WARREN TRUSS, AUSTRALIAN DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: No signs of aircraft debris have been found. The area can now be discounted as the final resting place for MH370.

MARSH: While others say at least some of the underwater pings must have come from the black boxes and the search area shouldn't be discounted just because the plane hasn't been found.

DAVID MEARNS, SEARCH/RESCUE EXPERT, BLUE WATER RECOVERIES, LTD: You cannot reproduce this stuff. You can't reproduce it by -- by natural means or the Earth isn't doing it, the ocean isn't doing it, the animals are not doing it. And their ship is not doing it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAYE: All right. So what now?

Let me bring in my panel to discuss all of this -- Jeff Wise is a CNN aviation analyst and author. Paul Ginsberg is forensic audio expert and president of Professional Audio Laboratories. Daniel Rose is an aviation and maritime attorney. And David Gallo is a CNN analyst and director of special projects at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Welcome to all of you.

Paul, let me start with you on this one. If not the Flight 370 pings, what were they?

PAUL GINSBERG, FORENSIC AUDIO EXPERT: Well, it's hard to tell because what we get is sort of filtered information. We get -- we get information that changes, whether it's the altitude, the heading, the transcript, the composite recordings that they finally gave us and now whether or not we have pings.

KAYE: Were they man-made then?

GINSBERG: We want to be on the ship and observing them and make that decision. It's hard to tell from what we're hearing. It just changes every day.

KAYE: It certainly does. David, you say there is certainly much debate about the nature of the pings. Why is that?

DAVID GALLO, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: In the beginning there was, Randi, because we didn't have enough evidence and no one on the outside had the actual data to look at. All reading between the lines on what has been released. So, I think that's very normal that there would be some debate about what those pings were in the beginning.

KAYE: So, I guess, Jeff, what does this mean in terms of the crazy conspiracy theories that are out there?

JEFF WISE, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, really, Randi, there's two big mysteries involving MH370. One is, what happened to the plane and where did it go? The other big mystery is, why are the authorities behaving the way they are? I mean, we spent a month searching meticulously this stretch of ocean, spending millions -- tens of millions of dollars. And now that the data finally gets released only after the fact they tell us the last two pings were even more different frequency.

So, there's -- we don't know why they are behaving the way they are in and this Inmarsat data released this week too and that is another big baffling mystery. We can't reach any conclusions based on what they are telling us.

KAYE: Yes.

So, Dan, when it comes to the data, how much faith at this point -- they have released 47 pages or something like that of the data, but how much faith should we have in the credibility of the authorities at this point?

DANIEL ROSE, AVIATION AND MARITIME ATTORNEY: It's a good question. Given the track record over the last three months, I don't see how you can have a lot of faith in it. You know, first and foremost, the families are the ones who are, you know, critically independence in getting the answers that they need and want, and they are, yet again, being kind of thrown on a false hope.

You know, it's borderline cruel really to the families in that regard.

KAYE: Yes.

I want to play this bit. I spoke earlier with Clive Irving, an aviation expert and "Daily Beast" contributor. Let's listen to what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLIVE IRVING, CONTRIBUTOR, THE DAILY BEAST: I think they were enormous emotional pressure to raise hopes and raise expectations to get some chance they would find the wreckage pretty soon and, of course, that hasn't happened. I think one lesson from this is the politicians should keep out of situations like this. I think the Australian prime minister when he said they were very close to finding the black boxes should not have spoken because he spoke with no real background information on that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: So, Jeff, do you agree with that? Should he just have kept his mouth shut and not provided false hope?

WISE: We don't know what he was told. We don't know what the analysis was based on. You know, we are just on the outside looking in and I think we are all equally baffled what is going on.

KAYE: I mean, the thing is that it was never really explained why the frequencies were low. I mean, we never really got any answers.

GINSBERG: Good night -- what was the first translation? All right, all right, good night, which, obviously, did not appear on the radio. We have no idea why they are giving us this information that clearly is not accurate.

KAYE: And certainly for the families, Dan, do they have to wait to get final confirmation of what happened? Do they have to see a plane or have to see the debris to get any type of insurance pad or anything like that?

ROSE: First and foremost, on personal and psychological level, I think a lot of them need that and that is the most important thing that goes part and parcel with the answers, but certainly, you know, to the extent there are any legal claims that come out of this, you know, we are really back at the same place we were three months ago, and you need to get some hard and fast evidence to move forward.

KAYE: Right. And, David Gallo, just very quickly. You're on the phone with us. Tell me I mean, what is the next step here then?

GALLO: Well, we switch tactics. Instead of throwing that dart and moving the bluefin to where the sound is coming from it's a long stretch. And the public's got to understand this, for the sake of the family members we need to enforce this is going to take a long time to cover that much ground coming up.

KAYE: David, Daniel, Paul, Jeff, thank you all very much. Appreciate it.

And join us tomorrow morning at 6:00 a.m. for "NEW DAY." And don't miss "STATE OF THE UNION" at 9:00 a.m. and noon Eastern Time. National security adviser Susan Rice is Candy Crowley's guest.

Thanks so much for joining us tonight. I'm Randi Kaye. Good night, everyone.