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U.S. Temporarily Suspends Air Operations at Kabul Airport. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired August 16, 2021 - 08:00   ET

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

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[08:01:01]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to viewers here in the U.S. and around the world. It is Monday, August 16th. And we are beginning with our special live coverage of the fall of Afghanistan nearly two decades after 9/11. Moments ago, the U.S. temporarily suspended all air operations at the airport in Kabul. We are seeing chaotic scenes like this. This is part of the reason for the suspension, desperate Afghans chasing down U.S. planes that are leaving the tarmac, some clinging to the fuselage as the aircraft taxied.

The Taliban is now in charge of Afghanistan after it seized control of the capital without hardly a shot fired yesterday. The U.S. backed Afghan government collapsing swiftly after insurgents overran key provincial capitals in the span of just the past week. U.S. embassy officials have warned Americans who are still in the city not to travel to the airport because it is unsafe. But as of now, it is the only way out. We just heard from a White House official, there's no way to get those folks to the airport. The Pentagon is rushing 1,000 more combat troops to secure the perimeter at Kabul's airport, trying to help get American diplomatic personnel and others safely evacuated.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: President Biden was briefed at Camp David over the weekend. He's still there. The White House is defending its decision to proceed with the withdrawal of all U.S. troops despite the clear miscalculation about the length of time they had, the strength of the Afghan military, and the reach of the Taliban. So still no public remarks from the president who the White House says is expected to address the nation in the next few days.

Let's go right to CNN's chief international correspondent who has been doing remarkable reporting on the ground in Kabul on the streets there. Clarissa, first, just I want to get to the breaking news. No flights in and out of Kabul right now, suspending all air operations because the U.S. military, frankly, needs to get a grip of the situation.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, John. And you've seen those images. It's absolute pandemonium. My colleague Nick Paton Walsh just tried to drive to the vicinity of the airport. He said the Americans and the Taliban are quite close to each other. There's chaos. There's people firing off rounds trying to disperse crowds. There's a crush of humanity trying to press their way into the airport.

You've seen, of course, those harrowing images that I don't think any of us will ever forget easily of Afghans desperately trying to hold on to the fuselage of a U.S. plane with their bare hands, so desperate are they to try to get out of the country.

We did hear earlier that the U.S. had laid razor wire around, trying to stop people from basically from sneaking in. Those images that you saw, hundreds of people flooding the runway, obviously, U.S. planes cannot take off and land, cannot carry out these evacuations safely when there are hundreds of people on the runway. So that is definitely the primary focus for the U.S. right now, trying to ensure that the situation at the airport is somehow contained so that these evacuations can continue in an orderly manner.

Here in the center of town in Kabul, it is a surreal and very different story. We woke up this morning, day one, reporting in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, as it's now called. You can see a lot has changed, including my clothing and attire on the streets. We spent the whole day basically driving around, talking to the Taliban, talking to people on the streets, seeing what the mood is. It's very strange and quite scary. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

WARD: As soon as we leave our compound, it's clear who is now in charge. Taliban fighters have flooded the capital. Smiling and victorious, they took the city of 6 million people in a matter of hours, barely firing a shot.

[08:05:00]

This is a sight I honestly thought I would never see. Scores of Taliban fighters, and just behind us, the U.S. embassy compound.

Some carry American weapons. They tell us they are here to maintain law and order. "Everything is under control. Everything will be fine," the commander says. "Nobody should worry."

What's your message to America right now?

"America already spent enough time in Afghanistan. They need to leave," he tells us. "They already lost lots of lives and lots of money."

People come up to them to pose for photographs. They're just chanting "Death to America," but they seem friendly at the same time. It's utterly bizarre.

At the presidential palace the Taliban are guarding the gate. They say they're here to fill the vacuum left when the government fled. But the welcoming spirit only extends so far, and my presence soon creates tension. They've just told me to stand to the side because I'm a woman.

Outside, ordinary Afghans clamor to talk to us, struggling to process the dizzying speed of Kabul's fall.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Actually, I feel nothing right now. We want peace. We are tired of this ongoing war.

WARD: What does the future look like to you now?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I cannot predict even seconds right now, and I can't predict even minutes right now. So that's why I don't know what will happen tomorrow or what will happen after.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

WARD (on camera): And that man is not alone, John and Brianna. I think everybody we're talking to is just struggling to wrap their mind around this, hard to predict where this story is going. But I do think it's worth mentioning, in our piece just there, you're seeing what's happening on the streets. But so much of the story today is about what you're not seeing. It's about people who are petrified, who are hunkered down, who are hiding out in their homes, who have no idea if they'll face reprisals over the work they do or the people they consort with, or the places they've gone to. And those people right now are too scared to talk. But it's so important in all this chaos and mayhem that their story does not get lost, John.

BERMAN: And Clarissa, that's why it's so great that we have you there for you and your fearless reporting. And our thanks to you and your team. You talk about the people who are unseen right now. Who is that? Are we talking about all women, for instance? Are we talking about people who have been trying to live normal lives over the last two decades? What's going on for them?

WARD: I think we're talking mostly, honestly, about ordinary people, especially people who are educated, who travel, who speak other languages, people who may have worked with the U.S. military, who may have worked with the U.S. embassy, who may have worked with foreign journalists, who may have worked with various NGOs, those people.

Also let's talk about journalists on the ground, female journalists, incredible, brilliant, trailblazing women who have done such brave and important reporting over the last 20 years. What do they do now? And I actually just interviewed a Taliban who spoke very good English, and I asked him, what about female journalists, will you allow them to keep working? He said yes, of course, they will be allowed to keep working, but they must wear the appropriate hijab. And I said -- hijab is the covering. I said, OK, am I wearing the appropriate hijab? He said no. I said why, because I think I'm dressed pretty conservatively? He said your face is showing, and also you should wear gloves. And so if a woman journalist wears a Niqab and gloves, she can do her job, they say, but she will not be able to do it around men.

So clearly, once you start to stack all this up, John, it becomes obvious that it's going to be very difficult for women who have enjoyed a certain type of life for the last 20 years to assimilate into this new surreal normal.

KEILAR: Yes. And look, when you talk about the range of possibilities, their fears, Clarissa, are that that's not going to save them, just to dress in a more conservative way. There are many women who are fearful that they will be raped, that they could be forcibly married off to the Taliban. These are the potential realities and certainly the rumors that are percolating as folks in Kabul who are holed up are worried the Taliban might start knocking door to door.

WARD: I think whenever you have a situation where there is this level of fear and uncertainty and so little clear, solid information coming in, you have panic. You have rumors. People start playing telephone. They start spreading reports that they're hearing on social media. And it's almost impossible to try to control the fear and the chaos that ensues as a result of that sort of void.

[08:10:06]

So for now, from what we are hearing, the Taliban tells us they do not plan to carry out any reprisal attacks. But the question remains on the ground, how much can people who are hunkered down and in hiding take their words, how much can they be trusted? And the reality is that we're only going to see that as time plays out. And the Taliban wants to stress that they've changed, that they're different, they've evolved. They're more pragmatic, they're more politically mature. As they say, the proof will be in the pudding. This is very early days yet.

BERMAN: Very early days. The first day, as you say, in this next chapter in Afghanistan. And Clarissa, you're talking about the Taliban and their intentions. I was very interested in something you said earlier, which is that as of now, the Taliban only too happy to have the United States, the U.S. troop presence at the airport in Kabul and have the U.S. running these evacuations. What's going on with that?

WARD: Well, let me caveat that by saying they want the U.S. to leave as soon as possible, and they believe that the fastest way to get the U.S. out of here is for the U.S. to evacuate its people as soon as possible. So as long as the U.S. is solely engaged in evacuating people from the airport, I am guessing, and it's speculation, that some kind of a deal has been struck behind the scenes whereby the two sides sort of avoid each other until that process is done and those 6,000 troops can leave again.

The problem is, John and Brianna, as you can well imagine, when you have 6,000 U.S. soldiers and, I'm sure, hundreds if not thousands of Taliban fighters in relatively close proximity to each other, and a chaotic scene all around them, there is always the opportunity for things to go very wrong, indeed. And I think that's why you are seeing the U.S. military really try to expedite this evacuation effort to the best of their ability, to get Americans out as quickly as possible so that they can try to leave as quickly as possible, because it's not safe for the U.S. military either.

KEILAR: John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, Clarissa, told us that right now the timeline they're operating on is that they have until that end date that President Biden set, which is August 31st. That is more than two weeks away. Can you imagine a situation where the Taliban is OK with the U.S. running operations out of the airport for two more weeks, or do you think this is going to be a much shortened operation?

All right. I think we --

WARD: -- between the Taliban side and the U.S. --

KEILAR: Unfortunately, I think that we have lost our signal there with Clarissa Ward. So we'll be trying to reestablish that and check in with her. She's certainly our eyes and ears on the ground.

BERMAN: Let me just say, I think that's an equipment issue.

KEILAR: Yes.

BERMAN: I know everyone watching right now is concerned, frankly, about Clarissa and the safety of her team. That, I have every reason to believe, was just the equipment, the batteries going funky right there. We think we're sure that Clarissa and her team are as safe as they can be right now, and she will continue to do the amazing reporting that she has been.

KEILAR: Yes, and I'm so glad you said that. I actually I heard her say "I lost you," meaning I think it is certainly a technical issue that we're having there, so we'll try to get that back up.

Meantime, the U.S. military is temporarily suspending air operations there at Kabul's airport as U.S. troops try to clear the Afghans who have flooded the airfield there, hanging on to an airplane at one point, a U.S. military airport as it was trying to depart. That's new reporting coming to us from CNN's Barbara Starr, who is live for us at the Pentagon. Barbara, tell us the latest in what is really a fast- moving situation here.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, we learned this morning the U.S. military has at least temporarily suspended evacuation operations, military flights out of Kabul airport, for the very reason you see in these videos. The airfield has been flooded for the last couple of days with Afghans desperate to get out, clinging to the side of U.S. military aircraft, flooding the airfield, and they simply cannot operate safely in these circumstances.

The pilots are well aware as they have landed and taken off what is going on. But it just cannot continue. This is really anything but the orderly evacuation that the Biden administration had said it wanted, that has been such a central message point for the administration. Those message points now clearly are gone. They are trying to restore order, 6,000 U.S. troops earmarked, flooding into the airport, taking control of the perimeter of the airport and trying to clear people away and maintain that security. They do have several days to go yet to get all the Americans out, to get any Afghans they can out.

[08:15:00]

And it should be said, they are trying to assist other allied countries in getting their people out. So, it's a very complex operation right now being monitored around the clock and obviously concern, how long will the Taliban hold their patience, if you will? How long will they let this go on?

The U.S. has told the Taliban directly in the last two days, all at once right now is to get Americans and its people safely out. That is a direct message to the Taliban, and also a message that U.S. troops do have the authority to defend themselves if the unrest grows, if they are attacked or threatened -- John, Brianna.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Barbara, thank you so much for that. Barbara Starr, live for us from The Pentagon.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, joining us now, former Ambassador to NATO, Lieutenant General Douglas Lute. He served in the White House for President George W. Bush, and for President Obama.

General, thank you very much for being with us this morning. You obviously worked for years, dealing with issues surrounding Afghanistan, and let me just start off by saying those images that we see at the airport in Kabul this morning, people chasing U.S. cargo planes, hoping to get out. Did you ever think you've seen anything like that?

LT. GEN. DOUGLAS LUTE (RET), U.S. ARMY, DIRECTED AFGHAN STRATEGY FOR PRESIDENTS BUSH AND OBAMA: Well, of course not. I mean, I'm stunned that it has come to this. This is obviously not what anybody wanted, but frankly, the stage was set for the tragic and desperate events that we're seeing now on your screens.

The stage was set 10 years ago, when we brought bin Laden to justice, and decimated al-Qaeda, and in the intervening 10 years, we've been watching closely. We've seen an Afghan government, a set of Afghan Security Forces that have made too little progress. We've seen diplomacy explored with Taliban, but only stalemated, and someone who has been watching this very closely, Joe Biden, has decided that it is time for Afghanistan to be decided by Afghan.

And so this has been a slow -- slowly eroding security and political situation for about 10 years, which has culminated in the scenes we see today.

KEILAR: Are these scenes avoidable, sir?

LUTE: Not today, they aren't. They -- because this has been the accumulation of a lack of progress over at least a decade, and perhaps arguably longer than a decade, then, you know, we can't -- we can't reverse the tape. We can't rewind the clock.

And in a way, this is simply culminating, because of too little progress.

And while the government has -- the Taliban made progress, the government did not. We built security forces that in the end, did not stand up, did not -- could not withstand the pressure from the Taliban, I'm afraid that we built a house built on sand. KEILAR: But look, you know, we've heard from, you know, even from

people who support the total drawdown, which of course, you know, there are many people in the sphere who said there should be a residual, you know, number of troops, but there are also a lot of people who said, no, it's time to get out.

And, you know, even hearing from them, they're watching what is going down there in Kabul, and they say this is this is unacceptable and this is something that could have been prevented. What do you say to that?

LUTE: Well, I think there is a reasonable debate over do we stay, or do we leave? The President decided that we would leave, but the scenes we see today suggest that we believed intelligence estimates that were most likely estimates and we didn't plan against the worst case estimates. And some of the worst case estimates are actually playing out as we watch.

BERMAN: Didn't plan for the worst case estimates, made the wrong bet. Now that they're paying the consequences for that wrong bet, how secure do you think the airport can be over the coming days, weeks maybe at the outset? The U.S. wants to -- Brianna has got some reporting this morning that the U.S. wants to evacuate as many as 30,000 people by August 31st. Can that happen based on the situation there?

LUTE: Well, the first step is what we see happening right now, and that is suspend the flights, secure the perimeter of the airport, of course, airports have large perimeters, so this is probably several miles of perimeter around the Kabul Airport secure, so that you have -- you can impose some sort of order and discipline on the process and that will happen -- that can happen in hours, not days.

Now the numbers of tens of thousands of Afghans who have served alongside American forces and American diplomats, those of course are -- those folks are not all at the airport. They're scattered around Afghanistan.

[08:20:16]

LUTE: So, while we can impose discipline at the airport and impose order and get flights moving on time, the real challenge will be how do we get people who are not yet at the airport to the airport itself?

BERMAN: Hey, General, can I ask -- I'm sorry, Brianna, there's just one more question I wanted to ask, which is that, as we're seeing this go south very quickly, I mean, it's -- you know, the Taliban has taken control of the country, there are people in the United States who suggested, well, why doesn't the U.S. go back in? It's broken now, why don't we go back and fix it again? What do you say to that?

LUTE: There is no going back. There's no rewinding the tape. There is no Afghan Army. There are no Afghan Police. There is no Afghan government. The Taliban are in charge.

So, we're in no position to reverse what we see today. The best we can do is to cope with the circumstances at the airport, obviously prioritize the evacuation of Americans. But then, right behind them, the Afghans who have served alongside of us.

KEILAR: You mentioned getting some of those folks to the airport, because that is the only way out at this point of Afghanistan. I mean, we just have to be clear about where Afghan allies to America are right now. Some of them are stuck out in the provinces. They're not going to get through Taliban checkpoints going into Kabul. A lot of people are holed up in their homes, even if they might, you know, be awaiting something with a Special Immigrant Visa or with a P1 or P2 visa. And they can't get to the airport.

We actually heard from Jon Finer, the Deputy National Security Adviser just last hour that there is no way to provide safe passage to the airport for these folks. What do you think of that?

LUTE: Well, I think Jon Finer was probably accurately describing the situation and this is what happens when a government collapses so quickly, and so comprehensively across the board both the security side and the political side. It leaves this very uncertain, unpredictable and dangerous, dangerous outcome.

KEILAR: Yes, it is -- it is terrible what we are watching unfold. And sir, we certainly appreciate you giving us your expertise on it this morning, Lieutenant General Douglas Lute, thank you.

Up next, will terrorists be able to take refuge in Afghanistan again, now that it has fallen so quickly to the Taliban?

BERMAN: The search for survivors in Haiti after the devastating earthquake that has killed at least 1,300 people. We are live on the ground.

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[08:26:26]

BERMAN: All right, we're following the breaking news this morning. This is CNN's special coverage. Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan has fallen to the Taliban.

Joining us now Jim Sciutto, CNN anchor and chief national security correspondent who I should say has covered the situation in Afghanistan for decades at this point, and Jim, that only shows that we're old here.

Look, there's a lot of ways to measure the sacrifice that the United States has made in Afghanistan, many different ways. But one way is in in blood and treasure here, so what is the cost?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Listen, it is staggering, right? I mean, 2,300 U.S. troops killed, and as you know, many thousands more injured, some with debilitating injuries for years. So, you have thousands of American soldiers and their families who sacrificed for the safety of this country to fight al-Qaeda through 20 years. And then the other is, you know, we're talking about trillions of

dollars now on various projects in the U.S. We spent $2 trillion, both to try to build a capable Afghan military, but also to try to build a capable Afghan government, which in the span of days fell apart.

I mean, it's just remarkable to think through those years, all that sacrifice, by the way, we didn't serve there, but this is American taxpayers' money and it was going there as well, that could have been spent here. It disappears in a day. It's remarkable.

BERMAN: In weeks -- in weeks.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

BERMAN: Just poof. Up in smoke. The Trump administration, one of the things that President Biden has suggested is that his hands were tied because the decisions that were made were put in place in the last administration. What were those decisions?

SCIUTTO: So I mean, first point, right, of course, Biden could have reversed that, right? He could have kept the troops in. He is the Commander-in-Chief, he could have reversed it. That said, the Trump administration agreed to leave by May 1st this year. And by the way, you have a lot of dumping on Biden today by many Republicans. Let's remember just a few months back what President Trump was saying about -- we had a very good conversation with the leader of the Taliban today, they're looking to get this ended, right?

You know, treating the Taliban as a credible peace partner. Remember, Trump wanted to invite the Taliban to Camp David, without our Afghan government partners.

BERMAN: On September 11th.

SCIUTTO: So, this is two administrations, right, who made this decision, which is quite remarkable. But you know, both Trump and Biden calculated it was time to get out of that country; that it wasn't worth it anymore. So, you know, just remember, it didn't start today, it started many months ago.

BERMAN: And one criticism, I will note that Trump had for Biden recently wasn't that Biden was pulling out the troops, and it was that he wasn't doing it quickly.

SCIUTTO: Exactly, exactly, which is something that by the way, Trump, you know, tried to do in Syria as well. Secretary Pompeo criticizing the Biden administration, he met with Taliban leaders, again, treating them as a credible partner, which the events of the last several days as the Taliban advances across the country shows that it's not interested in a peaceful, you know, end to this conflict. They were using their power to take over the country.

BERMAN: The one lingering interest that Joe Biden has made clear he sees for the U.S. in Afghanistan is preventing the reintroduction of terror groups in that country.

Milley and others have said, obviously, the situation is worse today than it was yesterday in terms of that.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Listen, you lose something in terms of counterterror by not being on the ground in Afghanistan, because you're closer, right? That's for Intelligence gathering, it is also for responding to threats.

Now, we're going to be flying in counterterror missions from Qatar, that's many hundreds of miles away, also from Kuwait, and it's not just the missions that are going to be based outside the country now no longer inside the country, it is also surveillance, right?

You know, drones have to fly farther. I was speaking with a Member of Congress who has been briefed on the Intelligence there. That means less time over target, you know, because you have to fly from over here, spend less time on target, go back to keep track of the bad guys in effect and remember who is fighting alongside the Taliban in recent weeks? Al-Qaeda and ISIS.

The question going forward is, does Afghanistan become a terror haven again? It is a real -- this is where we were 20 years ago. It is a real question going forward. They certainly have an advantage today that they didn't have because U.S. forces aren't close.

[08:30:24]