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St. Tammany Parish Lived Through Horrendous Night; Ida Knocks Out Power to 1 Million, Causes Devastation and Flooding; Pentagon Investigating Reports of Civilian Deaths After Drone Strike on Suspected Car Bomber; U.S. Races to Complete Evacuation Mission with Troop Withdrawal Deadline Hours Away; Pentagon Says Anti-ISIS Air Strike Set Off Secondary Explosion; Ida Threatens Eastern U.S. As It Moves Inland. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired August 30, 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]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: We do have some new images for you right now of some of the hardest hit areas. So, this is Grand Isle and Port Fourchon and you can see that they are swamped right now, covered be water. Those are buildings. And they are destroyed.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Yes, let's stay with this video in Grand Isle because this was the section that took the northeastern side, the dirtier side of that eye that came along. We know that there were about 40 people who were there. That they were trying to get out. Communication to Grand Isle had been really, really spotty overnight and into the morning. So, we heard from the President of Jefferson Parish where this that they are still trying to communicate with people who they knew were there.

CAMEROTA: I don't think they had any communication with people there yet.

BLACKWELL: No, have not had communications there. We're now broadening this and getting pictures from across the state. But Grand Isle especially concerned about the folks who are on that barrier island.

Houma, Louisiana, Ida's wind, torrential rains there leveled buildings, tore roofs off other buildings, let's go to CNN's Jason Carroll with a firsthand look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's very clear Houma took a beating, we moved from downtown Houma where we saw destruction in just about every direction that we looked, some form of destruction. And out here in the neighborhood surrounding it we're finding even more. The folks who live here tell me they use that mattress that you see right there to survivor when Hurricane Ida descended upon them. They basically put the mattress up against the wall and held it there as the winds swirled around them and the house basically disintegrated. This is all that's left. But they all survived.

If you take a look down here, up the street, more destruction. Homes partially destroyed or destroyed. Roofs that have come off of the homes as well in this particular part. This is what we've seen throughout Houma, and it's very clear that while in some parts of Louisiana, water was the culprit, here in Houma it was wind as hurricane Ida descended upon Houma. And then sat here for several hours. It basically tore sections of Houma apart.

So now emergency crews are out, they're scanning the area trying to assess the damage. But it's very clear Houma took a beating -- Jason Carroll, CNN, Houma, Louisiana.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: Our thanks to Jason for that report. Now back to Afghanistan. Right now, in Kabul, these hours are very tense. The U.S. military trying to pack up the final evacuation flights before America's withdrawal deadline expires.

[15:35:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: U.S. forces racing to complete their evacuation operation before the deadline to withdraw all U.S. troops just hours from now. The Pentagon spokesman says more than 122,000 people have been evacuated so far. The White House says that includes about 6,000 Americans. At least 34 Afghan children have arrived in the U.S. but they're not with their parents.

BLACKWELL: Now with thousands of civilians still in need of help in these last two hours, the terror threat we're told by the Pentagon from ISIS-K is very real. It remains active. The U.S. defense has shot down as many as five rockets fired at Kabul's airport yesterday.

And the U.S. carried out a drone strike against the suspected ISIS-K suicide bomber vehicle in a residential neighborhood. It caused subsequent explosions. Sources tell CNN that ten people were killed, five of them at least children, the youngest, two years old. The Pentagon says the strike prevented a larger attack against U.S. troops and Afghans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: We're investigating this. I'm not going to get ahead of it. But if we have verifiable information that we did in fact take innocent life here then we will be transparent about that too. Nobody wants to see that happen.

But you know what else we didn't want to see happen, we didn't want to see happen what we believe to be a very real, a very specific and a very imminent threat to the Hamid Karzai International Airport and to our troops operating at that airport as well as civilians.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Well, for civilian who want to leave after the U.S. deadline, the U.N. Security Council has just approved a resolution to create a safe passage zone to Kabul Airport. But we're not sure exactly what that would look like or how it would operate.

CNN's Barbara Starr is at the Pentagon for us and CNN's Sam Kiley is live in Doha, Qatar. So, Barbara, we know the Secretary of State Antony Blinken is going to be making remarks about all this in a short time. But we have noted that the Pentagon -- I mean we just heard John Kirby say there that they are trying to be transparent but it does seem as though the Pentagon have been less forthcoming today, I would say about specific deadline times and just specifics of this operation.

So, what do we think we're going to hear from Tony Blinken?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, let's look at the clock on the wall, all of us. Kabul is eight and a half hours ahead of the east coast of the United States. So, when you look at the clock, it's just turned midnight there.

[15:40:00]

It's now August 31st in Kabul, Afghanistan. The day of the deadline that President Biden set for all U.S. troops to be out of the country.

They have not made any announcement at this point here in Washington about what the status of those U.S. troops are. So, we want to be very careful. But I think people can well understand that they have been drawing down for several days and the number of U.S. troops that would reasonably be left there on the last day, which is now upon us in Kabul, would be a small number.

Security now paramount with the Pentagon. They want to get everyone out safely. So that is their number one concern. Especially with these ISIS-K attacks that they have had.

What they are telling us is while that is the concern, they are still -- it was, is still possible for last Americans, if they can get to the airport to be able to be processed to get on a plane to get out of Afghanistan. That on a practical level could be fairly problematic.

I think the big question for the Secretary of State this afternoon, how many Americans, how many green card holders, how many Afghans with those special visas because they helped the United States, how many people are being left behind because they couldn't get to the airport, because they couldn't get through check points? They couldn't get processed and what reasonably can be done to get them out?

BLACKWELL: Barbara, as wait those remarks from the Secretary of State, we're just getting this from a State Department senior official tells us that they believe there are fewer than 250 American citizens who may wish to leave Afghanistan. So that's the latest number. It was very vague at the beginning of this operation. We saw some more approximate numbers and it's dwindled as the process has gone on. But now fewer than 250 American citizens who may want to leave the country.

Sam, let me come to you on this drone strike that killed ten, more than half of them children according to local witnesses. What do we know about it?

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We know that yesterday in a residential area a vehicle was struck by a U.S. drone and what they are calling one of these over-the-horizon operations. The sort of which they say they're going to continue to be able to fight groups like ISIS-K even without soldiers and boots on the ground.

It hit a vehicle and according to the Pentagon there were clearly at least one if not more secondary explosions. That means that not only was the detonation of the missile that hit the car but then detonation of explosives that were already in the car.

And the implication there is that it was the secondary detonations that sadly killed this family. Now there are two small children aged two and four other children, two adults. A really catastrophic event in the closing stages of American's longest war. Not at all the way that the United States would want to be leaving and far from how the Afghan people would want to be left with civilian casualties being caused by American airstrikes. Something that the Afghans have got all too used to over 20 years of war.

Nonetheless, the Taliban condemning this strike principally because they had not asked permission. They had not informed the Taliban authorities this is Pentagon they were going to conduct this strike. But it was all part, the Pentagon say, of an effort to try to prevent further attacks against the airport.

That this was a vehicle carrying bombs or bombers for an imminent attack. And proof of that if you like of the continued efforts by ISIS-K to attack the airport was this multiple missile strike from the back of a sedan earlier on today. In which five missiles were shot down by the defensive systems used by the United States on the airport perimeter. A defensive system that if it's not already been packed up into the back of a C-17, it surely soon will be.

Because this is the most dangerous part of the U.S. withdrawal is the last few planes that are almost unguarded apart from air support and that poses the greatest threat to American forces as they withdraw -- Alisyn, Victor.

CAMEROTA: On that note, thank you both very much for your reporting. Obviously, we are monitoring what happens moment by moment. Thanks to Barbara Starr and Sam Kiley there.

BLACKWELL: Yes, joining us now CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen and CNN global affairs analyst Susan Glasser. Susan, this reporting from the State Department that fewer than 250 Americans may still be in Afghanistan who wish to leave. We'll see as we await the ending of this operation if those final Americans want to leave are extricated from the country. But if not, there's not going be a U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan.

[15:45:00]

Most of the Western partners have closed their embassies as well. Do we know who the Americans, the U.S. would work with to get out of the country?

SUSAN GLASSER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: You know, this is a great question. Obviously, we're in the final hours, if not minutes of the U.S. 20-year presence in Afghanistan right now as we're having this conversation.

There's no legitimately recognized government in Afghanistan that one would even negotiate with. Obviously, the Taliban and U.S. military have been in close contact throughout this remarkable evacuation in the last couple of weeks. But the U.S. has not recognized the Taliban as the rulers of Afghanistan and I was told the other day by a State Department official that there's no plans to do so for the foreseeable future. So that remains an open question.

I think there's privately a sense of realism. You know that it's just impossible in a situation like this to get every last single American out especially because of the scenes of chaos and the great danger surrounding Kabul Airport over the last couple of weeks.

But, you know, the diplomatic effort will continue in some form afterwards, but again, there's not even a government in Kabul that's recognized by anyone outside of the country yet.

CAMEROTA: Peter, as Sam Kiley just so ominously put it, this is the most dangerous part of the entire operation because the U.S. has lost much of its security force. It's been whittled down to these last planes and these last brave troops that are trying to make this evacuation happen. And so, we have been told repeatedly from President Biden through other officials how tense these final hours are.

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes, and I think that sort of speaks for itself. Of picking up on the discussion with Susan, you know, for the 250 Americans that leave I mean clearly, it's unlikely that all of them will get out by this deadline.

I mean there are other options, you could travel over the border into Pakistan. The Pakistani government would be amenable I think to American citizens transiting. They have not closed the borders. They are not letting Afghans cross the border even with Pakistani visas unless they have visas for other countries.

But certainly, if it was U.S. citizens or Afghans who have legitimate American visas, Pakistan is a route out. However, the big caveat is you'd have to go through a fair amount of Taliban controlled territory to get to the Pakistan border. You'd have to also go through regions where ISIS has a pretty heavy presence in eastern Afghanistan. So not without risk but certainly that's an option. BLACKWELL: Peter, once the U.S. troops leave, we have seen of course

the attack that happened on Thursday, the rockets fired at the airport, ISIS-K trying take advantage of the last few hours. Once the U.S. troops leave describe for me the degree to which those Americans who are still there become who these groups are looking for if they are trying to make their name against the U.S.?

BERGEN: Well, I mean I don't think it's just the Americans. I think it's anybody who has cooperated with the United States. I mean the International Rescue Committee estimated that 300,000 Afghans have worked directly with the United States.

And last week "The New York Times" did a pretty deep dive on the estimated number of Afghans who've worked with the United States and came up with a figure of 250,000. So even though obviously this has been a very successful air lift on a certain level, about half the people who work with the United States have been left behind. And that doesn't account for any other -- many other Afghans who also worked with allied NATO countries.

So, will the Taliban be looking for those people? They've already beheaded an American interpreter in the past several weeks. So, I think the short answer is they will be looking for people, for them, anybody who's worked with the United States. It's certainly somebody they will take a very dim view of.

CAMEROTA: I mean, Susan, therein lies the catastrophe of all this. I think that so many people are hoping the Taliban has turned over a new leaf. They want to believe that the Taliban wants international recognition and wants financial cooperation from the rest of the world but the Taliban is the Taliban. I mean these are people who are so, you know, repressive in their thoughts. What do we think the next year is going to look like in?

GLASSER: Well, Alisyn, I'm really glad you brought that up. I mean, this is a group that bans music. That says that, you know, boys, girls and women and men cannot learn alongside each other.

You know, the lesson that they took from 20 years of fighting and waiting out the United States was that they're back in control of Afghanistan. And, you know, they were able to do that without international recognition before. There are certainly points of leverage and enormous amount of the Afghan state budget in recent years has come from international aid and aid from the United States and others. So that's one obvious pressure point even with the U.S. military gone from Afghanistan.

[15:50:00]

But you know, it seems to me that the lesson learned may not be the one that people in Washington want it to be but can be that we waited out a superpower and we're back in control. And all those triumphant claims of having defeated us, look who's going to be here on the 20th anniversary of 9/11 in control of Kabul, the very people who hosted al-Qaeda back 20 years ago and began the war as a result of it. So, you know, I'm just very skeptical. Some experts with whom I've

spoken point out that it might not be the same Taliban, it might be worse because they're now a fighting force that is technologically enabled not only with the weapons left behind by the United States but also again with 20 years' worth of experience by repressive governments around the world in how to use technology to enforce the kind of medieval theocracy that the Taliban proclaim.

BLACKWELL: Yes, and although a spokesperson in Kabul or Kandahar may promise moderation, there are so many factions that that cannot be guaranteed. Susan Glasser, Peter Bergen, thank you.

CAMEROTA: OK, now to the aftermath of Ida with Louisiana ravaged by the tropical storm. The threat is still far from over, so we're going to check on where this tropical storm is headed.

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CAMEROTA: Biden administration officials announced they will go to Louisiana and Mississippi this week to survey the damage left behind from Ida, which is now pushing out of Louisiana and dumping heavy rains on Alabama and Mississippi. Flooding, even tornados in some areas are still a big concern.

[15:55:00]

BLACKWELL: Tom Sater is tracking Ida for us, what's left of it. Tom, where is the storm now and what can be expected?

TOM SATER, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, the center -- believe it or not, it's still a tropical storm. It's hard to believe. Later tonight most likely a depression. But the center is right about Jackson, Mississippi. It'll take the rest of the evening and overnight to leave the state. But a much different picture, more of a comma shape, not the large red buzz saw we saw yesterday after staying overland for six hours as a category four.

But look at the bright colors here, infrared still showing power. It takes hours to release all of this energy so a tornado watch still in effect, it's going to be ending soon, but it's these bands that have been off to the east. We still have flood warnings areas of Mississippi into Alabama, that's all sliding toward Florida, also been producing several tornadoes today. In fact, we had a couple near north of Mobile up toward Troy in Alabama. The center though as mentioned is near Jackson headed up towards Starkville right now. At least drier air is moving in. And that's very good news.

Last 12 hours it's all been sliding away from Louisiana. They are no longer in the tropical storm warning for New Orleans. Good news here and we're going to continue to watch that dwindle away as well. A dozen states will be looking at 3-5 inches of rain in the days ahead. Still some flash flooding on the way.

CAMEROTA: Tom Sater, thank you very much for that. So, we'll have more coverage of two major breaking news stories. "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts after a quick break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

END