tonight with the context. from edinburgh, alex massie scotland editor of the spectator. bill browder, the ceo of hermitage capital management and long time critic of vladimir putin. and joel rubin, who served in the obama administration as assistant to the secretary of state. welcome to the programme. whenjoe biden spoke to vladimir zelensky on this day last year, there wasn t much confidence in washington he would be president for much longer, nor indeed that kyiv could be defended. yet here we are, a year on and not only is zelensky still there, but the us president was today standing alongside him, in kyiv. plans that involved extraordinary subterfuge and secrecy. on sunday night, as is usual, the white house issued the president s public schedule for monday, on which we were told he was leaving for warsaw at 7pm tonight. in fact, he was already in poland. air force one took off at 4:15 sunday morning, the press pool was left behind. and by late evening, the president was
are people on the defence department, state, secret service, are tracking this idea, making this are tracking this idea, making this a secret visit around this time, and it never late. there was no bluster coming out of the white house, there was no bravado about he s going to go until a war zone which, remember, this is a president going into an act of war zone that the united states is not a direct participant income and probally don t have a major military presence, unlike baghdad and kabul, where presidents can go for a holiday visit. this is a real war zone, and can go for a holiday visit. this is a realwarzone, and so can go for a holiday visit. this is a real war zone, and so for a couple of months, planning, known you can, then out in the dark of night. a really incredible feats of operational security and secrecy. there is no precedent for something like this, an american president going to a halt wasn t for us troops are not sufficient. what i think is extraordinary is that t
stream. they just believe that they could not properly protect the officials in yemen. it was clear that this was the intercepted communication which we have reported for the last 48 hours. we were sitting on that information for a while as were other news immediamedia includi new york times. the fact that it was a communication from al zawahiri in al qaeda central to wuhayshi, the most seriously threatening operational branch of al qaeda. al qaeda in the arabian peninsula. and it was that interception, a large threat against western interests believed to be not only the united states but the brits, the french and others have evacuated. the brits evacuated everyone from their embassy in yes, mame. and they believe that they were fortifying those embassies, those posts, consulates, that could be well defended, baghdad and kabul, reopened. but that these others not only in the muslim world but others,
in al qaeda central to wuhayshi, the most seriously threatening operational branch of al qaeda. al qaeda in the arabian peninsula. and it was that interception, a large threat against western interests believed to be not only the united states but the brits, the french and others have evacuated. the brits evacuated everyone from their embassy in yemen. and they believe that they were fortifying those embassies, those posts, consulates, that could be well defended, baghdad and kabul, reopened. but that these others not only in the muslim world but others, the 19 that remain closed, could not be properly defended. i think, rachel, this is not just post-9/11. this is post-benghazi. that s partly what this is all about. who makes the decision to do something as dramatic as what happened in yemen today? putting in that c-17, taking out almost everybody from the
have evacuated. the brits evacuated everyone from their embassy in yemen. and they believe that they were fortifying those embassies, those posts, consulates, that could be well defended, baghdad and kabul, reopened. but that these others not only in the muslim world but others, the 19 that remain closed, could not be properly defended. i think, rachel, this is not just post-9/11. this is post-benghazi. that s partly what this is all about. who makes the decision to do something as dramatic as what happened in yemen today? putting in that c-17, taking out almost everybody from the country, is that the president s call or is that the secretary of state s call? who does that? it is a combination. it is the national security council. susan rice has a lot to do with this. she is now sitting at the head of the table in all of these meetings whether they are on the phone or, you know, literally in