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Afghan Government Falls as Taliban Take Control of Kabul; President Biden Expected to Address Nation in the Next Few Days; Interview with Representative Gregory Meeks (D-NY) about the Fall of Afghanistan; American's Afghan Allies Scramble onto Final Evacuation Flights; Death Toll Soars in Haiti Following 7.2 Magnitude Earthquake; Fate of Afghan Interpreters in Limbo as Kabul Falls to Taliban. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired August 15, 2021 - 20:00   ET

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

[20:00:06]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Taliban fighters taking control of Kabul tonight as the president flees the Afghan capital.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: One of the former members of staff of President Ghani referred to him as him running away. They seemed for the most part too (INAUDIBLE) peacefully.

BROWN: The U.S. embassy now operating out of Kabul airport, telling American to shelter in place.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: People are desperate to get out of Afghanistan.

BROWN: The Biden administration taking flak from all sides as the U.S. troop withdrawal plunges Afghanistan into chaos.

REP. MIKE MCCAUL (R-TX): This is going to be a stain on this president and his presidency.

ANTONY BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE: There was an agreement that the forces would come out on May 1st, had they not -- had we not begun that process which is what the president did. And the Taliban saw, then we wouldn't have been back at war with the Taliban.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We trained and equipped with modern equipment over 300,000 Afghan forces who have to fight for themselves.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: I'm Pamela Brown in Washington. You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM on this Sunday evening.

Taliban fighters have captured Afghanistan and as Americans scramble to get out, more are heading in. A short time ago, the Pentagon approved sending another 1,000 U.S. troops because of the worsening security conditions on the ground. In all, a total of 6,000 American service members are now being deployed.

It has been a day of gut-wrenching developments and heart wrenching images. The crowd you see in this social media post believed to be Americans and their allies at the Kabul airport desperate to leave the country.

Scenes of complete chaos as people clamor to be evacuated. America's longest war has ended in humiliating collapse. And take a look at this, Al Jazeera video showing victorious Taliban fighters making themselves at home in the presidential palace. They swept into the capital with little resistance as Afghanistan's president fled the country.

This morning smoke was coming from the grounds of the U.S. embassy as workers scrambled to burn documents to keep them out of Taliban hands. Hours later, the staff removed the American flag before abandoning the building.

President Biden noticeably absent from public view on such a momentous day. And joining me now to further discuss, CNN White House reporter Natasha Bertrand.

Natasha, when are we going to hear from President Biden?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, a senior administration official tells us that he is expected to address the country sometime in the next few days. We don't know whether that's actually going to be a speech or a press conference but what we do know is that he issued a public statement yesterday and that's pretty much the extent of what we've heard from him as this rapid collapse has been underway. His speech if that's what happens will take place either at Camp David where he is now on vacation or they will cut that short and he will go back to the White House.

Still unclear on those plans. But in the meantime, the administration officials that he is tasked with dealing with this have been doing the talking for him. So Secretary of State Antony Blinken was doing the rounds this morning and he told CNN that he was, you know, defending the president's decision that the only choice here that the administration really had was to withdraw because of this deal that the previous administration had made with the Taliban, the only choice that they had was to get out or the Taliban would start firing on American soldiers and they would either have to surge troops there or they would have to pull out entirely.

So take a listen to what he had to say this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLINKEN: There was an agreement that the forces would come out on May 1st, had they not -- had we not begun that process, which is what the president did, and the Taliban saw, then we would have been back at war with the Taliban and we would have been back at war with tens of thousands of troops having to go in because the 2500 troops we had there and the air power would not have sufficed to deal with the situation especially as we see, alas, the hollowness of the Afghan Security Forces.

And by the way, from perspective of our strategic competitors around the world, there is nothing they would like more than to see us in Afghanistan for another five, 10, 20 years. It's simply not in the national interest.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

BERTRAND: So Blinken was not the only one that was doing some defending and some cleaning up this morning. Other administration officials as well, including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley were also briefing lawmakers, the House and Senate, this morning on what's happening in Kabul. The very, very fast deteriorating situation on the ground, and those briefings did not go very well.

Obviously lawmakers were very curious as to why the administration had not anticipated this rapid collapse and in fact when pressed Mark Milley actually told lawmakers that the timeline for the potential reconstituting of terrorist groups in Afghanistan he believes has moved up.

[20:05:05]

BROWN: So then does the White House look at this as an intelligence failure or a logistics failure? What are they saying?

BERTRAND: This was not an intelligence failure per se. The intelligence was all there. They knew based on these intelligence assessments that the Taliban was aiming for a complete military takeover of the country. CNN actually reported that last month that these intel assessments were showing that they were not serious about peace talks. They were aiming to fully control the government no matter whether the U.S. stayed or went. That was their objective. In addition to day, it has always been an intel assessments over the last couple of months and years even that a full withdrawal of U.S. troops would precipitate the collapse of the Afghan government and that the Taliban would then have a vacuum and would be able to rise.

So it wasn't really an absence of intelligence about how the Taliban would be able to overtake the Afghan government. It was more a question of the speed. Right? That's one key element of this that seems to have been missing. The intelligence reports that they were receiving as recently as last week were saying look, this could happen within 30 to 90 days. We're not quite sure. Look, we saw it happen from Friday to Monday essentially that the Taliban overtook Kabul and now is in control virtually the entire country.

BROWN: Right. And we heard from the State Department just on Friday saying that Kabul was not in imminent danger or imminent threat of being taken over by the Taliban, 48 hours later, that is the situation playing out.

All right, Natasha Bertrand, thank you so much.

And now I want to bring in CNN's Michael Holmes. He was in Afghanistan in 2002 and after the U.S. invasion and again in 2010 imbedding with U.S. forces in Kandahar.

Michael, thank you for coming on. Just help us understand how life is going to change most likely for Afghans with the Taliban back in charge.

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, hi, pam. Yes, well, the Taliban we've heard them give assurances, saying women's rights will be respected, people should not fear them. But they lie and we know that. I mean what those reassurance are worth is yet to be seen. I mean, they're saying that, you know, girls can go to school, but can they? And if they do, what age, until what age, and study what?

I mean, we've already seen in some parts of the country girls only allowed to take part in religious studies. That's already happened. Nothing else. And there have been reports of even young girls being snatched away from their mothers for forced marriage. Some people who worked for the government or the U.S. have already been killed. The previous Taliban rule, and I saw this myself, banned non-religious music. They banned films. They required men to grow beards, go to the mosque.

I mean, the question is, will Taliban 2.0 do that? Will there be retribution against those who work for the U.S. or government or journalist, for that matter? Frankly we don't know yet but you can bet it won't be a free society.

BROWN: So why did the Afghan army collapse so quickly? You've been on the ground there. You have seen them in action. Why did this all happen so quickly?

HOLMES: Yes. Yes. I covered the training of them. Well, for a start, clearly, there was a failure of U.S. intelligence to not recognize the Taliban's capabilities intent and as you were pointing out before there, with Natasha, the speed and to know the weaknesses of the Afghan military, to know that this would happen and happen quick when the U.S. was out. I think perhaps the main issue with the regular army as opposed to commando units which are good was the lack of support from their own government.

Let's not kid ourselves, they weren't getting resupplied with ammunition, there were no wages for months, sometimes no replacement uniforms or boots. I saw some wearing sneakers. One unit surrendered their base the other day because they literally ran out of food. There was nothing to eat. You had top-down corruption. The billions in dollars that vanished. I mean, I remember reporting on U.S. training Afghan soldiers in Kandahar in 2010 and hearing these stories about ghost soldiers, commanders would pad out unit numbers, get the salaries and pocket it.

There was a lack of motivation, morale totally collapsed when the U.S. drew down, air support went away, drone support, ground support. There is one other factor that really needs mentioning, though. The Taliban is ideologically driven. They desire, their fervent wish is to die in battle, in jihad. That's not the case with most of the Afghan army. They want to go home to their families. Let's remember, 60,000 of them died in the fight. They did fight. But at the end of the day, they doubt of what they were fighting for, particularly without U.S. support they saw writing on the wall.

BROWN: That is such important context as we try to absorb and take in what is happening after this 20-year war in Afghanistan with the Taliban now regaining control.

Michael Holmes, thank you so much for your insight.

The Biden administration bristling at reminders that it vowed the drawdown of U.S. personnel would be orderly and business like and that it would not be like the fall of Saigon but the visuals are painfully similar.

Here is more of what Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this morning.

[20:10:01]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAKE TAPPER, HOST, CNN STATE OF THE UNION: President Biden is intent on avoiding a Saigon moment. That's a reference of course to the hasty and humiliating U.S. evacuation from Vietnam. But with this troop surge to airlift Americans out of Afghanistan, aren't we already in the midst of a Saigon moment?

BLINKEN: No. We're not. Remember, this is not Saigon. We went to Afghanistan 20 years ago with one mission. And that mission was to deal with the folks who attacked us on 9/11.

JONATHAN KARL, ABC NEW: Isn't that exactly what we're seeing now? I mean, even the images are evocative of what happened in Vietnam.

BLINKEN: Let's take a step back. This is manifestly not Saigon.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Well, it was just a month ago that President Biden said a panicked evacuation from Afghanistan was unthinkable.

I want to bring in Congressman Gregory Meeks. He is a Democrat from New York who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Congressman, thank you for joining the show. As we see all of this play out in Afghanistan, do you fear that America's allies will now question the strength of U.S. resolve after seeing how badly things are playing out?

REP. GREGORY MEEKS (D-NY): No, I think, number one, as seen on the committee and talking to the folks in the administration, and talking to some of the allies, the United States has been talking to some of our allies, et cetera. I think that the failure here is the lack of the fight or the will to fight or to continue to fight based upon the Afghan Security Forces. I think that's where the miscalculations was in all of this.

And I heard some of your guests on previously, I think that they thought that there would be greater fight and so there would be an opportunity, a longer opportunity to get our folks out. Different than Vietnam and Saigon when they were still shooting at us. We see thus far anyway and that's where I think our obligation is and what the president is doing is to make sure that no one is injured. No American citizen as well as we've got to get out, and this is where I think that we've got to make a firmer stance in getting done our Afghan allies also who could be threatened.

So we got to make sure we get them all out but as of unlike Saigon where they were still shooting and trying to kill us, there has been a no attack thus far on the airport, no attack while we were in the embassy until we are gone. They did not enter. So I don't think that that's the case. I think the lack of fight or the will to fight by the Afghan Security Forces is a tremendous problem. And for me, as (INAUDIBLE), do we spend another trillion dollars to give folks a will to fight? I mean, this is a tough situation.

BROWN: Let me ask this then, this miscalculations. How did that happen, though, is my question. I mean, you heard from Michael Holmes. I've been speaking all night to veterans who are on the ground in Afghanistan, serving this country, saying of course this was going to be the case. This was inevitable. Of course they were going to not put up a fight against the Taliban. We've seen this play out just a few years ago. The same movie played out in Iraq with the forces there that the U.S. had trained and equipped. Dropped their weapons and run in the face of ISIS.

How did this miscalculations happen?

MEEKS: Well, I think that the fact that they were not fighting and not standing up is one of the reasons why President Biden also decided to pull out. I mean, I was at the meeting and -- when the Afghan President Ghani was in the United States not too long ago. And there the big issue was, when are you going to stand up? When is the government going to end some of the corruption? This was talked about before. They may have gone to the troops, et cetera. When is that -- the people feel they have something to fight for and so how could the president of the United States then say we know as he did that there was all of the lack of leadership then clearly, exclamation point, the lack of will to vote -- the lack of will fight.

So do we then say we're going to stay and we're going to occupy this country? We're going to be Afghanistan's military, we're going to stay there and we're going to fight another 10, 15 years and will that have solved the problem? That's the issue that I think the government has to deal with.

BROWN: And that has been a point that the president made repeatedly, look, I'm not going to pass the buck to the next president but there are two issues here. There's the issue of withdrawing completely and there's also the execution of that withdrawal and by all accounts and then talking to sources, this is not what they wanted. This was not what they had, quote, "planned for."

Why wasn't there a better plan in place, more anticipation for how quickly this could play out so that you wouldn't have to have the U.S. personnel evacuate to the airport and you wouldn't have to take away flights to Afghan allies to give them to U.S. personnel? Why wasn't there a better plan in place for this?

[20:15:04]

MEEKS: Look, what I say this is, if we get the American citizens out with nobody being harmed, if we get our Afghani allies out without any of them being harmed or shot at or killed then I think that's still what the focus was. So we have to bring all of those securities back in just in case the Taliban was lying and they tried to do something that would cause the death or attack of so we got those preventive measures in place. Put them on the ground. Let the Taliban know that if they do something, there is going to be immediate consequences.

So I think the bottom line -- in how history will record this is do we get everybody out without them being shot at and/or killed by the Taliban? That's the ultimate piece. I know the images to me I agree with you. The images that I see right now to see those individuals and the Afghan capital, et cetera, reminds me of the images that we had on January the 6th. But I know that we fought back to make sure that those images and we still are fighting back so we're going to make sure this doesn't happen to our country, I would have loved to have seen something like that with reference to the Afghan Security Forces, also.

So they did nothing. We got to protect our folks. If we didn't send anyone in in the way that we've done now, then the president and others, I would be criticizing the president. I want to make sure that now yes, send those additional troops in, make sure that our people get out, and it's going to be chaotic any time you have a scenario of the nature that's immediate you're going to have a situation that's going to be chaotic but you got to try to be calm and get it out so the end result, and I think that's what I'm focused on. The end result will be that we got our American citizens out safely, we got our allies in the Congress. We've been working vividly.

Congress passed the Allies Act a few weeks ago. We're also going to talk to the president and the administration about whatever else Congress needs to do. That being said, I would also tell you that as chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, we have oversight authority. So I am going to be -- the committee will be looking and overseeing what's taking place and ask the hard questions both in hearings and classify exceptions just so that we can make sure we dotted our I's and crossed our T's in that regard but for me, the ultimate determination is, do we get our people out safely without harm or don't?

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: That is the hope and the evacuations as we speak are ongoing. Right now the Taliban is staying at bay but there is no guarantee that that will continue. There is no timeline. It's just we're watching it minute by minute, hour by hour, but right now, so far they have been able to get out safely.

Congressman Gregory Meeks, thank you for joining the show. MEEKS: And that's why we have to send them back to make sure that

happens.

BROWN: OK. Thank you, Congressman.

$2 trillion, 2,000 lives and with the Taliban back in control, what do we have to show for it? I'm going to speak with a veteran about the legacy of the war in Afghanistan which may be in its final days.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:22:07]

BROWN: The capital of Afghanistan largely in the hands of the Taliban tonight. With the exception of the airport where dramatic scene is playing out. Crowds of Afghan people with just the clothes on their backs pleading to be evacuated. The chaos and dwindling time forcing the Pentagon to make some tough choices including a decision to pause the evacuation of Afghans who worked alongside Americans.

Let's discuss this with Kristen Rouse. She is a U.S. Army veteran who served in Afghanistan and president and founder of the NYC Veterans' Alliance.

Kristen, thank you for coming on the show. Thank you for your service. Your reaction to what we are watching right now. Did you think all these years of work and sacrifice in Afghanistan would end like this?

KRISTEN ROUSE, U.S. ARMY VETERAN SERVED IN AFGHANISTAN: It was tough to imagine what an end would look like. So many of us signed up, you know, we want to serve our country. We want to do something good, and, you know, going to Afghanistan for three different tours, so many of us really believed that we could be part of making a better Afghanistan, helping Afghan people, fighting terror, standing strong against the Taliban, against al Qaeda, against these terror influences that were taking over and ruining people's lives, and we believed in the, you know, the development that was happening in Afghanistan, the schools, the education, the medicine.

So many improved outcomes. The media that grew up. All of the eight organizations that were doing such important work across Afghanistan. It's truly heartbreaking to see, to see in so many ways so much undone, so many people harmed. There's been hangings. There has been, you know, reports of, you know, of women and girls forced into -- I mean, effectively, you know, these brutal situations with Taliban.

It is -- and the takeover of the capital, it's heartbreaking. It is absolutely gut wrenching and heartbreaking, and so many of us are hearing right now from the interpreters we worked with, the aid workers, all of the staff who were essential to our work in Afghanistan. We could not have done any job in Afghanistan without dedicated local men and women who also believed in a better Afghanistan. They believed in the promised that we made to them, that we were here to do good and that we were with them, to stand side by side, It's -- we're hearing right now from so many of our allies who are trapped, who don't have a way out of Afghanistan. [20:25:06]

They've spent years in an endless bureaucratic process with, you know, special immigrant visas, the SIV visas that have been offered to interpreters and even just these last few weeks as the P 2 visas have opened up. This is just confusing, multi-step, really challenging, difficult heartbreaking bureaucracy, that so many have been stuck in, so many have been wrongfully denied, and there are tens of thousands of our allies right now who are hunkered down, trapped and not on anyone's list to be evacuated.

BROWN: And you said that when you were there on the ground with them -- go ahead.

ROUSE: Yes. And they are fearing for their lives. I have and veterans are calling me, messaging me, telling me about they're getting contacted by our Afghan allies but also like we're getting good-bye notes. Afghans believe that they are about to die.

BROWN: How do you think they are viewing the U.S. right now?

ROUSE: They -- folks who've worked with us, they know, they know those of us who they worked with and I think it's just -- it's a sense of betrayal. I had an Afghan interpreter messaged me today, dear, sweet sister, the Taliban are in my village. I'm about to die. I know who you are, you are for us, but your government is killing us. That's what he messaged to me. Your government is killing us. It's hard to respond to that.

It's hard for -- like veterans are seeing this and struggling and wanting to know what they can do and there is so few, so, so limited options right now to be able to help anybody. Even to send money, banks are out of money right now. Banks don't have any money, any more money to issue. Passport offices are not functioning.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: I know you feel so helpless, Kristen. It's a mess. I know you feel so helpless but we really appreciate you lending your voice to this conversation and helping us better understand your perspective as someone who had three tours of duty in Afghanistan and what is unfolding on the ground right now with Afghan allies that you worked with and what they are going through.

Kristen, thank you so much.

ROUSE: Thank you.

BROWN: When we come back, CNN is on the ground in Haiti seeing the devastation from this weekend's earthquake that has left nearly 1300 people dead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:31:39] BROWN: More devastating news out of Haiti tonight. The death toll from this weekend's powerful earthquake has jumped to nearly 1300 people. Thousands more are injured or still missing in the rubble.

CNN's Matt Rivers was near the epicenter a short time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATT RIVERS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're not far from where the epicenter of this earthquake was. And we're here at the rubble of what was a multistory relatively luxury hotel in the Les Cayes region which is where we are right now. And you can kind of get a scale for what happened here. If you look to the right, that would presumably be part of the roof, a part of this building that collapsed into the swimming pool. That was there.

If you look further to the left, you can see kind of a teetering set of columns up there that is basically very precariously perched. And then back down here, you can see an excavator that was presumably part of the search and rescue efforts that took place. According to authorities, there is very much likelihood that there remain bodies in this rubble. And yet there's not really a lot of search and rescue efforts here ongoing.

What is ongoing, as you can see people walk behind me here with metal, this is looting. People are coming through this site taking basically whatever they think they can sell. Metal, we saw a dresser be taken out. This goes to the desperation in this area. This is a very poor part of Haiti that has been devastated by previous natural disasters over the last decade. And these are opportunistic people coming here to try and take what they can get from what is no doubt a tragic scene, something that collapsed during this earthquake.

There are people that have been here trying to help, people trying to look for survivors. That is not the majority of what's happening here right now. What you don't see here are Haitian authorities. There are no police presence, there's firefighters, there are no search and rescue crews here. There are just people from the community and this lone excavator that is not currently in operation.

It's very indicative of what we're seeing, as we drive through this area near the epicenter a lack of authoritative stance from the government trying to help people get control of this situation. Unfortunately this is the reality on the ground at this moment.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: That was just a short time ago, Matt Rivers is with me now live from the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince.

Matt, that official number of dead and injured people across Haiti nearly doubling in just the past few hours. Sadly, that casualty number is fully expected to rise again, right?

RIVERS: Yes, unfortunately, that is the reality. I mean, we know how these things work, Pamela. You and I have both covered them before and it takes a lot of time especially in countries like Haiti that don't have great infrastructure, that don't have a big government presence, in the rural parts of the country. It takes time for authorities, for members of the public, the news media to really get a sense of the scale of how many people we're talking about here.

And so even though the initial report way back when this happened, it feels like way back, it was only yesterday when this happened but the initial reports we got were just a few dozen people. But you look at the damage and you know that's going to go up, and that is in fact what we've been seeing as authorities reach more communities. They get access to more building sites. They go through this wreckage. They are finding unfortunately more and more people.

And we did see a lot of injured people as we made our way into that area today. We saw people at an airport that were trying to get medical evacuations out.

[20:35:02]

We saw people with bandages on the side of the street basically asking us, do you know where a doctor is, and of course, we didn't have a great answer for those people, so that is the situation on the ground right now here in Haiti. Compounded by the fact that by this time tomorrow night, this is a region that is going to be affected by a tropical depression that is going to be moving through this part of the world.

Not exactly sure the track of that path yet. It's been moving a little bit. It doesn't seem to be a direct impact here on the epicenter of where this earthquake happened but even if it just skirts by and it dumps a couple of inches of rain, that is going to make an already complicated situation that much more complicated for rescue workers, for government officials, for charities trying to get into this region.

It's going to make things a lot harder, Pamela, and they're already facing just brutal challenges.

BROWN: Yes, the unimaginable and they're facing those challenges without much help. They're really fending for themselves in the wake of this earthquake there and facing this storm coming their way. It's just awful.

Matt Rivers, thank you.

And back to our breaking story and the stunning collapse of Afghanistan to the Taliban. How did the U.S. not see this coming? My interview with former director of National Intelligence James Clapper, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:40:04]

BROWN: The Pentagon is sending 1,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan where the Taliban have toppled the government and seized control. It has been a day of breathtaking developments and heart wrenching images. The crowd you see in this social media post believed to be Americans and their allies at the Kabul airport waiting to board planes and leave the country.

Now flights for allies have been curtailed so that Americans can get out first. Scenes of complete chaos as people clamor to be evacuated. America's longest war has ended in humiliating collapse. The Biden administration had assured Americans that there would not be such a breathtaking collapse so was it a failure of the intelligence community for the U.S. to be so unprepared?

Earlier tonight, I put that question to James Clapper. He was director of National Intelligence in the Obama administration.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAMES CLAPPER, FORMER NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE DIRECTOR: Whether the Kabul collapsed immediately or in 30 days, the outcome was the same. And so we can argue about whether the number of days was predicted or not and that in itself is not just an intelligence call because clearly, you know, the State Department and particularly, the embassy itself I think would be the best source of gauging, you know, how long Kabul, how long it would take before Kabul fell.

BROWN: But just to understand this as I pointed out on Friday, the State Department said it was not an imminent threat of falling. Now it has. The U.S. is pulling now embassy personnel in Kabul as the Taliban is literally taking over. How -- and just help us understand how that cannot be viewed as an intelligence threat. Do you think it's a failure of planning, logistics? What went wrong here?

CLAPPER: Well, I think -- I would characterize it as a whole of government failure perhaps to see this because again I don't think this is exclusively an intelligence failure. Now the big message here, Pamela, to me is something, you know, we're relearning after my war on Southeast Asia, and that is we can't buy will to fight and the issue here, of course, was the effectiveness or lack thereof by the Afghan military and security and police forces and they just completely melted away much faster than anyone foresaw and even though we've spent a fortune organizing, training, equipping and making the Afghan military look like us to include vehicles, you have to wonder the Taliban in contrast are prevailing and prevailing quickly in the absence of virtually any external support.

Well, why is that? Well, the big reason is the Afghans, the Taliban have an ideology and a narrative to go with it that appeals to some, not all Afghans, and they cannot not get away from the image that whatever government in Kabul, corrupt, though it may be, was supported by the West and supported by infidels and again you can't buy will to fight.

BROWN: And we heard that exact same line in Iraq several years ago when the Iraqi soldiers that the U.S. had been arming and training did not have the will to fight against ISIS and also, if you talk to troops who have been on the ground in Afghanistan working with these Afghan forces, they could tell you that this was going to happen. That this was inevitable. How did the U.S. make such a big miscalculations and overestimating Afghan forces and their ability to fight back against the Taliban?

CLAPPER: I think we had probably more confidence than we should have in what is an intangible thing to measure, a will to fight, particularly in a predictive basis and you're quite right. The example of ISIS trying -- being triumphant almost overnight in the city of Mosul in Iraq when five divisions worth of military and law enforcement components literally melted away overnight. And we have the same thing again. So again, this is a big lesson. You can't buy will to fight and it's very hard to gauge.

BROWN: Help us understand the national security perspective of this, the threat moving forward because now you have a scenario where the Taliban has taken over Afghanistan and now they have all these U.S. weapons that the U.S. had given to the Afghan forces that are now at the disposal of the Taliban.

[20:45:09]

The Taliban has said they are more disciplined now, they are more empowered. What kind of threat do they face to the United States particularly in harboring other terrorists in Afghanistan?

CLAPPER: Well, that's, of course, the concern. Will they re-permit terrorists such as al Qaeda or ISIS to regenerate or expand? I don't think things are quite as rosy for the Taliban as we might think because they're going to have to run things on a very decentralized basis and they've got some competitive factions within the Taliban movement, but you're quite right to cite the fact that the concern is acting as a harbor, a haven for terrorist groups such as al Qaeda and ISIS. It puts a big burden on the intelligence community to watch this from afar and provide adequate warning.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: That was CNN national security analyst James Clapper. He served as the director of National Intelligence in the Obama administration.

Well, right now, interpreters are among the most vulnerable Afghans. They helped American forces for decades and now they are fearing for their lives under Taliban control. More on that ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:50:34]

BROWN: If any one image tells the story of today, it's this one.

This is on board an airplane on the ground in Kabul Afghanistan. These Afghan people know what today means. It means their lives are in jeopardy with the Taliban in control and any chance of survival may depend on the American military.

And while the U.S. government weighs its options, the Afghans left behind lack that luxury. CNN's Cyril Vanier spoke with one interpreter who worked with the Marines for years, now he's facing death threats from the Taliban.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CYRIL VANIER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): My first time in Afghanistan, 10 years ago, with U.S. Marines, deep in Taliban country.

(On-camera): Every time that I've been north of this position we've gotten engaged with small arms fire and mean machine guns.

(Voice-over): Helmand Province, one of the most dangerous places on Earth.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take cover, take cover.

VANIER: Lieutenant Hanson wants to question two suspects. His Afghan interpreters does the talking.

MAJ. JOSEPH HANSON, UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS (RET.): I just want to know where they keep the (INAUDIBLE).

VANIER (on-camera): Are they villagers or fighters?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, at least one of those kids is a fighter. Would you agree?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Definitely they are. They bring weapons here, definitely they bring IED here.

VANIER: Ten years later, I am embarrassed at how rarely our camera turned toward perhaps the key person in this exchange, the translator, Haji (PH). Nicknamed Tiger, assigned to the battalion's most difficult missions. His life on the line just like the Marines.

With the Taliban now extending their rule over large parts of the country, I got back in touch with him. We arranged a remote interview in an undisclosed location in Afghanistan, his identity protected for fear of retribution.

HAJI (PH), AFGHAN INTERPRETER (from captions): If they found, they'd kill me and they'd kill my family. Because I was an interpreter with the U.S. Marines.

VANIER: The Taliban are known to murder Afghans who helped American forces. Haji (PH) says he has been on the run for six years, changing houses every few weeks; his children, out of school.

(On-camera): What do your children think is the risk for them?

HAJI: I told them I worked for Americans, please don't go out from the -- from home and don't tell any other children that Haji is living here and that we are living there.

VANIER (voice-over): Haji has been denied a U.S. special immigrant visa twice, despite glowing recommendations from the Marine Corps and the Army, vouching for his intricate role in disrupting enemy operations. The denial letters citing derogatory information associated with his case. We asked the U.S. embassy in Kabul about Haji's application but a spokesperson said they don't comment on individual cases.

One possible explanation, his employment letter states job abandonment. It does not sound like the Haji I met, so I found those who fought beside him a decade ago. More than half a dozen former and active-duty Marines, including his platoon leader, then Lieutenant Hanson.

(On-camera): Did Haji quit on the Marines?

HANSON: Haji would never quit on us or my men.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Negative, no sir.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He was there from the beginning, from day one. And he was there all the way until the end.

VANIER (voice-over): This is what I filmed back then, Haji in the closing days of the battalion's mission, still very much on the front line. He says his unemployment was unfairly terminated by a private sector contractor after 3rd Battalion Fourth Marines left the country for good. Haji's fate and that of so many others are now in the hands of the Biden administration.

BIDEN: Our message to those women and men is clear, there is a home for you in the United States --

VANIER (on-camera): The U.S. State Department did create a new path for Afghan interpreters to reach the U.S., one that's advertised as more generous. But it is going to be extremely difficult for many to apply. Haji and his family would to have to leave Afghanistan and wait for at least a year in another country while their application is being considered with no protection, no help and no guarantee of success.

(Voice-over): I asked Haji if he ever regretted his decision to side with the U.S. His answer surprised me.

HAJI: Anytime if they want me I will -- I'm ready to work for the Marines. Always.

[20:55:02]

And I still tell today my Marines, if you guys come again in Afghanistan, I'll be the first interpreter.

VANIER: The price he is paying for that brotherhood, a life in the crosshairs of unforgiving killers.

HANSON: Half of the platoon that Haji was with received Purple Hearts or were severely wounded in action or killed. And he was taking part in all of those risks. MAJ. ROBERT WALLACE, U.S. MARINE CORPS: It's painful to me that it has

come to this, that we are 20 years down this road and we still do not have a clear, simple, straightforward and easy path to protect the people that risked their lives for us and, in many cases, saved our lives.

VANIER: Cyril Vanier, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Well, thank you for joining me this evening. And I'm Pamela brown and I'll see you again next weekend. "HISTORY OF THE SITCOM" starts after this short break.

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