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U.N.: More Than 500,000 Afghan Refugees May Flee By End Of 2021; Hurricane Ida Heads Into Gulf Of Mexico, Takes Aim At New Orleans; U.S. Military Conducts Airstrike Against ISIS-K Terror Group; Florida Judge Rules Against Governor's Mask Mandate Ban; Cases Among Unvaccinated Overwhelming Some U.S. Hospitals; Taliban Vowed To Govern According To Sharia Law; More Than 18,700 Evacuees Flown To Ramstein Airbase; Ronaldo Returning To Manchester United; Parole Recommended For Robert Kennedy Assassin Sirhan Sirhan. Aired 5-6a ET

Aired August 28, 2021 - 05:00   ET

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

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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): After hammering Cuba, hurricane Ida is now heading towards the United States. We'll tell you just how strong it could get before making landfall.

The U.S. strikes back. How the American military took aim at the group behind the Kabul airport bombing.

And the fight over face masks: American courts are weighing in.

Live from CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta, welcome to all of you watching us here in the United States, Canada and around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is CNN NEWSROOM. This is CNN NEWSROOM.

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BRUNHUBER: Hurricane Ida is gaining strength as it turns northward through the Gulf of Mexico. The storm hit western Cuba as a category 1 on Friday. It's expected to become a category 3 or 4 this weekend.

Hurricane warnings are now posted for parts of the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts and evacuations are underway. Forecasters say Ida likely will slam into New Orleans on the anniversary of hurricane Katrina.

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BRUNHUBER: The U.S. is making moves against the terror group believed to be responsible for the Kabul airport bombing, as the threat of additional attacks hangs over the final days of the evacuation efforts.

The U.S. military says it used a drone to take out an ISIS-K planner in an eastern Afghan province. It's the first action in response to Thursday's airport attack, which killed at least 170 Afghans, 13 American troops and 2 British citizens. The already difficult task of getting inside the airport perimeter is

even more complicated. The U.S. embassy is warning that all Americans waiting outside the gates should leave immediately and that another attack in Kabul is likely.

Meanwhile, NATO ally after NATO ally is wrapping up their own individual evacuation efforts ahead of the U.S. Now you're looking at the last Italian military flight out of Kabul. It left the airport Friday evening, carrying 58 Afghans.

[05:05:00]

BRUNHUBER: CNN international security editor, Nick Paton Walsh joins me now from Doha, Qatar.

Nick, let's start with that U.S. airstrike.

What more can you tell us?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: A limited statement from Central Command, who have sort of authority over the Middle East and Afghanistan as well, saying there was an unmanned drone strike that hit Nangarhar.

That's a province in the east of Afghanistan, where ISIS have had a significant presence in the past and enduring as well. Limited information, as I say; it says it hit an ISIS-K planner, not necessarily the ISIS-K planner that was behind the airport attack.

But this is obviously the first instance in which we've seen the U.S. strike back against ISIS after this in Afghanistan.

The broader thing to remember is that targets like this of opportunity would probably have been on the U.S. target list in the past years or so. But the tempo has changed about how often they're willing to deploy a force against that particular terrorist group.

So increasingly, now, though, it seems that the evacuation operation is struggling. The U.S. embassy warning citizens to stay away. State Department yesterday indicated that there might be as many as 500, whose situation they are still trying to track down, who might be in need of evacuation.

But the window for that is reducing. We know from a senior U.S. official and a source close to the situation that, at some point during this weekend, the vast bulk of the U.S. diplomatic staff on that airport will depart, rendering it harder for the evacuation to continue at the pace that we have seen, the blistering, extraordinary pace we have seen over the past days.

In fact, that may be reflected in the latest figures we received from the Pentagon, who said that between 3:00 am and 3:00 pm over yesterday, so by middle of yesterday afternoon, 4,200 people were taken out.

So that possibly reflects a slowing pace in which they're able to take individuals from the airport. And that may also be a reflection of how hard it is to get them to the gates. And also in this increased risk environment, the escorted convoys that have come in with Taliban clearance, they may also be slowing possibly, as well.

So it's obviously an exceptionally difficult task in terms of getting candidates for evacuation, fulfilling the evacuation in a high-risk environment. But the U.S. have taken pains to point out that they will continue to evacuation until the end or to the last moment they can.

But in the days ahead, this stops from being such a focus on getting Afghans out and American citizens out and more about winding up that significant military operation, the last U.S. presence in Afghanistan for -- of this 20-year period. Kim?

BRUNHUBER: All right. Thanks so much, Nick Paton Walsh. Appreciate it.

For the political fallout, we go to Washington now. CNN White House reporter Jasmine Wright joins us.

So President Biden, he's faced plenty of criticism on both sides of the aisle, it should be pointed out, after this disastrous drawdown. And the criticisms grew even louder after the suicide attacks. Some Republicans even calling for his resignation.

So will the fact that Biden acted so quickly on his promise, will that calm some of the criticism that's been aimed at him in the wake of this tragedy?

JASMINE WRIGHT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kim, we don't know yet what the political impact of this strike will be that happened Friday night.

But it is no coincidence that President Biden acted so swiftly in getting this strike done. We know that, as Nick said, we don't know yet if the target that was killed was the person that actually perpetrated the attack that left 13 U.S. service members dead on Thursday.

But we do know that President Biden is trying to send a message, both to the people in Afghanistan but also potentially to critics here at home, that he will do what it takes quickly to try to protect those troops on the ground, as they go into that last phase of that drawdown effort.

But as we kind of gauge what the success will be, we don't know that yet. But when we do learn it, I can tell you that this will be a model of what the president and his administration uses as their over the horizon capabilities.

Remember, that is something that President Biden himself said, over these months, in being comfortable in withdrawing from Afghanistan, using that to keep their thumb on the pulse of any actors who would threaten the United States' homeland coming out of Afghanistan.

But the strike, Kim, does leave the U.S. in kind of a precarious situation, as we know that things are unstable on the ground. Nick just alluded to the fact that evacuations are getting harder, specifically as more troops are starting to draw down and come out of Afghanistan yesterday.

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WRIGHT: On Friday, the Pentagon spokesperson said that there were about 5,000 troops still on the ground. So this could become even more dangerous as we get closer to that August 31st deadline. But President Biden yesterday said that, though this was a dangerous mission, Kim, he also called it a worthy mission.

BRUNHUBER: All right. Thanks so much, Jasmine Wright in Washington.

Well, we're keeping a close eye on hurricane Ida as it heads towards America's Gulf Coast. Another update from our CNN Weather Center just ahead.

And the U.S. releases key findings on its report on the origins of COVID. What it reveals and what China has to say about it in a live report from Beijing. That's next. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: Despite several U.S. governors banning mask mandates, state courts don't seem to want to play along. Florida governor Ron DeSantis has refused to let school districts require students to mask up.

But a circuit court judge in Leon County shot down his ban on mask mandates Friday, ruling that the governor doesn't have the authority for a blanket mandatory ban against face masks.

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BRUNHUBER: And a Texas judge ruled that Harris County, which includes Houston, can resume its mask mandates for schools and local government employees; that despite an order from governor Greg Abbott banning such measures.

Vaccinations in the U.S. are slowly inching higher with 52 percent of the population now fully vaccinated, according to the CDC. But even as vaccinations increase, cases and hospitalizations are skyrocketing.

The state of Florida reported more cases during the past week than during any other seven-day period since the pandemic began. Health officials are attributing those recent spikes to unvaccinated Americans. CNN's Miguel Marquez looks at how they're overwhelming one Mississippi hospital.

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MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Dolly Monceaux is being moved from the COVID ICU to a regular COVID bed. The 82-year old thinks she got the virus from a family member.

DOLLY MONCEAUX, COVID-19 PATIENT: You don't know you're going to get it and then you get it and you're sick. And you don't know if you are going to live or die.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): Unvaccinated, she says she was on the fence about getting vaccinated. Today, her mind is made up.

MONCEAUX: All my family wasn't going to get the shot. But now we are.

MARQUEZ: All of your family?

MONCEAUX: All my family.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): Fifty-seven-year-old Ronnie Terrell has been in the hospital for more than two weeks. Breathing, still a chore. Also unvaccinated, he just didn't think he needed it.

RONNIE TERRELL, COVID-19 PATIENT: I just never got around to it. I've been healthy for 40 years and I hadn't had a cold in 40 years.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): He thinks he got the virus at an outside event.

MARQUEZ: Did you think COVID was not a serious illness?

TERRELL: I didn't give it that much thought because at the time it wasn't that big a deal, you know, when it first started, you know.

MARQUEZ: And what's your thought on it now?

TERRELL: It's a big deal. It's a big deal.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): Mississippi suffering its biggest spike in cases, yet. Hospitalizations, more than ever. So many cases so quickly, the trend line nearly vertical. The vast majority of cases, hospitalizations and deaths, all among the unvaccinated.

DR. IJLAL BABER, DIRECTOR, PULMONARY AND CRITICAL CARE, SINGING RIVER HEALTH SYSTEM: I think what's most interesting is the detachment, the complete lack of connection in what you see out in the community with what's happening in this -- in these hospitals.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): Pascagoula's Singing River Hospital can't expand COVID capacity fast enough. It's cleared beds to serve more COVID patients but doesn't have the staff to open it. The beds sit empty.

BABER: It's exhausting, both mentally and emotionally.

I think the most difficult thing emotionally that we are having to deal with now is what do we do with these people who have been on the ventilator for weeks and weeks and weeks and aren't getting better?

MARQUEZ (voice-over): There is a small ray of hope. The vaccination clinic here is seeing an uptick in those getting shots into arms.

EDNA BARIA, VACCINE RECIPIENT: We were still just -- started to ease in to our normal life and then, the Delta variant, and then we're like, OK.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): Edna and Thomas Baria were most concerned about the Delta variant in making his already complicated health situation even worse.

THOMAS BARIA, VACCINE RECIPIENT: It would be wonderful to get back to normal.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): Nineteen-year-old Isabelle Smith got such a bad case, she could barely get out of bed.

MARQUEZ: So, when you got sick, how sick did you get?

ISABELLE SMITH, COVID-19 PATIENT: On a scale from 1 to 10, probably an 8.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): She, now, wants to get vaccinated as soon as she can. Her mom, who is vaccinated, thought her daughter, who has asthma, might die.

ROBIN WALLS, ISABELLE'S MOTHER: Whether or not I was going to have to have her on a ventilator, when I begged her to get the shot, and I told her, I'm backing off, I've done all I can do.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): Singing River Hospital also has a monoclonal antibody treatment site for outpatients, who have the virus, but don't, yet, need a bed.

MARQUEZ: What is the level of demand for this treatment right now?

CHRIS AYERS, LEAD CLINICAL PHARMACIST, SINGING RIVER HEALTH SYSTEM: Literally, the phone is ringing off the hook. Again, we are doing -- we're trying to do 200 per day; we could probably do 400 with the demand we have right now.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): The hospital, expanding the treatment site into what was once a waiting room. The treatment, while good, it isn't as good as being vaccinated and preventing the disease from taking root.

AYERS: This is not a replacement of a vaccination. That is the way -- that's the most effective way that we will get through this pandemic is through an effective vaccination campaign. Regeneron is strictly for those who are already positive.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): Amanda Dunning, 35, was unvaccinated, thinks she got it from a friend while shopping. Now she'll get vaccinated as soon as possible.

AMANDA DUNNING, COVID-19 PATIENT: I'm convinced. Please, just get the vaccine.

MARQUEZ: You have gone 180 on this.

DUNNING: Absolutely. I did a 180 and it is because of getting COVID.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): While not a cure, the antibody treatment is keeping the sick from being admitted to the hospital but it has to be administered by health care professionals.

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MARQUEZ (voice-over): Edith Jordan, 64 and unvaccinated, thinks she got the virus at a family event. OK with an IV drip for an antibody treatment, she still doesn't trust the vaccine.

EDITH JORDAN, COVID-19 PATIENT: I'm just not trustful of the data.

MARQUEZ: Which data?

JORDAN: I'd rather not say.

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JORDAN: It was just a personal choice.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): Vaccine refusal sickening people throughout the South, ripping through South Mississippi.

MARQUEZ: What is COVID doing to your community?

JENNIFER MCDAVID, EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT RN, SINGING RIVER HEALTH SYSTEM: It's killing us. It's killing our residents. It's killing our demographics. It's killing the staff, emotionally. It's a complete overwhelming situation.

MARQUEZ (voice-over): The emergency department so overwhelmed here, patients sometimes wait days for a bed to open up in the hospital, a deepening crisis with no end in sight -- Miguel Marquez, CNN, Pascagoula, Mississippi.

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BRUNHUBER: U.S. intelligence agencies can't say for sure how the coronavirus originally appeared. On Friday, they released the unclassified version of a report that looked into the origin of COVID- 19. The agencies are still divided on whether the virus is more likely to have leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China or jumped from animals to humans.

President Joe Biden accused Beijing of withholding information needed to reach a conclusion. They said the U.S. will keep trying to get to the bottom of it.

Well, as you can imagine, this isn't going over well in China. So for more on that, let's bring in CNN's David Culver, joining us from Beijing.

David, already before the report was even made public, China was discounting and criticizing it.

So what's China saying now?

DAVID CULVER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. And it seems that they had a very lengthy response ready to go, to this unclassified version. It came out of the Chinese embassy in Washington.

Actually, their response is longer than the unclassified report, which is about a page and maybe a third. So it's not very long. It's not very lengthy. It doesn't bring us any closer, really, to how this virus started. There's not that smoking gun evidence.

We're looking for that one piece of evidence that would suggest that, either the virus was in the lab before this outbreak or perhaps that host animal, that suggests that it went from a bat to that host animal and then spread to humans, none of that has been found.

What we have instead is a bunch of circumstantial evidence. And this 90-day review proves that there is still a lot of circumstantial evidence. And investigators combed through that for some three months.

But it doesn't say for certain what exactly caused this outbreak. And you have this inconclusive result. That does not totally exonerate Beijing. One expert had this to say. Take a listen.

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GREGORY POLING, SENIOR FELLOW FOR SOUTHEAST ASIA, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: Setting aside any conspiracy theories about labs in Wuhan, the fact that China will not allow a second WHO investigation to find out how the virus likely jumped from animals to humans is problematic.

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CULVER: And that's exactly what that report pushes, is that there needs to be more transparency. There needs to be more openness on part of the Chinese.

Part of that would be allowing for a phase II, for example, of the WHO field mission study. China said that's not going to happen. They've pushed back on that and they've said they've been open enough and they will no longer go forward with this.

I want you also to look at the words that they put out in part with this lengthy statement. They say, "Since the outbreak of COVID-19, China has taken an open, transparent and responsible attitude. We have released information, shared the genome sequencing of the virus and carried out international cooperation to fight the disease, all done at the earliest possible time."

The problem with that, Kim, is it's not totally true. Our earliest reporting pokes holes in a lot of this. We covered what was the cover- up, the silencing of whistleblowers, the mishandling. A lot of that happened at the local level and a lot of the blame was put on the Wuhan government.

Nonetheless, it seemed to make people think that this was under control and preventable for several weeks. We know that not to have been the case now. And going forward, it seems that China will like to push past this and push a propaganda campaign that has been relentless, Kim, in recrafting this narrative. It seems to be finding some success as well, which will be concerning

for the U.S. going forward and really, for the international community as a whole, as scientists tell me, not getting to the bottom of this is really going to be damaging in trying to prevent future pandemics.

BRUNHUBER: Yes. That's what it all comes down to. David Culver in Beijing, thanks so much.

All right. Now we want to take a look at the COVID situation around the world.

Norway is seeing a dramatic spike in cases in recent weeks. For the third day in a row, the country reported more than 1,000 cases. They have been surging there since mid July, when Norway was only reporting about 200 per day.

[05:20:00]

BRUNHUBER: Canadian health officials have authorized the use of the Moderna shot in children, ages 12, to 17. The vaccine was previously authorized, only for adults.

And, in Australia, New South Wales, reporting more than 1,000 new community cases in the state's highest caseload so far in the pandemic and it comes as Sydney has spent 9 weeks in lockdown.

All right. We are monitoring what the National Hurricane Center says will be an extremely dangerous major hurricane. We'll look at what the Gulf Coast can expect as it gets closer to landfall and how the danger extends for far inland. We'll have details after the break.

And as the end of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan draws near, a warning from the World Health Organization about the humanitarian mission there. That's ahead. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: Hurricane Ida is gaining strength as it churns northward in the Gulf of Mexico. Right now, it's a category 1 storm on a scale of 5, up to 5. But it's expected to become a dangerous category 3 or even 4 before it hits the U.S. later in the weekend.

Hurricane warnings were posted for much of coastal Louisiana and Mississippi, including New Orleans. And authorities are urging people in vulnerable areas to evacuate immediately. Emergency officials are preparing for the aftermath by pre-positioning crews and supplies in the region.

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BRUNHUBER: Back to Afghanistan now. And a swift response by the U.S. to Thursday's deadly attack at Kabul's airport.

A few hours ago, the U.S. announced it had conducted an airstrike against ISIS-K in an area east of Kabul. The terror group claimed responsibility for the horrific bombing that killed at least 170 Afghans, as well as 13 U.S. service members. Central Command spokesman Captain Bill Urban issued this statement.

"U.S. military forces conducted an over-the-horizon counterterrorism operation today against an ISIS-K planner. The unmanned airstrike occurred in the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan. Initial indications are that we killed the target. We know of no civilian casualties."

So that comes as the U.S. embassy in Kabul is once again warning its citizens to stay away from the airport and its gates. So we're going to show you here.

This is a live look at the Kabul airport, where the evacuation effort is in its final phase, before troops have set to leave by Tuesday. Sam Kiley has more on where things stand.

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SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Crowd control, Taliban style. A day after 13 American service members, two British citizens, and at least 170 Afghans were killed by a suicide bomber, Afghans are still trying to get to Kabul's airport and to freedom.

Just over the blast walls, the mission continues. Nearly 13,000 people flown out in 24 hours. The wounded American service members have been transferred to Landstuhl Regional Medical Centre in Germany.

Now, there is a second mission. Hunting down the ISIS-K terrorists behind Thursday's attack. To accomplish that, America will need continued cooperation from the Taliban, which still controls checkpoints like this one in Kabul filmed today.

They're implementing a harder ring around the airport and crowds have thinned. Abbey Gate, where the attack occurred, remains closed.

ADM. JOHN KIRBY (RET.), PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: We still believe there are credible threats. In fact, I'd say specific, credible threats, and we want to make sure we're prepared for those.

KILEY: The Pentagon warning that these could be rockets or vehicle bombs.

In Kabul, families collect the bodies of their loved ones, and survivors come to terms with what has happened. This man says that he was an interpreter for the British and was among the hundreds of Afghans wounded.

"I fell into the stream and thought I was the only one still alive. I saw all the other people were dead. More than 5000 evacuees are waiting for flights at Kabul's airport. And I realize like Italy and Spain have already ended their missions in Afghanistan." MAJ. GEN. HANK TAYLOR, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, U.S. JOINT STAFF REGIONAL OPERATIONS: We have the ability to include evacuees on U.S. military airlift out of Afghanistan, until the very end.

KILEY: The walls of Kabul's airport are now stained with blood, as Afghanistan counts down the final days of America's longest war -- Sam Kiley, CNN, Doha.

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BRUNHUBER: Questions and concerns are growing over how the Taliban will rule Afghanistan going forward.

Will it be similar or vastly different compared to 20 years ago?

Well, CNN's Ivan Watson has covered Afghanistan extensively over the years and joins us now from Hong Kong.

So the Taliban have said all the right things, right?

They've learned from their experiences; they'll allow women to work; they're portraying themselves as the kinder, gentler Taliban 2.0. You've spent years ago in Afghanistan and covered this story for decades.

What do you think life under the Taliban will look like this time around?

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, immediately the challenges are staggering.

[05:35:00]

WATSON: Because the funds, the international aid upon which a large chunk of the Afghan economy -- and we have to add the caveat that Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world -- the international aid upon which a lot of the economy depended has dried up.

Quite literally, as the Westerners and their support people have been fleeing from the airport, you have hundreds of millions of dollars that have been frozen from institutions like the International Monetary Fund, the IMF.

The banks are closed in Afghanistan right now, so there's a shortage of currency. And then the question about whether or not the Taliban can handle doing things, like running a central bank, monetary policy, things like that.

When they were in power 20 years ago, the Afghan currency was the value of toilet paper. I mean, it was kind of a joke, really. And there were different kinds of currency floating around Afghanistan.

A big question will be, can the Taliban go from being a guerilla fighting force to actually running large, complicated cities like Kabul, with some 6 million residents? And that's not entirely clear right now, with the speed at which they

overthrew the U.S.-backed government there.

Then there are the security challenges, which, we saw on Thursday, are still staggering. You saw suicide bombers that killed more than 100 Afghan citizens, not mentioning the 13 U.S. service people there and that ISIS branch in Afghanistan has fought with the Taliban in the past.

We have questions about how cohesive the command and control of the Taliban itself is.

Could there potentially be power struggles within it in the future?

And it has declared that it will have amnesty for people who worked with the former Afghan government. But we're hearing lots of reports of Taliban, showing up at people's doors, looking for people.

And the evidence is that people, risking their lives at the gates of the airport, desperate to escape, that shows where they think the Taliban will be going.

The Taliban now have Twitter accounts and a social media presence and give press conferences. It remains to be seen whether or not their foot soldiers will repeat the practices of 20 years ago, where they arrested people if their beards weren't long enough or if they were caught playing chess.

And that's really going to be something that people are going to watch. One final note, I might add, is that you do have non-jihadist or other resistance forces like the Panjshiris in the Panjshir Valley and that's where history is repeating itself.

Twenty years ago, you had an anti-Taliban fighting force that used the natural mountains as a fortress against the Taliban. And now we hear that same community declaring that they will resist against Taliban rule, which will present yet another challenge to the Taliban moving forward.

BRUNHUBER: Yes, absolutely. Listen, really appreciate that analysis, Ivan Watson in Hong Kong.

Well, the World Health Organization warns that the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating. Conflict and the collapse of the previous government have impacted health care facilities, according to the group's most recent situation report.

It says in part, "Massive humanitarian and health needs continue to unfold across the country. Health facilities across the country are experiencing critical shortages in medical supplies. And operational costs and concerns about gaps in the availability of medicines are mounting."

All right, we're joined now by regional emergency director for the World Health Organization, Eastern Mediterranean office, Dr. Rick Brennan comes to us live from Cairo, Egypt. Thank you so much for joining us. So as I've just said, critical

shortages of medical supplies in Afghanistan.

Where do things stand right now in terms of what you have left and a you need most?

DR. RICK BRENNAN, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: Well, as you're fully aware over the last two to three weeks, the eyes of the world have been on primarily on Kabul and especially that air operation to evacuate international staff, internationals, and tens of thousands of vulnerable Afghans.

But what we can't lose sight of is the fact that tens of millions of vulnerable Afghans are remaining and their needs are increasing day by day.

And for the last three weeks, we've not been able to bring any aid into the country whatsoever. We have tried many, many different options and we've run into roadblocks each time. We do hope that, in the next few days, we may have some better news.

But it's a critical situation and, as you rightly said, supplies at health facilities are running extremely low.

[05:40:00]

BRENNAN: And our own stocks in country are down to just a couple of days.

BRUNHUBER: Wow. And as you say, the situation -- the Kabul airport is untenable.

Can you try other airports in the country, using other countries, for example?

BRENNAN: Yes. So you know, some of the options we've explored, bringing in commercial charter flights, that hasn't been possible. We did try to piggyback with some of the military flights into Kabul.

But again, for security and operational concerns, that didn't work out. Similarly, with bringing trucks across the border, again, plenty of operational and security concerns there.

So we -- and, in the last few days, the other big concern is that insurance costs, insurance premiums for flights and vehicles coming into Afghanistan, have skyrocketed.

Now we've had some great collaboration with the Pakistanis. We do hope that we'll be able to bring in supplies in the next few days. But we still have a number of hoops to jump there. But that aid has to start running ASAP, because the needs are also skyrocketing.

BRUNHUBER: Let's talk about that. Those needs were obviously massive even before all the recent chaos. Now even worse, with so many people forced from their homes. And then you add things, like the recent attack that killed and injured so many in Kabul. BRENNAN: Absolutely. And even before recent events, as you rightly

say, Afghanistan was actually the third largest humanitarian operation in the planet, with over aiding million people in need of humanitarian assistance.

So across so many different areas, of course, WHO is focusing on health; other humanitarian agencies are looking at food and education and so on.

From the health perspective, we're deeply concerned about just, you know, access to essential health services. We know, of the 2,200 health facilities that we monitor in the country, about 95 percent to 97 percent of them are actually open and functioning.

But, as I've said, they're fast running out of supplies. We're worried about the large number of trauma cases. We're concerned about women's access to health care. We do know that female health workers are not attending the facilities. They're not turning up to the clinics as much as they did before.

And as a result, we're seeing a decline in the attendance of women and children at some of the clinics and hospitals. Of course, the COVID pandemic is -- it remains a major concern in Afghanistan, just as it is everywhere else.

There are high rates of acute malnutrition among children. There's a broader range of challenges that need a lot of support and, therefore, highlighting the need to get that assistance in ASAP.

BRUNHUBER: Well, listen, as you say, so many challenges ahead. So much at stake. Listen, we wish you the best of luck. The World Health Organization's Dr. Rick Brennan in Cairo, Egypt. Thank you so much for being with us.

BRENNAN: Thank you.

BRUNHUBER: All right, coming up, out of danger and far from home. We'll go live to Germany, where Afghan refugees are living in tents on a U.S. air base. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: New terror threats are complicating the final days of the U.S. evacuation of Afghanistan. The U.S. embassy is warning that all Americans waiting outside the gates should leave immediately.

The White House says another attack in Kabul is likely. Meanwhile, nearly 20,000 evacuees from Afghanistan are now in Germany, at Ramstein air base. Atika Shubert is there and joins us live.

Atika, what's the latest on the conditions in that massive tent city there?

ATIKA SHUBERT, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The conditions continue to grow as more evacuees arrive. Ramstein air base really has become a critical hub in this massive evacuation effort.

Every day, thousands of evacuees are brought here on these huge C-17 planes. You hear them arriving almost every hour or 1.5 hours. They arrive here, they are temporarily sheltered in these tent -- in this huge tent city that stretches right across the tarmac.

It's very basic conditions. And the plan is to get them here for a very short time. Unfortunately, some of the flights out have been very slow. And so a number of evacuees have been here for several days.

But the flights to the U.S. are now picking up, especially now that commercial carriers like Delta Air Lines are part of that effort to fly them to the U.S.

So we were actually at the departure gate, hangar 5 where we saw evacuees checking in and boarding those flights. That's the good news.

Ramstein, however, is also where all of those wounded service men in the Kabul attack were medevaced for immediate care. They were brought here yesterday. They are now at the Landstuhl medical center.

And there, there is a level 2 trauma center. And that means you can get 24-hour in-hospital coverage by a trauma surgeon and anesthesiologist. So this base is very well equipped to deal with both of these efforts, both the evacuation of Afghan evacuees and the medical care of those wounded service men.

BRUNHUBER: Atika Shubert, thank you.

And go to cnn.com/impact to learn how to help.

Coming up on CNN NEWSROOM, the man convicted of assassinating RFK could soon be a free man. And some of Kennedy's own children support the release of their father's killer. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: A former Manchester United great is returning to the club. Cristiano Ronaldo has agreed to sign with the team after he expressed interest in leaving his current team Juventus.

The 36-year-old striker played for Man U from 2003 to 2009, scoring more than 100 goals in Spain. He was rumored to be signing with rival Manchester City before agreeing to return to Old Trafford.

The man convicted of assassinating Senator Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 was recommended for parole Friday. Sirhan Sirhan has spent the last 53 years in prison and had some unlikely supporters for his release. Natasha Chen has the details.

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NATASHA CHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This was the 16th time Sirhan Sirhan had been considered for parole.

But this time it was different, because the Los Angeles County prosecutor, elected late last year, has a new directive for his office, not to attend parole hearings.

In talking with the prosecutor George Gascon's (ph) office, we learned that this is an efforts to allow the parole board to make an objective decision based on the inmate's actions since the crime, not just on the fact of the crime itself.

The parole board did spend time asking Sirhan about his remorse, his rehabilitation and seeing whether and how he had changed over the course of 53 years in prison.

Sirhan says he does take responsibility for what happened, saying, quote, "Every day that I am alive, that is all I think about."

His original death sentence was commuted to life in prison in the early '70s when the California Supreme Court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional. Two children of Robert F. Kennedy also openly supported his release.

Douglas Kennedy was present for the hearing and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote a letter, saying, in part, that Sirhan should be released and he would offer to be a guiding friend for him.

Quote, "While nobody can speak definitively on behalf of my father, I firmly believe that, based on his own consuming commitment to fairness and justice, that he would strongly encourage this board to release Mr. Sirhan because of Sirhan's impressive record of rehabilitation."

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CHEN (voice-over): Sirhan's attorney told CNN the panel made the right decision by keeping the politics out and following the law.

This proposed grant of release now goes through a review process. Ultimately, the governor has the ability to reverse the decision if he chooses to do so. But governor Gavin Newsom's office did not offer any statement on the decision -- back to you.

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BRUNHUBER: And in just the past few hours, six of Robert Kennedy's children issued a blistering statement about the parole board's recommendation. They wrote this.

"Today's decision by a two-member parole board has inflicted enormous pain but beyond just us, Sirhan Sirhan committed a crime against our nation and its people. We are in disbelief that this man would be recommended for release. It is a recommendation we intend to challenge every step of the way."

That's it for me. I'm Kim Brunhuber. Thanks so much for watching CNN NEWSROOM. "NEW DAY" is next and they will have an update on hurricane Ida so please do stay with us.