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Biden Denies Advisers told him to Keep Troops in Afghanistan; Violence at Kabul Airport Amid Evacuations; Gen. David Petraeus is Interviewed about Afghanistan. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired August 19, 2021 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

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POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR:

It's the top of the hour. Good morning, everyone. We're glad you're with us. I'm Poppy Harlow.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Jim Sciutto.

This morning, a U.S. president defiant while Kabul remains in chaos. President Biden pushing back against criticism in a new interview saying that a report by "The Wall Street Journal" that he ignored advice from top generals to keep at least a small number of troops in Afghanistan while seeking a peace agreement is not true.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS: Your top military advisers warned against withdrawing on this time line. They wanted you to keep about 2,500 troops.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No, they didn't. It was split. That wasn't true. That wasn't true.

STEPHANOPOULOS: They didn't tell you that they wanted troops to stay?

BIDEN: No, not -- not in terms of whether we were going to get out in a timeframe all troops. They didn't argue against that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So no one -- no one told -- your military advisers did not tell you, no, we should just keep 2,500 troops. It's been a stable situation for the last several years. We can do that. We can continue to do that?

BIDEN: No, no one said that to me that I can recall.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: The United States is increasing, ramping up its efforts to evacuate thousands of Americans and Afghan allies out of the country. Eighteen hundred people have been evacuated in the last 24 hours. A total of nearly 6,000 since Saturday. But the U.S. embassy in Kabul is now warning that it cannot ensure safe passage to Americans to the Kabul Airport.

We're covering, of course, all of this from the White House and the Pentagon to the State Department.

Let's begin with our Barbara Starr at the Pentagon.

Barbara, that is very significant to hear from the president. And George Stephanopoulos gave him an opportunity to clarify, and yet he reiterated, no, never was he told by these top generals to keep any sort of force on the ground, quote, that he can recall.

Is that the case given even CNN's own reporting this spring and summer?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, if the president says he can't recall it, I'm not sure we can get inside his head and see what he actually does remember about all this.

What we do know is that top commanders thought they should have the option of keeping 2,500 troops in Afghanistan, but that was for a very narrow focus. That was to help maintain security, conduct counterterrorism missions, maintain stability with Afghan forces. That did not take into account, again, this 11-day collapse of the Afghan government and Afghan military that the world has seen.

This was something several months ago. It was an option. It was something that top U.S. commanders wanted.

Now, did that option in those terms get to the president? We don't know the answer to that. But it was something that they wanted to do. Would it have changed the outcome of this 11-day collapse? Hard to see, hard to know in retrospect.

SCIUTTO: Jeremy, the president was also -- Jeremy Diamond joining us from the White House -- asked about his predecessor, President Trump's making a deal with the Taliban which promised a U.S. withdrawal by May 1st and how that played into his own decision here. I mean the fact is he could have reversed that decision, but how did he explain if?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, that is perhaps where President Biden is the clearest on this. And it's really the territory where he wants to have this discussion. He wants to have this discussion over the decision to withdraw, not exactly the execution of that withdrawal.

But what President Biden said in that ABC interview, making very clear that regardless of the Trump deal, he would have also sought a way to withdraw all U.S. forces.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS: Would you have withdrawn troops like this even if President Trump had not made that deal with the Taliban?

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I would have tried to figure out how to withdraw those troops, yes, because look, George, there is no good time to leave Afghanistan, 15 years ago, would have been a problem, fifteen years from now. The basic choice is, am I going to send your sons and your daughters to war in Afghanistan -- in Afghanistan in perpetuity?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DIAMOND: And, again, it's very clear that that is the discussion that President Biden wants to have, not the discussion about the execution of that U.S. withdrawal, which has left chaos in Kabul as we have seen unfold over the last several days.

It was remarkable to hear President Biden so defiant, so digging in his heels when he was asked about whether or not this could have been executed any better.

[09:05:02]

And the president essentially said, no, he believed that chaos was inevitable regardless of how a U.S. withdrawal was conducted, as long as the Taliban did, indeed, take over Kabul. And that was really remarkable to see that defiance, especially as you are seeing even so many Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill make very clear that this was not flawlessly executed, that there was a failure at some point here, and that there are questions that need to be answered.

HARLOW: Right. Exactly.

And, Kylie, to you, what can you tell us about the evacuations out of Kabul at this point because it was pretty clear in that press conference yesterday they don't have the adequate number of resources on the ground now to get everyone even in the airport.

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, look, yesterday the State Department said that they had evacuated a total of about 5,000 people. That's over a number of days, though, right.

HARLOW: Right. ATWOOD: So what we're really watching for is when the military can get

up to that capacity that they think they can get to of 5,000 to 9,000 people a day. Then they can speed up this process.

But President Biden, notably in that ABC interview, said that the United States, the troops will not leave until all of the Americans who want to get out are out of the country. So he didn't quite say that they're definitively going to stay past August 31st. In fact, he said they hope that they can do it in this timeframe that they have, less than two weeks here, before U.S. troops are planning to leave the country. But he did keep the door open if there are still Americans in the country.

Now, what about the Afghans, those who worked alongside the U.S. troops and diplomats who are also trying to get out? For the first time he put a number on that. He said that there are about 50,000 to 65,000 of those Afghans plus their families that the Biden administration is looking to evacuate.

Now, I can tell you for sure that there are going to be groups that say, that isn't a high enough number. What about the women who are facing these threats from the Taliban? But that is what he's saying right now. So that is an interesting number for us to keep our eyes on.

But the backdrop to all of this is, all of these people getting to the airport. And I think CNN has adequately covered, it is a dangerous journey. The United States still not saying that they can assure that those on the way to the airport are safe. But President Biden saying in that interview, no one's being killed, being very clear that he thinks that they are getting people out when they get to the airport.

HARLOW: Thank you so much for the reporting, Kylie, Jeremy, and, of course, our Barbara Starr.

Breaking this morning -- breaking this morning, at least a dozen people have reportedly been killed in and around Kabul's airport. This is since the Taliban took control of the capital on Sunday, citing an unnamed Taliban official. Reuters reports the deaths were caused by either stampedes of people trying to get into the airport to evacuate or by gunshots.

SCIUTTO: Multiple videos surfacing on social media showed just chaotic scenes at the Kabul Airport on Wednesday night. You can hear those sounds, perhaps gunshots, perhaps flash grenades. You can also see what appears to be tear gas. Dozens of people were scrambling near the entrance to the airport, including women and small children pleading their cases with soldiers deployed.

CNN chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward, she joins us now from Kabul.

You know, Clarissa, you get the impression the airport there is like an island in the stormy sea, right, the -- rest of Kabul. Has the situation outside the airport stabilized in any way today? CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean it's almost actually the other way around. The airport's the stormy sea and Kabul's been largely calm by comparison.

I will say that in the last half hour we suddenly heard a really -- a large amount of gunfire, pretty much continuous gunfire for about 20 minutes. Certainly more intense than anything we've heard before. And my colleague, Najibullah Quraishi, was on the ground and said that he saw people running down the street. They claimed that the Taliban had started firing on a protest that had gathered with people carrying the Afghan flag. We've heard reports of this happening elsewhere in the country. Even though the Taliban publicly had said you can fly whatever flag you want to. We are now seeing incidents where the Taliban fighters, the sort of rank and file foot soldiers on the streets, are taking matters into their own hands and responding to these sorts of protests or marches or whatever they may be, however they see fit.

HARLOW: Clarissa, we heard in the president's interview with George Stephanopoulos an explicit promise to get Americans out. And it's -- and he indicated it, at least, that it -- even if they had to keep troops there past August 31st.

What was not as clear was does that hold for Afghans who aided Americans as well? He didn't say it doesn't, but he didn't explicitly say it does, right?

[09:10:00]

And that matters a lot to the people you've been on the ground all week speaking with.

Is there any reaction to that?

WARD: Well, I think, obviously, people are gutted, honestly, and it's not that they expected the U.S. to keep fighting this war forever, but the chaos of the execution of this withdrawal, and there's no better metaphor for that than what we're seeing at the airport. There's Taliban fighters there, as we experienced firsthand, with truncheons and whips and guns, shooting into the air, injuring people, beating them. And yet still this crush of humanity continues day in, day out. The lines, the crowds that you're seeing outside the east gate of that airport are truly extraordinary, even though they're not even being allowed in. Right now, unless you are a westerner, it is very difficult to get into that airport.

We've been speaking to people all day who have been at the airport. A couple of them had managed to get in, mostly in the early hours. But it's a -- it's -- it's a catastrophe. And so for people who are sitting there camped out on the ground waiting for their turn to leave that looks like it's not going so come, the kind of slightly weak assurance that, you know, the intention is to try to take care of Afghan nationals, but without any really solid, concrete language or planning around that is, obviously, not going down well, is, obviously, being greeted with disappointment and some bitterness.

HARLOW: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Yes, I mean, a question, what level of service, what length of service, what timeframe of service to the U.S. is enough to get you out of the country. I mean these are basic questions as yet unanswered.

Clarissa Ward, so good to have you there.

Coming up next, I'm going to speak to General David Petraeus, who led the mission in Afghanistan for a number of years, also Central Command, later the CIA, what he thinks about President Biden's claims that this chaos was inevitable.

HARLOW: Plus, the president says he and the first lady will get their COVID booster shots as soon as they're available. What you need to know about the rollout, what it means for you.

Also this, a quick programming note. Join us, join CNN, for "We Love New York City." It's the homecoming concert, exclusively airing right here starting Saturday at 5:00 Eastern.

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[09:16:50]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS: Back in July you said a Taliban takeover was highly unlikely. Was the intelligence wrong or did you downplay it?

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think there was no consensus if you go back and look at the intelligence report. They said that it's like -- more likely to be sometime by the end of the year.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You didn't put a timeline on when you said it was highly unlikely, you just said flat out, it's highly unlikely the Taliban would take over.

BIDEN: Yes. Well, the question was whether or not it -- the idea that the Taliban would take over was premised on the notion that the -- that somehow the 300,000 troops we had trained and equipped was going to just collapse, they were going to give up. I don't think anybody anticipated that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: President Biden, defiant, still confident in his decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, even as we see chaos unfold, particularly across the capital.

My next guest served as commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan 2010, 2011, also commanded Central Command and later the CIA, retired Army General David Petraeus.

General, thanks so much for taking the time this morning.

GEN. DAVID PETRAEUS, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Thanks, Jim.

SCIUTTO: President Biden is arguing, big picture here, and he said it in so many words, that the outcome would have been the same in Afghanistan whenever the U.S. withdraw. He said, quote, 15 years ago it would have been a problem, fifteen years from now. Is he right?

PETRAEUS: Well, I have always argued the bipartisan commission that was chartered by Congress argued, and many others have argued for what might be termed a sustainable sustained commitment to Afghanistan, recognizing that it's really hard to take a country from the 7th century, which is where it was under the Taliban, to the 21st century in 20 years or less. In fact, I frequently said, you can't turn Afghanistan into Switzerland in, again, 10, 15, 20 years.

We've been in Korea for 70-plus years. We're in many other countries many years later. We haven't had a battlefield loss in 18 months. What was unsustainable about 2,500 to 3,500 troops with, most importantly, a lot of drones and air power overhead, all coming out of bases, right, in Afghanistan, of course, which is very efficient and very good intelligence that enabled us to identify any efforts by al Qaeda and now the Islamic State to establish a sanctuary in Afghanistan. So there was an alternative.

Now, you know, how long would it take until you truly had confidence that your withdrawal would not spark this kind of psychological collapse, because that's what this was, when troops on the front lines realized, nobody's coming to the rescue. The Afghan air force was run into the ground at an operational (INAUDIBLE) unsustainable. We pulled 18,000 contractors used to maintain the U.S. provided helicopters and planes. I think that was completely underestimated the impact of that.

SCIUTTO: OK.

PETRAEUS: And you (INAUDIBLE) Afghans do what Afghans will do if there is no alternative. Nobody's coming to the rescue. They'd fight for two or three days in the beginning, commandos might go out, then their -- that ability was -- was lost. And then Afghans cut deals.

SCIUTTO: Right.

PETRAEUS: And these Taliban (ph) are very, very skillful, by the way, in pursuing these deals and also assassination campaigns --

[09:20:05]

SCIUTTO: Yes.

PETRAEUS: Intimidation campaigns, all the rest of that as we saw even in (INAUDIBLE).

SCIUTTO: OK. But let me ask you this. Listen, I -- you note rightly that beyond the forces there, these contractors had a central role in maintaining an air support for the Afghan forces, just keeping the planes and the helicopters up in the air. I get that. However, for folks sitting at home who have watched the U.S.

deployment there for some 20 years, and watched American men and women die there for 20 years, and taxpayer money go there for 20 years, to build such a force, why couldn't that force stand on its own? And does the U.S. military share the blame to some degree for perhaps exaggerating their ability after all these years of advising and assisting them?

PETRAEUS: Look, I stand by what I've said, when I was the commander there, director of the CIA, Central Command before that, publicly and privately.

Now, beyond that, certainly there's plenty of blame to go around. And the special inspector general I think has identified a lot of things that we did wrong over the years. It's -- that's inevitable. This is war. But at the end of the day, again, the administration wisely made the decision to keep troops in Iraq and also in Syria, where they know if they pulled them out there will be a collapse. They put them back into Somalia.

Ironically, this is what president -- Vice President Biden sought back in 2009, which was a modest footprint enabled with a lot of ability that would work alongside -- or really support, not alongside any more, we're not in the front lines, but would support the Afghan Security Forces, who, by the way, died at a rate of something like 27 times. So the idea that the Afghans won't fight I think is -- is more than a bit uncharitable.

SCIUTTO: Right, it's a fair --

PETRAEUS: They (INAUDIBLE the fight and they have died in such numbers that we were worried that we could maintain their end strength (ph).

SCIUTTO: Yes, you can't forget that sacrifice. I met many of those Afghan forces and many of them lost a great deal.

PETRAEUS: Exactly.

SCIUTTO: The U.S., as you know, pulled out of Iraq in 2011. ISIS rose. The U.S. went back in.

Can the U.S. turn this around? Is there an option? Might you recommend that to the president, to redeploy forces there, even a small one, to maintain some stability, or is it too late?

PETRAEUS: I think it's -- it's premature to do that right now. I think we need to see what does develop. Is the Taliban going to return the country to the, again, 7th century?

SCIUTTO: Yes.

PETRAEUS: Will -- or 21st interpretation of sharia law, again, take them back that many centuries, completely prevent women from going to college and from participating in the economy? And so far this is not particularly encouraging. But, again, we're not going to go to war for that. We go to war if al

Qaeda is allowed to reestablish a sanctuary or if the Islamic State, which is out there now, seeks to establish a sanctuary.

And, by the way, keep in mind that nothing succeeds in the extremist business like success. Remember when the Islamic State was a -- in the ascendant (ph) in Iraq and Syria and young men were flocking to serve there because of what they held out.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

PETRAEUS: Now, that reality -- reality was a lot different than what they did proclaim (INAUDIBLE) --

SCIUTTO: No question.

PETRAEUS: Sure (ph).

SCIUTTO: Now --

PETRAEUS: But (INAUDIBLE) we have to be very sensitive and very aware of that.

Now, to be fair, I think the administration's absolutely riveted on this. I mean after having pulled the troops out and seen what has happened, there's no way they're going to allow an al Qaeda or Islamic state sanctuary develop if they can prevent it.

SCIUTTO: OK, but --

PETRAEUS: And there's an awful lot that they can do to detect (INAUDIBLE) --

SCIUTTO: The question is what --

PETRAEUS: And destroy it.

SCIUTTO: What the Taliban does. The Taliban's making a lot of promises, girls can go to school and we will not become a sanctuary for terrorists. And President Biden said confidently this morning that Afghanistan will not go back to what it was 20 years ago. But why -- why should we believe that? There were al Qaeda fighters fighting on the front lines alongside the Taliban in this.

PETRAEUS: (INAUDIBLE). We (INAUDIBLE) we should wait and see what actually happens. And, by the way, I think they're going to be in an extraordinary bind. The Afghan government generally has had a budget of some 19 or so billion dollars, most of that provided by the U.S., Japan and some other major donor nations. They're about to experience about a $17 billion or $18 billion shortfall. Even supplementing it with the proceeds of the illegal narcotics trade that they have controlled for many, many years, the poppy plant and its products.

Basic services are going to degrade. Salaries are not going to be paid. The economy is going to tank and at some point they're going to see the lights go out in -- not just in Kabul, but throughout the country. What happens then? How does the Taliban react? Do they then come to the international community and say, you know, maybe we want to have a different approach.

So, again, I think it's just (INAUDIBLE) to start doing anything more than thinking.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

PETRAEUS: You always should be thinking about every alternative. I think this has shown that you have to be very imaginative about alternatives and what could possibly happen.

[09:25:01]

SCIUTTO: Understood.

General David Petraeus, thanks so much for joining us this morning, and also thanks for your service to this country.

PETRAEUS: It was a privilege, Jim. Thank you.

HARLOW: Hospitalization rates for children and adults with COVID under the age of 50 have reached their highest levels, and the current pace of this shows no sign of letting up. We'll have an update, next.

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HARLOW: Hospitals across the country are at their breaking point. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, one in five hospital ICUs now has at least 95 percent of beds occupied.

[09:30:02]

SCIUTTO: And the CDC says the rates of hospitalizations for children and young adults are at their highest levels since the start of the pandemic.