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Pentagon Says 12 U.S. Service Members Killed, 15 Wounded in Kabul Attack. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired August 26, 2021 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: It's that close. It's that kind of personal work. They have, you know, screened close to 100,000 or more people coming onto the airport. Terrible that this happened.

But you know, obviously the first times this is such a disaster at the airport has befallen them. So, one of the most dangerous things is going to be when and if they can do the forensics. What kind of bomb was this? How sophisticated was it? What kind of explosives or shrapnel such as nails or bits of metal was it stuffed with? How big was it? What detonated it? What was the blast radius that allowed this bomb to kill so many service personnel?

Small comfort, let me just say, no comfort perhaps to their families. But it is something the U.S. military wants to know. It may help them learn who was behind it.

And General McKenzie also said if they can figure out who was behind it and put a finger on it, that they will go after that person, because of course President Biden, the Pentagon has long said if the U.S. is attacked in this situation at the airport, they would respond with force.

I think just going through my notes here, still another interesting point, we knew that the U.S. was talking to the Taliban about the threats, about what was happening at the airport. But they were also encouraging the Taliban not just to search people, but to push the perimeter out, to try and keep watch, try and deter any attacks.

The Taliban might have had very good reason to keep any attackers at bay. They want the U.S. out of there as fast as possible. The mission, General McKenzie said to continue the evacuations will continue, right now, the U.S. plans to be gone by Tuesday.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Yes, and Nick Paton Walsh, as Barbara just laid out there, I thought that was a remarkable press briefing. I mean General McKenzie was so forthcoming with information and taking the time to explain that face to face contact that U.S. service members have to have with everybody coming through the airport in terms of putting their hands on them and having to screen them. And you know, he basically said we're continuing the mission. ISIS

will not deter us from our mission. We have other active threat streams, though, at this moment. You have spent time at that airport. Do you understand what could change, if anything? Can they do anything differently now that this horrible tragedy has happened?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: I have to say I mean hearing how proceedings were going today, it seemed like most of the gates were pretty closed. So, the idea that an individual came through Abbey Gate is something we should talk about in a moment, but I don't really see necessarily how often this instant they can open the gates up and encourage more SIV applicants onto the base. So, they are essentially going to be dealing with the U.S. citizens and priority Afghans that they've essentially arrange access for I think in buses.

So that may reduce the number of people to put on aircraft. He did talk about a possible timeline when they might reduce that evacuation effort but he wouldn't say when it began. The gate though to me as Barbara was saying is quite startling frankly.

This scene -- I've been through the search process myself. Obviously, there are crowds outside and we've seen them in the videos of the horrific blast. So, you don't pit your Marines necessarily into that to search people. This seems to have happened I think in what we refer to as the search lane at Abbey Gate. That's a very common entry point. Afghans I've been talking to have gone through there as well. And this may explain why quite such a horrifyingly large number of U.S. service members lost their lives in this.

It's tighter area. And when you come through you are he was pained to point out, that you could feel the breath on somebody's body. You are patted down with somebody in surgical gloves, your bags are searched. Quite how it is that this particular individual managed to -- if it is the case and the working assumption apparently is that it occurred at one of the gates -- how he was picked out of the crowd and put in that position is of course something they're going to be looking at with great intent.

We know for a fact that very few people are seemingly picked out at random from the crowds now outside those gates. And particularly today, it must have surely been an individual who they were necessarily looking for. So that will be part I'm sure of the intelligence picture there, how that individual got on the list. I should also point out we have heard instances too of people simply through ingenuity or contact or confusing those looking for people managing to find their way on.

But it's a tight area, it's certainly. And there was another interesting thing that really stood out to me there is what about how this attack unfolded. We have this blast. It seems like it may have been the first blast. And it occurred at the search gate. And then a secondary blast seems to have happened at the Baron Hotel complex. Not far away, a walk.

[15:35:00] And isn't quite clear, if it was necessarily on the complex or nearby in the street outside. But then it's clear according to General McKenzie, there were ISIS gunmen who then opened fire on civilians. So that in itself suggests more possibly than just one attacker. It suggests maybe a coordinated team here.

Then you have to ask questions just how many of these individuals managed to get through the Taliban security lines to that original point and it goes back to the broader question here of the U.S. essentially charging the Taliban with their perimeter security here.

You know, there's a long history between the U.S. and the Taliban. They have not been friends for a long time. This change in relationship I'm sure many people will look back on and begin to wonder whether something slipped through all of this.

As you said, no indication now the Taliban let these attackers through, but still a remarkable security environment around that airport.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Yes. Let's go to Kaitlan Collins. I understand, Kaitlan, you have an update from the White House.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: We are and we do know now that we are going to be hearing from President Biden today. When exactly the president is going to speak on these attacks that have killed 12 U.S. service members is still unclear, but we are told plans are being made right now for the president to address the nation. And of course, this will be the first time we have heard from him today. He has spent the day essentially huddling with his national security team, finding out the information in realtime about what's happened on the ground.

And I am told that after that we will hear from the Press Secretary Jen Psaki. That's a briefing that was scheduled to take place earlier today but she will take questions from reporters later on.

And of course, there are a lot of questions for the president about what this moment means and of course about what is happening going forward. Because we did just hear from the Pentagon. Right now, this mission is going to continue and they are going to try to maximize the output of those evacuations. And of course, the big concern are the terror attacks -- the threats of attacks that are still ongoing.

And that is what you heard from CENTCOM just there saying that they are very real, there are very real threats. And that is they are monitoring and doing their best to defend against. So, we will hear from President Biden in a little bit. We'll let you guys know timing when we get it. But it will be President Biden and they we will hear from the Press Secretary Jen Psaki after that.

CAMEROTA: OK, come back to us as soon as you have that. Kylie Atwood, meanwhile, I understand that you have some information. Is there a plan for the Americans that we know are still in Afghanistan?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, well, you heard it from the CENTCOM commander there that they are still executing their plan to evacuate people from Afghanistan. Of course, that fundamentally includes the Americans.

So, you also heard him say that in the last 24 hours about 500 Americans have left Afghanistan on these flights. And what we're told by the State Department is that there are about 1,000 Americans that they believe are still in the country. About two-thirds of those are making moves to leave the country. So that would be about 750 people. And some of those may already be on their way out of the country or already out of the country.

I know that sounds confusing but it is a reflection of a reality right now. This is a very porous, quickly evolving situation. There are Americans at the airport that are trying to get on these flights, trying to get out of the country. The State Department incredibly focused on getting all of those Americans out who want to leave.

And we should also note that the CENTCOM commander noted that this whole evacuation process was designed to work under pressure and that is exactly what we're seeing happen right now.

Of course, what happened with these explosions was a worst-case scenario. The death of these U.S. officials who worked at the Pentagon, worst-case scenario, but they are still carrying on with their evacuation efforts. We don't know exactly how much it slowed them down. I think we'll see that maybe tomorrow when we have a firmer answer as to how many people actually flew out of the country today. But what we do know is that Americans are still moving out, the State Department is still in regular contact with them to get them safely out of the country.

BLACKWELL: All right, Kylie Atwood and to all of our reporters there, thank you. Let's bring in now Susan Glasser, CNN global affairs analyst. Also retired Army Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, he's a CNN military analyst. We have CNN White House correspondent John Harwood and international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson.

General Hertling, let me start with you and your reaction to what we just learned from the Pentagon, 12 U.S. service members killed, 15 wounded in the attacks.

MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, Victor, what I'll tell you is when General McKenzie said that I was devastated. I didn't expect that number, truthfully. And can I say, first of all, heartfelt condolences go out to all the parents and loved ones of those who are probably going to get messages sometime soon about their loved one who gave their life in the most difficult of missions. This is not just a combat mission. This is a humanitarian mission. It's getting people out of a contested place.

[15:40:00]

General McKenzie said some -- it was a terrific briefing first of all, because he really shared the spectrum of the kinds of things they're doing. But one of the things he said struck me because it reminded me -- I, unfortunately, during my time in Iraq experienced several suicide bombings against troops and against Iraqi civilians. But one of the things he said in almost a nuanced way, he said they didn't know if the suicide bomber was a male or a female.

Now I'm going to make a conjecture there because one of the things we had in Iraq was a female suicide bomber network. And the reason it was so effective is because it could get through the search lanes of different places. And the Taliban, being the extreme sharia law following people they are, are not going to touch a female or not going to search a female. That could be a possibility. I'm only offering that as a theory, no facts behind it, but I'm sure they're all looking at that.

The comment about why were people so close together? When you look at the scene of the bombing, you know, it looked like the blast radius probably extended at least 100 to 150 meters. When you're talking about Marines at a search gate, as Nick Paton Walsh mentioned the search zone, there are several there covering the individual who is doing the search. And there are others who perhaps are searching other people in order to get the throughput the way they wanted to get the number of people out through the Abbey Gate that we needed to do.

So, there are many reasons why there could have been so many military personnel in one spot. But when you look at the rest of the carnage in that area, that bomb blast was pretty extensive and it probably killed -- as the Afghan ministry is already saying, it killed quite a few people and wounded quite a few more. So, this was a significant blast. And it's really just devastating to hear this kind of carnage went on. So that's my initial take on this complex attack.

It's going to certainly affect, as we talked about the other day, the phase three of the noncombatant evacuation operation, because there are going to be less people getting out, as you've already said. It's going to be much tougher and there is going to be an increased emphasis on force protection and both U.S. and Afghan security.

CAMEROTA: You're so right, General, the numbers are staggering that we've heard, and of course it is fluid. But 12 U.S. service members killed, as you say that was higher than any of us expected. 15 wounded in this Kabul attack. And then the Afghan Health Minister said 60 Afghans that they know are killed, 140 wounded. But it does look like, well, it's fluid.

So, John Hartwood, we now know, we're just getting in word that the president will be speaking 5:00 P.M. Eastern today. And he had said that any attack on U.S. service members would be answered. What do we expect him to share with the American public today?

JOHN HARTWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well. above all I think you're going to hear two things from the president. One is an expression of sympathy for those troops and their families and the loss that they've suffered. This is something that President Biden identifies with extremely closely.

And the second thing is what the -- what we've heard from Secretary of Defense Austin before and from General McKenzie, which is that the mission will continue. No indication that it will be extended. We'll see if the President has anything to say on that.

In terms of retaliation, I think the question is what is a productive kind of retaliation that the United States could do as it tries to end this mission?

If this were an attack by the Taliban, that would be an entirely different story. An attack by ISIS-K, I think, is more difficult because the organization is more diffuse and identifying a target that would both make sense as retaliation on its own terms but also facilitate the continuation of the mission, I think is a harder thing to accomplish.

But look, there's no other way to say it. This is the worst nightmare for President Biden. He had the initial scenes of chaos and desperation when Kabul fell to the Taliban. The military got its arms around the airport and had accomplished a stunning pace of evacuations. As long as that went on with no mass casualty events and no U.S. casualties, that was something that would allow President Biden to -- were it to continue all the way through to say we did the best we could at this end of this 20-year conflict and got out.

[15:45:00]

Now it is a much more difficult situation politically obviously. Politics is not the most important thing at this moment. But this is precisely what President Biden had warned against. And it's what made it such a terrible day for him as well as obviously for the American military and those families in particular.

BLACKWELL: Nic Robertson, one element that General McKenzie wanted to reenforce was that how proud he is of the U.S. forces there who have working so professionally over the last several days, screening 104,000 people, as he said. But of course, we know that the U.S. has to be right every time. Those who want to attack have to only be right the one time. And we've seen now the result of that.

He also highlighted that they're reaching out to the Taliban to tell them what's expected to protect the U.S. and that it's in the interest of the Taliban for them to continue to protect the U.S. because they want the U.S. out. Explain that.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, and the Taliban have said, you know, the U.S. is an occupying force that's propped up a puppet government, the government that has just overthrown of Afghanistan. They want them out as soon as possible and they're trying to stop any Afghans that want to leave and take those last flights out. So absolutely the Taliban want to see the United States leave. So, and their promise to the United States have been to protect U.S. forces, that their forces would not attack U.S. forces during the drawdown process.

And it's something they've been proud of until this moment that they've been able to keep that promise. So, they provided this outer cordon of security at the airport.

We even heard from the Pentagon that, you know, there've had been a certain amount of, you know, prescreening by the Taliban, that it had been communicated to them what was needed to allow what individuals would have to have in terms of paperwork, et cetera to be allowed into the airport. And the Taliban were responsible for doing sort of first level security checks themselves.

But those soldiers, they are absolutely on the frontline. In a frontline in a way that, you know, in previous wars would have been unimaginable. The frontline was trenches and people staring down rifle barrels at each other across trenches and no man's land.

Here as we heard, it's not staring across trenches. It's feeling the breath on your face of somebody who you have to physically search, pat down. And you don't know until you start to pat them down what they have underneath their clothing, if it's a suicide bomber.

So hugely brave undertaking. One detail that forms in my mind here, the Taliban actually have a huge skillset in terms of suicide bombing. They used to essentially run factories of producing suicide bombers. The Haqqani network part of the Taliban were taking young children from madras, from religious schools at a very young age, in some cases drugging them. A colleague had somebody go into one of these training places and they would try to recruit them as a suicide bomber, often to be given a special jacket.

So, the Taliban have a huge skill set and production in the past of producing suicide bombers through the Haqqani network. And it is a former Haqqani network midlevel officer that's believed to be at the head of ISIS right now. ISIS have a huge skill set and a deep history and a big bench strength in building suicide bombs, which means they know how to make them. They know how to hide them. They know how to make them as deadly as possible. And I think that's what we're seeing here, their skill set developed almost over a generation. And then Afghanistan's context by the Taliban as well.

You would say in theory therefore the Taliban should know what they're looking for. We know that their security perimeter has not been effective.

CAMEROTA: Susan, I mean, you know, the U.S. had taken solace that up until now not a single American had been killed. And then to learn in one fell swoop 12 U.S. service members were killed, 15 wounded. I mean and again the numbers have been fluid in terms of Afghans. What do you think changes over the next four days?

SUSAN GLASSER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, I was struck, you know, by the sense of really almost grim resolution on the part of General McKenzie who just gave us the updated casualty information and this horrific figure of 12 American personnel killed. That would make it already the worst day since 2011 in terms of American deaths in Afghanistan and of course a terrible civilian toll as well today.

But again, what I heard was a sense of resolution.

[15:50:00]

The idea that the President has said this mission will end on the 31st. Interestingly in the last few days you had heard a number of calls from those on Capitol Hill and others, European allies asking the president to reconsider the 31st. I don't believe, you know, he wasn't open to those pleas beforehand and I think he'll be even less so now.

Based on my reporting, I think that is unlikely to change at all. I think that, you know, the mission is ending on Tuesday we've already seen today indications that other countries, allied countries, are wrapping up their evacuation missions, Canada and Germany in order to have the focus really be on remaining American operations.

I was also struck by the fact they said even after the attack that they had had some people who were able to get into the airport and that the current number I guess is around 1,000 American citizens left by their -- by the estimation of the State Department still in Afghanistan. So, they only have a few days left to extract as many Americans as possible. I think that they will continue to do so. That seems to be the indication that they are aware of the risks.

BLACKWELL: General Hertling, we had a conversation with General Wesley Clark earlier in the show and he talked about options for protection, options for security that could be sent in, but we heard from General McKenzie that we have the personnel that we need. Do you expect there will be any major sifts among just the U.S. forces, not to mention the Taliban who has been left to protect the perimeter?

HERTLING: I don't, Victor. There's too few days left to the August 31st deadline and even if it goes beyond that. And as General McKenzie said he has the forces he needs. He's going to readjust based on the number. He's going to do different things. But you know, what I'd point out is General McKenzie also talked about the threats in the remaining days. He looks to continue with the NEO operation but also look to get final aircraft out of there.

You know, the big bullets, the man pads, the shoulder-fired anti-air weapons, those are relatively easy things to take care of. Always at the forefront of my mind in the dangers as we transition to phases of this NEO was the suicide bomber. That's the most difficult thing to approach. It's the easiest one to get through the lines. You know, General McKenzie mentioned the potential for a vehicle borne explosive device. That would have been a whole lot tougher getting through the gate.

But that was one of my biggest fear if they could blast through a gate and then pass through a vehicle afterwards with a complex attack. But you don't go after the suicide bomber. You go after the suicide bomb- making cell before it has the potential of sending out the bombers as Nic was just talking about.

So, I think that's the major threat. It's especially a threat from the ISIS-K network and as I understand it, they have now put up a film claiming responsibility for this attack. All of those things are critically important, but they're -- it's the toughest thing to defend against, and I would suggest that's the biggest threat that he's going to face in the remaining days there. CAMEROTA: John Harwood, I mean, as Susan Glasser just touched on, you

know, the armchair generals which, I mean, I suppose we all are on some level saying he should stay. He should go. He should have done it sooner. But why are we down to such a small force?

Maybe we should have a bigger force. All of that today just feels very different. I mean today just feels -- you know, we got to see in horrifying detail the risks that every hour our troops are under. And I think that the President has been telegraphing that to us in a subtle way, but what do you expect -- I mean do you expect that he changes his calculation at all?

HARWOOD: I don't. I expect the aperture on this operation to narrow. Susan indicated and Kylie Atwood was reporting earlier that they've assessed that there are about 1,000 Americans in the country and about two-third of them are seeking to leave, so somewhere around 700 people, a little shy of 700 perhaps, are seeking to leave.

I would expect them to focus very intently on those people who might be easier for them to go and get if they have to outside of the airport and some green cardholders perhaps. But I think the number of Afghans likely to be targeted for extraction in the next couple of days is also going to shrink.

[15:55:00]

You know, I talked the other day to a senior administration official who said there are going to be a lot of deserving people who don't make it out, who get left behind, that that's the reality of what happens when -- whenever the Taliban took over. That would have happened, and I think that's the view from the administration. I would expect President Biden to indicate that.

Most of the options that people have talked about for making things safer, expanding the perimeter, for example, require a lot more troops. And I think that is a line that President Biden is very, very unlikely to cross at this stage.

BLACKWELL: Nic, some of the U.S.'s allies have been quite vocal about their dissatisfaction with the execution of the withdrawal over the last few days. Add this variable to that conversation.

ROBERTSON: This is going to be a moment and a day of great sadness, and it is already. I mean, despicable is how British Prime Minister Boris Johnson described this, and he called a -- you know, his security cabinet the sort of most important security personnel within the government to a meeting later in the day in the U.K.

So this is the sort of worst unraveling of an already bad situation, but the reality is the United States partners in NATO, Britain, France are all in it with the United States and they all know what's at stake. And we heard the British Prime Minister today say, look, we're going to be in this, trying to get people out till the last minute. He said most of the people that Britain wants to get out of Afghanistan, they've done that. But they will keep going until the last minute. The French President expressed his concern. You know, there's a

potential here that the situation could unravel beyond where it is today. That's what we heard the French President say earlier in the day, so Emmanuel Macron imagining a situation where it gets worse.

No amount of handwringing in foreign capitals in Europe is going to change and remedy this immediate situation. I think everyone understands the imperative is to get out those people that they need to get out, and that's the mission. How and why, this went so badly wrong, they can get to that another day.

CAMEROTA: Yes, and General Hertling, I just want to circle back with you to end on this human note because you have shared with us your personal stories of how much you carry, you still carry, the mementos of some of the troops, fallen troops with you, and you still remember them every year. And the idea that as we sit here speaking that 12 families are getting a knock on the door in terms of that notification is just so gut-wrenching.

HERTLING: It is, and you can tell even though General McKenzie is a four-star general at the top of the Central Command food chain and he's got a lot of subordinates working for him, every single one of them, every single leader in that organization is going to feel this today and for the rest of their lives, Alisyn.

And I want to just repeat for emphasis the Marines, the soldiers, the airmen that are doing this mission now, yes, this is a combat mission, but they are also conducting a humanitarian mission to save other people's lives. There is no greater gift than that, and to give your life in that effort is pretty important.

So, yes, a lot of people are going to be getting the knock on the door tonight. General McKenzie is going to go to bed with a heavy heart, not only tonight but probably every night in his future because he's going to remember this day. It's tough. It is really tough.

And I would also probably suggest President Biden is feeling the same way. This isn't just about politics. This is about human life, and he knows it based on his son's experiences in a combat zone.

BLACKWELL: All right. Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, John Harwood, Nic Robertson, Susan Glasser, thank you all for the insight and analysis. And again, we're expecting to hear from President Biden at the top of the next hour on what is a tragic day, 12 U.S. service members killed in these attacks, 15 wounded. And we've learned from the Afghan Health Ministry more than 60 killed -- Afghans killed and more than 140 Afghans wounded in these attacks.

CAMEROTA: And we've seen the carnage with our own eyes. We've seen some of the video after that attack and it looks horrifying. I just want to underscore what General Hertling just said because this is what the Secretary of Defense Austin, the statement that he made.

He said the terrorists took their lives, our service members, at the very moment these troops were trying to save the lives of others. And I'm glad that General Hertling just reminded everyone of that. This is the day that obviously President Biden and all Americans were hoping would never come and that we would be able to leave and get everyone out without something like this happening.

BLACKWELL: Yes, keep those families in your thoughts as we continue to cover the breaking news here on CNN. "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.

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