of or might want to do. on the broader question about terrorism or terrorists regrouping, this is another argument the administration and again, mr biden repeated there that they had largely degraded al-qaeda and afghanistan, that that was the goal of the mission and it had been achieved, and therefore they should be able to leave, and it could still be monitored, the terrorism threat could still be monitored on what they called over the horizon capability, meaning they have bases in the region and they can keep an eye on it that way and they have done that in other countries that having a permanent presence there, and also they continually say the threat of terrorism is beyond afghanistan, it s growing in other countries and we have to focus on that, as well. barbara, thanks as ever for your analysis. lee s dissent flew into kabul airport today, and she sent us herfirst impressions of kabul airport today, and she sent us her first impressions of the
of damage from hurricane sandy, where the governor was just referring to it in 2012, so a lot of residents here were quite worried about storm surge and many of them evacuated. but that storm surge has not arrived, at least to the point of endangering the houses. nevertheless, we have been seeing an incredible amount of rain, notjust here. but in new york city. central parkjust recorded its wettest hours in recorded history, nearly 4.5 inches in close to two hours. so flooding is very much still a worry and of course the centre of the storm is moving towards rhode island. let s go back to afghanistan now and we will bring you that address from the white house as soon as president biden begins to speak. 0ur chief international correspondent, lyse doucet, flew into kabul airport today and sent her first impressions of the situation there. it hits you as soon as you put your foot on the tarmac of this airfield.
americans, trying to evacuate afghans that served with americans or other western organizations who feel at risk. i want you to listen to a military veteran a democrat in congress and an ally of biden. he said why did the troops leave before you got the state department employees out, before you got the afghans out? they planned this contingency then they would have gotten our friends and allies out of afghanistan a long time ago. if the they had done that we wouldn t see the chaotic scenes at kabul airport today. i don t see how you can make the case he planned for this contingency. it s clearly catching us by surprise. how could that have happened? again if you tread amazing work that you re working on and i m looking forward to the book, it s all laid out. it s laid out in the documents that he has access to, his national security team has access to. they have access that you haven t seen. anyone who served in the military said this was a
have assisted the u.s. against them out of the country. but that s a big ask, and the chaos we saw today, frankly, was startling, jake. and given no indication we re about to see order in that part of town. tell us about the chaos you saw at the kabul airport today. reporter: there is essentially a number of roads towards the airport. but what s extraordinary is that the feeling in the city when the taliban moved in quite so slowly, quite so peacefully was panic amongst so many. they believe maybe they can get on to civilian aircraft. those civilian flights were canceled. then the u.s. started bringing in their cargo. we ve started hearing again flights coming into the airport after a bit of a suspension. but earlier on this afternoon we saw some extraordinary scenes at the airport where essentially the taliban are right up against u.s. forces now. this is the only way out for so many. the airport road jammed, chaos.
middle of a civil war that the afghan army wouldn t fight for itself. that is the president s national security adviser this morning and cnn has learned that president biden s plans today are changing. we have every angle covered. let s begin with nick paton walsh on the ground in kabul, afghanistan. nick, you tried to make your way to the kabul airport today. what did you see? reporter: i got to the first entry point, the main entrance which was under taliban control. the streets outside of it. and bizarrely that one patch remaining in afghanistan after 20 years is under american control, well there were taliban in fact trying to stop those crowds from getting towards the airport. crowd control essentiallyo ofte done with the humvees and they ve taken off the afghan forces that they have moved into the capital kicked out of here. just to let you know. you mentioned the flights