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U.S. General Killed in Afghanistan; Ebola Outbreak; Obama Addresses U.S.-Africa Summit

Aired August 05, 2014 - 15:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: And we continue on, hour two. I'm Brooke Baldwin, beginning with this tragic and troubling news coming out of Afghanistan outside of the capital of Kabul.

A U.S. general has been shot and killed there, one of the highest- ranking war deaths since 9/11 back in 2011. So it happened just outside of Kabul at a training facility for Afghan military officers. Basically, as we have been talking to reporters, calling it the Afghan version of our West Point, where future military leaders within Afghanistan are supposed to be trained.

Now, this American general who has yet to be identified, this general was shot by an assailant, by this gunman believed to have been an Afghan soldier. Up to 15 others, including other Americans were wounded in that attack. We can tell you that the assailant was killed. In the United States, we heard from the spokesperson at the Pentagon, John Kirby.

Rear Admiral John Kirby today insisting that the shooting does not take away from the recent progress made by Afghan military forces. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REAR ADM. JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: I have seen no indication that there's a degradation of trust between coalition members and their Afghan counterparts. I -- and I would encourage you to certainly speak to folks that are over there in Afghanistan. I am not. I understand I'm here at the Pentagon.

But every indication that I have seen is that the partnering and the cooperation just gets -- it gets better and better every week.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Let's take you straight to Afghanistan and just to get some more information from reporter Nathan Hodge of "The Wall Street Journal," and he's joining me live from Kabul. And also former CIA covert operations officer Mike Baker is standing by as well.

But, Nathan, let me just begin with you since you're much closer. Tell me what you have learned about this attack, where did it happen, who was there?

NATHAN HODGE, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": Just as you had said, that this had taken place at a training facility in Kabul that's probably best described at the Afghan West Point, where future Afghan military leaders are being trained, sometimes under the tutelage of Afghan instructors and sometimes under the supervision of U.S. and international instructors.

This happened around midday during what the military calls a key leader engagement. That's basically a meeting between coalition military officers and their counterparts, when the assailant, as we're told, opened fire with a light machine gun, killing the American general and wounding around 15 others, and, in addition, a German general was also wounded in the incident. Several Afghan -- senior Afghan officials were wounded. So this issue certainly is something that revive fears of what the military has called the green on blue or the insider threat.

BALDWIN: Nathan, if we're talking about this facility as training future leaders, future officers of Afghanistan, I have to imagine there had been a vetting process just to be present at this facility.

Can you tell me a little bit more about this, talk about the security of the facility?

HODGE: Yes.

In fact, when you visit one of these facilities, typically, whether you're accompanying coalition military or not, generally you will find that the students and instructors are not armed. These are training facilities. These are not field instruction. Very often they are classrooms, basically, is what we're talking about.

But -- and any time you have coalition military who are visiting their counterparts, usually they are accompanied by pretty heavy security, not only just in the way that they travel, but since this threat of green on blue incidents has arose, something called the guardian angels, which is usually somebody who is kind of keeping an overwatch role in the room while they're meeting and on the lookout for anyone presenting a potential threat.

BALDWIN: Mike, just off of his point about the green on blue, these insider attacks, we know they were at their peak in 2012, 61 coalition troops killed that year. But in recent months, haven't at all seen as many.

The shooting obviously revived concerns about just the reliability of the Afghan security forces, the potential leaders of Afghanistan because we are months before this planned U.S. withdrawal.

MIKE BAKER, PRESIDENT, DILIGENCE LLC: Right. Exactly.

And as you get closer to that withdrawal and as you decrease the number of our troops there, we have to turn over force protection increasingly to the local forces. Our personnel in decreasing numbers are further exposed in their training roles to the local forces. And as you pointed out, yes, we had far more incidents in 2012.

The number has been decreasing, but, you know, I take some exception to what the military authorities are saying right now, talking about, look, this doesn't indicate that we have a problem with the partnership or the cooperation. Fine. You can talk all you want with a happy face about the partnership and the cooperation.

At the end of the day, we're on the way out. We're going to leave some 9,000 or 10,000 troops there and expect that the Afghan military is going to be able to stand capable against the Taliban. I think what we're we're -- we're trying to have it both ways here and I think we're setting ourselves up for more of such incidents.

BALDWIN: How do you mean wanting it both ways?

BAKER: Well, go big or go home, right?

I mean, we -- the White House said today, Josh Earnest said today that, look, this is not an indication of any problems. This shows all of the progress we have made over the years in degrading al Qaeda core. Look, we degraded al Qaeda core by the spring of 2002 and since then, not to be overstepping, but we're involved in nation-building exercise and now we're trying to maintain that with a very small number of very exposed U.S. and coalition forces.

And my concern is, again, we're handing the force protection and security of those people over to the local forces increasingly and we may be setting ourselves up for more such incidents.

BALDWIN: Let's hope not. But just given the fact this was -- the Pentagon wasn't sure if it was the highest ranking official, but the fact that this was a U.S. general shot and killed at this military training facility is stunning. We know that the Taliban is not claiming responsibility, but the spokesperson of the Taliban certainly praised the soldier for carrying out the shootings.

Just finally just ending, Mike Baker, on the point, again, this was a U.S. general killed. That is incredibly significant.

BAKER: No, it's incredibly significant.

There's been a handful and only a couple back during the Vietnam War, in fact. The problem to your point about vetting and you make a really good point here in saying, look, this is a military academy training future leaders. What about the vetting process?

(CROSSTALK)

HODGE: I can tell you that in Afghanistan and also in Iraq, the vetting process for individuals, it's not like here where you run a bunch of databases and you get your clearance and it's all good. It's an incredibly labor-intensive process out in a place like Afghanistan. You have almost got to travel to the individual villages to understand who these people are sometimes that are in the Afghan military carrying weapons in positions where they pose a threat should they decide to.

So that vetting process is -- at best, is not particularly effective. BALDWIN: Mike Baker, appreciate you, as always. Nathan Hodge live in

Kabul with us from "The Wall Street Journal," thank you so much for your reporting here.

Have to turn to this. We're getting some breaking news into CNN. We're getting word that there is a new government mole leaking U.S. intelligence documents. This, of course, comes one year after the controversy involving Edward Snowden.

CNN's justice reporter Evan Perez has this exclusive story live with me in Washington.

Evan Perez, what do you know?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, there's been a lot of speculation in the U.S. government that after Edward Snowden disappeared last year and he turned up in Russia last August, that perhaps there could be others out there who might be leaking information or who could leak information.

Now we know that they have determined that there is another leaker out there. Now, the word of this -- the proof of this came in an article that was published today in The Intercept, which is a new Web site run by Glenn Greenwald, who also published some of the Snowden leaks.

And in that article they cite documents from August 2013, which is after Snowden had already taken refuge in Russia. So that is perhaps the best proof that we have yet that there is someone who is releasing these documents. Now, these documents today in this article have to do with the databases that the government uses to track and find suspected terrorists around the world.

We now know that the database, which is the biggest database known as TIDE, has a million names in it and that article today in The Intercept first published that information. We have been able to confirm that with U.S. officials, Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK. Evan Perez in Washington with the breaking news of this additional mole in addition to Edward Snowden. Thank you so much, Evan, for that.

Our other breaking story that we're following today, the second American infected with Ebola. She is now back on U.S. soil. She is in Atlanta being treated at a hospital there as I speak. You will see the video here of the transfer out of the ambulance into the hospital. We will talk to the woman's pastor, see how this woman's husband is faring.

Also, more on this experimental serum that both of these Americans have I taken, why one was able to walk out of the ambulance on his own. Today, we watched Nancy Writebol confined to a stretcher. We will go in with our own Sanjay Gupta live from Atlanta from this hospital, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Welcome back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

It was just a week ago Nancy Writebol's husband was thinking about her death. Struck down with Ebola, she is now fighting to survive the deadliest Ebola outbreak yet, but even with a 90 percent death rate, today we're told Nancy Writebol's condition is improving. This message passed on from her husband to their charity's president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRUCE JOHNSON, PRESIDENT, SIM USA: "I'm not anxious or fretful or fearful, just relieved, as you can imagine. A week ago," he said, "we were thinking about possible funeral arrangements. Yet we kept our faith."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Kept the faith. As they continue do so, this is the ambulance. We were all watching this unfolding live on CNN as these two medical professionals pulled Nancy Writebol on this stretcher out of the ambulance taking her inside the hospital, just blocks away from the Centers for Disease Control.

Also in that isolation ward at Emory, you have Dr. Kent Brantly, who was working with Ebola patients in Liberia last month when he became infected as well. Both Americans, both have been given this highly experimental serum to treat Ebola. It had actually never before this have been tested on humans. And so far, the drug seems to be working.

Let's go straight to Emory to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and he's our chief medical correspondent.

Sanjay, she is improving. Do we know at what point she will no longer be contagious?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, they are probably going to be checking the blood levels of the virus to try and figure that out, to figure out how much virus is actually in her bloodstream.

And people can still have the Ebola virus in their blood even after they start to recover. That's really going to be an important point. But, Brooke, like you said, it is quite remarkable a week ago that the husband and others were thinking about planning her funeral arrangements and now she has improved, transported here on the gurney, not walking in like her colleague Dr. Kent Brantly was.

Bruce Johnson, whose clip you just showed there, made the point that she's older and she may have been a little sicker as well than Dr. Brantly. But still, it's a remarkable, remarkable recovery. And she's already up here in the isolation ward. That is the hospital right here behind me. She's going to get assessed, her body functions, and start treatments.

She will get another one of those experimental does, by the way, Brooke, on Wednesday. That's what we're hearing. BALDWIN: Let me ask you about that. We talked about this. I can't

get enough about learning about this experimental serum. This is a drug developed primarily here in the United States. We were talking yesterday, you said it was tested among monkeys. Never before has it been given to human beings. He seems to have taken to it pretty well. How is she doing?

GUPTA: Well, it sounds like the first dose she had did not have the same dramatic impact as Dr. Kent Brantly's dose did. He had a pretty dramatic sort of effect from this. It sounds like he was having labor breathing, he had a profound rash that was sort of over his trunk and his abdomen.

You could see, according to people who described this, the rash start to disappear, the breathing improve, his vital signs normalized. He was able to take a shower a few hours later. She had two doses. The second dose did seem to have more of an impact on her, making her more stable and certainly ready for that medical evacuation flight.

Just really quick, Brooke, since you said it's so fascinating, the science is really neat. It's what is known as a monoclonal antibody. In short, they inject animals, in this case, with the Ebola virus. The mice start generating these cells to kill that virus. Those are the cells that they want. Those are the antibodies.

They take the cells out of the mice and they create a medicine out of it. I'm simplifying, but you get the idea. That's sort of how it works. It's pretty remarkable stuff.

BALDWIN: I'm sure we could do an entire hour just on the science behind the serum and here's hope it works on both of them. Sanjay Gupta for us watching the patients at Emory University.

Let's just focus a little bit more here on Nancy Writebol. She's a missionary. She gives her life to helping others and her pastor describes her as salt of the earth. And he joins me live now. He's John Munro, pastor at Calvary Church in Writebol's hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina.

Pastor, welcome back to the show. Just first to the point, the fact you have been in touch with Nancy Writebol's husband, David. And to think a week ago he was thinking about planning a funeral and here she is eating yogurt and able to get on this plane, he watched her get on the plane via Skype?

PASTOR JOHN MUNRO, FRIEND OF NANCY WRITEBOL: Yes, he did.

He was able to watch the proceedings live, and he was absolutely overwhelmed. His description was that these are tears of joy, unbelievable joy, unbelievable thankfulness, above all to the lord who has brought them through this, also, of course, to all of the people who made this possible from the State Department, Emory University, the CDC and all of that, but above all, very thankful to the lord.

He said he just couldn't believe that the lord, in his grace, has brought Nancy, whom he described as my beautiful bride, home. So this is a great day of celebration and how the tide has turned in the last few days, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Absolutely. It's been incredible and stunning to watch the science and the effects within both Nancy and the doctor.

But let's go back to her husband because he was doing the charity work as well. I'm wondering, how is his health? Is he in the clear?

MUNRO: Yes, so far he's in the clear. Obviously, they still check him for fever several times a day, but he is doing very, very well. They are trying feverishly to get him back to the U.S. I think the airport at Monrovia is closed for international flights, but we're hoping and praying that he will be able to united with Nancy very, very shortly.

These are quiet, unassuming people, who are, as I described before, the salt of the earth. Jesus in the Gospels talks about people who lose their life, but in effect save it and I think these are an example to us of tremendous dedication, showing courage in very difficult circumstances but doing it out of the love for Christ, out of the love for people, for the Liberians.

And they are so thankful that God has acted and answered their prayers as we and people throughout the world, Brooke, have prayed for them.

BALDWIN: Absolutely. So David, the husband, he's trying to get on a plane and trying I'm sure to be by his wife's side or at least in the hospital. I don't know if they'd let him in the isolation unit. Do we know who else is hoping to be at Emory with her?

MUNRO: Their two sons, Jeremy and Brian (ph) are there. Some friends of the family are there.

The last word I heard, that they are waiting to see Nancy, as it was with Kent Brantly. It will take a few, couple of hours or so and then the family will be able to see her through the glass, will be able to speak to her, so that is very, very exciting for them. David is in good health and, in fact, Nancy did very well yesterday. She was able to have a shower, sitting down, of course, to get her ready for the flight.

She was able to stand up and look out of the window. So I think she in the circumstances is doing very well and I think coming off the stretcher was sort of a precautionary item rather than trying -- rather than her walking, which could be very, very tiring before her because she is still very, very weak, but is making good progress.

And, again, we rejoice in that. This has just been an incredible within these few days, there's been this turnaround because when we first got the news, it was very, very dire. And while the Writebols had faith in God, there were times of great sadness and uncertainty as to the future obviously.

BALDWIN: Potential funeral arrangements one week and now here a trip overseas to Atlanta and hopefully back to 100 percent health. Safe travels to her husband, who I'm sure at some point can make the journey. Pastor John Munro, thank you so much. We're thinking about them as

well.

MUNRO: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Just ahead, as a 72-hour cease-fire is under way in the Middle East, did Israel complete its biggest goal of taking out those Hamas tunnels? We will take you there live and ask next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: One young Ugandan woman spoke for many Africans when she said to me, "We are looking to the world for equal business partners and commitments, and not necessarily aid. We want to do business at home and be the ones to own our own markets."

That's a sentiment that we hear over and over again. When I was traveling throughout Africa last year, what I heard was, the desire of Africans not just for aid, but for trade and development that actually helps nations grow and empowers Africans for the long term.

As president, I made it clear that the United States is determined to be a partner in Africa's success, a good partner, an equal partner, and a partner for the long term. We don't look to Africa simply...

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: We don't look to Africa simply for its natural resources. We recognize Africa for its greatest resource, which is its people, and its talents and their potential.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: We don't simply want to extract minerals from the ground for our growth. We want to build genuine partnerships that create jobs and opportunity for all our peoples and that unleash the next era of African growth.

That's the kind of partnership America offers. Since I took office, we have stepped up our efforts across the board, more investments in Africa, more trade missions like the one Penny led this year, and more support for U.S. exports. And I'm proud. I'm proud that American exports to Africa have grown to record levels, supporting jobs in Africa and the United States, including a quarter of a million good American jobs.

But here's the thing, that our entire trade with all of Africa is still only about equal to our trade with Brazil, one country. Of all the goods we export to the world, only about 1 percent goes to sub- Saharan Africa. So, we have got a lot of work to do.

We have to do better, much better. I want Africans buying more American products. I want Americans buying more African products. I know you do, too, and that's what you're doing here today.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: So I'm pleased, in conjunction with this forum, American companies are announcing major new deals in Africa.

Blackstone will invest in African energy projects. Coca-Cola will partner with Africa to bring clean water to its communities. GE will help build African infrastructure. Marriott will build more motels. All told, American companies, many with our trade assistance, are announcing new deals in clean energy, aviation, banking, and construction worth more than $14 billion, spurring development across Africa and selling more goods stamped with that proud label "Made in America."

And I don't want to just sustain this momentum. I want to up it. I want to up our game. So, today, I'm announcing a series of steps to take our trade with Africa to the next level. First, we're going to keep working to renew the African Growth Opportunity Act and enhance it.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: We still do the vast majority of our trade with just three countries, South Africa, Nigeria, and Angola. It's still heavily weighted towards the energy sector.

We need more women, including women and small and medium-sized businesses, getting their goods to market. And leaders in Congress, Democrats and Republicans, have said they want to move forward. So I'm optimistic we can work with Congress to renew and modernize AGOA before it expires, renew it for the long term. We need to get that done.

Second, as part of our Doing Business in Africa campaign, we're going to do even more to help American companies compete. We will put even more of our teams on the ground, advocating on behalf of your companies. We're going to send even more trade missions.

Today, we're announcing $7 billion in new financing to promote American exports to Africa. Earlier today, I signed an executive order to create a new president's advisory council of business leaders to help make sure we're doing every single thing we can to help you do business in Africa.

BALDWIN: We just wanted to dip in and listen to a little bit of the president of the United States speaking in an Washington area hotel.

This is all part of the U.S./African Leaders Summit, a number of heads of states, heads of government from Africa are in Washington meeting with the administration.

We should point out, though, we were just talking about the Ebola virus and these two victims now being treated in Atlanta -- a number of leaders from Africa, Western Africa, not in Washington for obvious reasons, a lot going on back home.