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Obama Delays Afghanistan Troop Withdrawal; One-On-One With Senator Rand Paul; Wave Of Attacks Has Israel On Edge; Rand Paul Interview. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired October 15, 2015 - 13:00   ET

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

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer. It's 1:00 p.m. here in Washington, 8:00 p.m. in Jerusalem, 8:30 p.m. in Tehran. Wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us.

We begin with breaking news. President Obama announcing, just a little while ago, that nearly 10,000 U.S. troops will remain in Afghanistan longer than planned. The President had hoped to bring virtually all of them home by the end of next year. But now, instead, he's acknowledging that Afghan security forces aren't ready to hold off the Taliban on their own.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I do not support the idea of endless war. And I have repeatedly argued against marching into open ended military conflicts that do not serve our core security interests. Yet, given what's at stake in Afghanistan and the opportunity for a stable and committed ally that can partner with us in preventing the emergence of future threats, and the fact that we have an international coalition, I am firmly convinced that we should make this extra effort.

In the Afghan government, we have a serious partner who wants our help and the majority of the Afghan people share our goals. We have a bilateral security agreement to guide our cooperation. And every single day, Afghan forces are out there fighting and dying to protect their country. They're not looking for us to do it for them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right, let's bring in our White House Correspondent Michelle Kosinski. Michelle, break down the President's new plan for U.S. troops, the timetable, the cost to U.S. tax payers.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So, this is basically the same plan that has been in place, but this is the second time it's been delayed. So, as it stands now, according to the President, that same number, about 9,800 troops, will stay through most of next year. Then, after that, it's going to drop down to 5,500. Before sometime after that, after the president leaves office, it going down to just a basic force protecting the U.S. embassy in Kabul. So, it was interesting to hear the President say there, at the very end, he took a question which wasn't even expected. But to say that this is not disappointing, that this is part of the mission that they always felt that there are going to be tweaks as needed, that the threat is still there but that the overall mission is still working.

Still, though, it's really hard to see how this would not be disappointing to a president who promised to end these wars in Afghanistan that's been going on for 14 years now and who ran on that. This is something that he clearly wants for his legacy, that goes without saying really. And it's just not going to happen.

The administration, though, really wanting to focus on the positive. Maybe, you know, not so much in the last several weeks have we heard them using such careful language to focus on the mission remaining the same, real progress has been made by these forces that are there, that the government is behind them, the government is asking for help. Not wanting to even say, at the most basic level, that this is disappointing -- Wolf.

BLITZER: The announcement does follow the Taliban victory last month capturing the Afghan city of Kunduz, a city of, what, 300,000, the fifth largest city in Afghanistan. Major parts of that victory for the Taliban have now been reversed. But the administration is insisting that their new strategy is not simply the result of that city falling, right?

KOSINSKI: Right. Yes, they're saying that they were looking at the overall picture, really weighing a range of options and looking at the extent of the threat. They still want to focus on core Al Qaeda being decimated in that country and the progress that has been made. Really wanting to, you know, compare it to the way it was back when this all started and the changes that have been made there.

But what a reality check Kunduz was. I mean, for the Taliban to take it over, hold it for a couple of weeks and then finally Afghan security forces, with the U.S. help, were able to take it back. I mean, obviously, the administration wants to focus on the encouraging elements of the Afghans being able to take it back. But Afghan troop readiness has been an issue for so many years, Wolf.

And these questions have been around forever. I mean, I remember being there in 2011, watching U.S. trainers work with these troops. And that was back when the U.S. was just going to hand over individual bases in a kind of cascading way across the country. And then, to a person, these U.S. trainers we talked to were saying, look, they're just not ready. It takes a lot longer than originally planned to get them up and running.

I mean, first of all, most of them were illiterate and you had to teach them how to read and count before you could really effectively train them to fight -- Wolf.

BLITZER: And, finally, very quickly, did the President say or did other U.S. officials saying how much this is going to cost U.S. taxpayers, keeping 10,000 troops there next year, 5,500 troops the following year?

[13:05:09] KOSINSKI: Right. They said $14.6 billion per year to keep them there. The administration emphasizing this is key to U.S. national security interests, Wolf.

BLITZER: $14.6 billion on top of the hundreds of billions the U.S. has already spent in this, the longest war in U.S. history, 14 years and counting right now. All right, Michelle, thanks very much.

Let's get some analysis on what's going on. Joining us, our Senior International Correspondent Nick Paton Walsh. He's joining us from Istanbul, Turkey. Also, our National Security Analyst Paul Bergen and our Senior Counterterrorism Analyst Phil Mudd. He's joining us from Memphis.

Nick, first to you. You've been there. You've been on the ground, often, in Afghanistan, including recently. You're encouraged, I take it, by what you heard from the president?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I mean, yes, it is a slight grasp to reality. I mean, it has been remarkable, frankly, reporting from Afghanistan. The timetable has really been down to Obama's own electoral cycle. He came in and he saw it was a war in trouble, the good war, in his mind. Put the surge in place. But that was tailored off to get him really able to keep the idea that Afghanistan was winding down to get himself into a second term.

And the second term was about pulling most of the rest of the troops out. Now, clearly, that isn't going to happen here. It is a reflection of the reality but it goes against the narrative that us, as reporters in Kabul, were forced, really, to swallow on a daily basis, that the Afghan security forces are ready. The violence is on the decrease. The Taliban were losing out to consistent night raids against them.

It, clearly, didn't have the long-term effect. It's obvious, really, the Afghan national security forces weren't able to continue the job. It is now admitted by Barack Obama that they are -- it still needs to get better.

And, of course, that results in the slight tweaking of the timetable. It was always felt that the sloping off down to an embassy presence by 2017 or 2016 was much faster, really, than you could possibly consider to be ideal for the security situation on the ground. But it coincided with the end of his second term.

Now, we're looking at him keeping the same number, pretty much, until his successor comes into place. And, therefore, they take that decision. But the ground in Afghanistan has been changing so fast. The Taliban, yes, in resurgence but they're fractured. They just admitted their leader was dead, Mullah Omar (ph). Now, Mosul (ph) has managed to get some currency by that victory in Kunduz. But there's ISIS, who the Taliban are fighting now as well. They're increasingly prevalent in the east of the country. The government, who Barack Obama spoke so warmly about then, yes, it's much more affable (ph) toward to the west, Ashraf Ghani, a popular technocrat. He works at the World Bank. He's well known in Washington. But he's sharing power with Abdullah Abdullah, another western-friendly face. And they still disputed the results of the election. They can't appoint a defense minister.

So, it's far from easy, life in Kabul. But still, there will be 10,000 more troops and enablers there to try and keep the Taliban at bay -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Let me bring Peter Bergen in who studied this subject very closely as well. Peter, as you know, hundreds of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars have already been spent over these past 14 years in Afghanistan. Those Afghani troops were supposed to be trained and ready to go a long time ago. They're still not ready, as the president acknowledged right now. Explain to the American people why you believe spending another $15 billion a year to maintain that U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan is money well spent.

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, Wolf, in the course of a morning, the morning of September 11, 2001, the United States was attacked and we lost $500 billion, the American economy, and, of course, 3,000 people. And, obviously, we don't want to see that replay. And as Nick said, you know, we are seeing ISIS establishing itself in eastern Afghanistan.

And we are seeing -- you know, we -- there was simply no reason for us to repeat the experiment we already ran in Iraq where, you know, an incompetent Iraqi government, an incompetent Iraqi security services and a total American absence helped precipitate the rise of ISIS there.

And we're already -- since we're already seeing ISIS in Afghanistan, I mean, it really -- I don't think it's a very difficult decision to make to say, hey, we need to make sure that we maintain the Afghan armed services. Given Afghan's confidence, we kept saying we're going to leave. And, you know, the big difference here with Iraq, Wolf, is that Afghans overwhelmingly want U.S. and international forces to stay for a long time. They have extraordinarily high levels of support for the Afghan armed services in contrast to Iraq.

So, the situation is quite different. And yet, we do want to be -- you know, the United States and its allies cannot tolerate the potential of it reverting to a failed state and Al Qaeda or ISIS really gaining a strong foothold there again.

BLITZER: Phil, I want you to listen to what the President had to say about the U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan. This is back, what, in May of 2014. This is what he said then.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[13:10:02] BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Starting next year, Afghans will be fully responsible for securing their country. American personnel will be in an advisory role. We will no longer patrol Afghan cities or towns, mountains or valleys. That is a task for the Afghan people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: It's clear, though, the Afghan military, the Afghan police, even at this point, 14 years into this war, Phil, they are not ready to be fully responsible for securing their country.

PHILIP MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: That's right. I think we should draw a simple parallel here. And the question is, it's much easier for a president to maintain forces there than to withdraw them and then reinsert them.

Let's think about Iraq for a moment. We had a rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces. We had a military that was not capable of blunting an insurgency, in that case an ISIS insurgency. And we had a president who had to reverse course, a lot of political capital, and say, we're reinserting American forces to train and advise the Iraqi military.

Think of the parallel here, Wolf. The White House had to sit there and say, do we take a legacy move to say we're going to maintain forces, as the President said today? Or do we withdraw forces quickly and face the prospect that the next president, the successor to President Obama, has to reinsert them when we realize that the Taliban is going to defeat the Afghan military? In my mind, that White House made a simple decision. As Peter said, we can't afford to have the Taliban roll through these provinces in northern Afghanistan.

BLITZER: And, Peter, the U.N., they issued a report this month, not a year ago, two years ago. They found out the Taliban is now in more parts of Afghanistan than in any point, going back to 2001, October 2001, right after 911. That's when the U.S. went into Afghanistan. And now, the Taliban, they're targeting urban areas just as much as villages out there. Why is the Taliban so successful now in Afghanistan, maybe even more successful than it's been over 14 years?

BERGEN: Well, I mean, the international troop presence is, you know, pretty much at an all-time low now. It's not just U.S. troops that have withdrawn down to a much lower level. It's all our NATO -- all our NATO allies as well.

And, you know, so, we're not talking about, you know, that, you know, some sort of -- the Taliban has taken one -- I mean, let's put it in perspective. I mean, in the last 14 years, the Taliban has taken one city for two weeks. This is not like the ISIS taking Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq, or taking Fallujah or Ramadi or any of the other big Iraqi cities. So, yes, they've had this one battlefield success which is certainly not to be discounted. But the last 14 years have not been that militarily successful for the Taliban writ large.

BLITZER: But why did the U.N., in this new report, say Taliban is in more parts of Afghanistan than at any point going back to 2001?

BERGEN: I'm sure that's true. I mean, the U.N. has a very good record of these kinds of assessments. But being in -- being in lots of places doesn't necessarily mean that you control large cities or towns. And we're -- I'm just trying to kind of create a little bit of perspective here compared to Iraq, Wolf, which is that the Taliban has presence in plenty of rural parts of Afghanistan. And, unfortunately, so now does ISIS in some parts. That -- this is all not an argument for saying, hey, we should just withdrawal. It's an argument for saying, we should stay for as long as necessary to make sure that the ISIS and other of their allies do not come back.

BLITZER: Peter Bergen, thanks very much. Nick Paton Walsh, thanks to you. Phil Mudd, appreciate it very much.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

BLITZER: We're going to have more on this developing story coming up this hour. I'll speak live with Senator Rand Paul. He's been very critical of the role of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. He's standing by live. I'll also ask him what he thinks of the president's new strategy. We'll get into some other political issues, his recent comments on gay right also in the workplace, his efforts to become the Republican presidential nominee. Much more coming up this hour with Senator Rand Paul.

Also, a surge of violence has Israel on edge right now. So much so, the government is even asking legally armed citizens to play a bigger part. What's going on? We'll explain when we come back.

[13:14:16]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:18:18] BLITZER: Now to the very tense situation in Israel right now. Just a little while ago, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, addressed the security crisis in his country. It comes on the heels of some horrific attacks in Jerusalem and elsewhere over the past week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: The only way that we can fight this big lie, all the other lies that are hurled at Israel and spread in the Palestinian social network and from there to the world, is to tell the truth. This is what we will do today. We expect all our friends, and anyone concerned with the facts and the truth, to look at these facts, to see the truth and not to draw false symmetry between Israeli citizens and those who would stab them and knife them to death.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Netanyahu's government is encouraging legally armed civilians to play a greater part in keep the streets safe after a surge in violence. Police and soldiers have tightened security across the country after repeated stabbings and other attacks.

Our international correspondent Phil Black is in Jerusalem. He's joining us live right now.

Phil, there's apparently no new attacks today, but what's the mood there in Jerusalem?

PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No new attacks, Wolf, but a great deal of tension, really a very significant security presence on the streets of Jerusalem. And Israelis openly talking about the fear that they feel here at the moment.

A couple of incidents which I think show just how tense things are here at the moment. On a train to Haifa, the northern city there, a woman thought she saw a suspicious-looking man, shouted "terrorist." In the chaos that followed, the brakes were applied, a police officer discharged his weapon, but a search of the train found that there was no threat. Similar, too, around Tel Aviv, a car, supposedly a suspicious car, was pursued, chased, blocked off using road blocks and a helicopter and two Palestinian youths taken into custody before being eventually released once their suspicion was eventually cleared as well.

[13:20:19] You mentioned the fact that legal weapons owners in this country are being encouraged to carry their weapons here. It is all a sign of just how tense, how scared people are. And also how difficult it is to police and secure the streets against the sorts of attacks we've been seeing here. Young men, sometimes teenagers, suddenly, without warning, attacking with knives and cleavers, innocent people on the streets. It is a real security challenge. And that is why things remain very tense here in Jerusalem tonight, Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, be careful over there, Phil, we'll stay in close touch with you. Thank you very much.

Just ahead, Senator Rand Paul's presidential campaign has a message for those naysayers out there, we're not quitting. But what about the pressure, sagging poll numbers, a whole lot more. Here's here with me live. We'll discuss what's going on right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:25:25] BLITZER: Senator Rand Paul's run for the White House, the focus, a lot of speculation among political pundits these days, but the Republican senator from Kentucky says he's in this race to stay. Senator Paul is joining us here live.

Thanks very much for coming in.

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thanks for having me.

BLITZER: We'll talk politics, your race for the White House, in a few moments. Let's get your reaction, first of all, to the president's decision today to a reversal. Earlier, all U.S. troops basically were going to be out of Afghanistan by the end of next year. He says 10,000 are going to remain next year, 5,500 the year after. It's going to wind up costing U.S. taxpayers $15 billion a year to keep those troops there. Good idea or bad idea?

PAUL: I think it's a mistake. It's also not what our founding fathers intended. Our founding fathers intended that when we were to go to war, that Congress would debate this and this would be approved or disapproved by Congress. I don't know what our mission is. I would have voted for the original mission to go after bin Laden and those who attacked us on 9/11. We have bin Laden. We have the people who attacked us on 9/11. What is our mission? To build a nation? Well, frankly, we're not very good at building nations and I'm not for having our military stay indefinitely in Afghanistan to build a nation.

BLITZER: The mission presumably is to make sure the Taliban or al Qaeda or ISIS in this particular case don't take over Afghanistan from which they could build terrorist plots to do what they did on 9/11.

PAUL: Why don't the local people defend themselves against the Taliban?

BLITZER: But they're obviously not yet capable. So the U.S. is being asked to stay there and train them and equip them.

PAUL: How long? It's been a decade. You know we've spent -

BLITZER: It's been 14 years.

PAUL: Yes, more than a decade. We've spent more in Afghanistan using equivalent dollars than we did in the Marshall Plan. How much time and how much money is it going to take? I think people will not stand up and defend themselves until they're asked to. And I think the people who live in Afghanistan should stand up and say, do you want to let the Taliban, these thugs, run you over? Are you willing to stand up and fight? And, you know what, I think they would stand up and fight and we can aid them in a way, but I don't think we need to have troops there.

BLITZER: So you would get out right away?

PAUL: Yes, I don't think we need to be in Afghanistan.

BLITZER: Immediately?

PAUL: Yes.

BLITZER: OK. Let's talk about some other issues. A little controversy, Hillary Clinton criticizing your comments about same-sex rights in the workplace. You were asked if LGBT employees should be allowed to sue if they were fired over sexual - their sexual orientation, and you said, "I think really the things you do in your house, if you could just leave those in your house and it wouldn't have to be part of the workplace, to tell you the truth." And then you said, "I think society is rapidly changing and that if you are gay, there are plenty of places that will hire you."

So the criticism is that you're not - you're preventing these people from going to court, if you will, if they are fired or terminated or exploited because of their sexual orientation.

PAUL: OK. You know, I don't think anybody should be fired for being gay. I do also, though, believe that your personal life should be personal and shouldn't affect anyone firing you. So I don't think the decision whether to hire or fire you should be based on things from your personal life. So when I say that it should remain in your house, yes, I don't think it should be part of the decision making of the business. So I might have been able to word it better, but I don't think it should enter into the decision at all.

BLITZER: So how would you have worded it because the implication is let's -- let's say -

PAUL: Well, exactly how I did.

BLITZER: Let's say you're gay and your employees don't like the fact you're gay so they fire you.

PAUL: Yes, I don't -

BLITZER: Should that employee be allowed to go to court and sue? If you're an excellent employee -

PAUL: Right.

BLITZER: You haven't done anything wrong. The only thing the employer doesn't like is you're gay. Shouldn't that employee have a right to go to court?

PAUL: Right. I don't think that anybody should be fired for being gay and I don't think that their personal lives should enter into whether we hire or fire anyone. Whether or not that should be a federal law, I think that these things should be decided at the state level. When our country was founded, we said that most criminal justice and most civil action would be performed at the local level. The federal government didn't have anything to do with it. So I don't think the federal government should weigh in on things like this. It should be decided state by state. And if state's want to make that an action for cause, that's fine.

I do worry about a workplace, though, where every sort of classification, a person then becomes something where, oh, I lost my job, maybe I'll sue because I also happen to be gay.

BLITZER: But if you could prove it was because the employee hates gays -

PAUL: It's always - it's always - I know, it's always a he said/she said. Nobody puts signs up saying that. And if they do, then I think you would have an action or a cause for action. What I'm saying is, I think it should not enter into the workplace, in the sense that you shouldn't be hired or fired because you're gay.

BLITZER: Let's talk a little bit about your quest to become the Republican president nomine. Last quarter you raised $2.5 million. That's down from $7 million the quarter before. Is the money drying up?

PAUL: The interesting thing is, is we've raised about $20 million between us and our super PACs. So that's not an insignificant amount of (INAUDIBLE). BLITZER: How much is the super PAC and how much is -

[13:30:00] PAUL: I think it's - I don't know the exact number. It might be 14 and six. Something like that.

BLITZER: Fourteen for the super PAC?

PAUL: Yes. No, 14 for us and six for the super PAC.

BLITZER: All right.