also a marine veteran and representative, we re so happy to have you with us this morning. obviously not under the circumstances. you commanded infantry in afghanistan during your time in the marines. so when you see the situation really just devolving, minute by minute, do you question at all the mission you are serving? what go through your? mind mission you there were two mn afghanistan. the first mission was a counter-terrorism mission. and that was designed to deny safe harbor to terrorists and bring to justice the who architect id 9/11. and the counter-terrorism mission has largely been successful. some of bin laden s dead and terrorists have not been able to gain a foothold in afghanistan. but under bush and rumsfeld and cheney, that other mission morphed into a counter insurgency mission. a nation building exercise. and that mission was doomed for failure. we can fight in afghanistan for another century, and the u.s.
and for it to be closing once personnel are out, is significant. what does that say for many of the afghans who are desperately trying to get out of there after the americans around? yes, i mean they are flooding offices right now in kabul trying to get out. many of them saying we worked with the u.s. military. there is going to be a target on all of our backs. you have to please help get us out. of course, it is very complicated effort as our richard engel reported. a lot of these forms, first of all are in english. they have limited staff are able to help them. although they re still trying to evacuate this embassy here. just to capture everybody up to speed on what s happening while we re talking about the taliban, has entered the capital city of kabul. they are negotiating a peaceful surrender of the city there with the afghan government. negotiating a temporary transition of power. at least, they say it s temporary. this is a huge escalation here just a couple of weeks before th
20th anniversary of september 11th. that indeed. the timing is very critical. and we do want to update everybody with some information that nbc news just confirmed according to both a freelance producer that we have in kabul. and also a statement from afghanistan s interior minister. they say that the security of the city, kabul, has been guaranteed. there will be no attack on the city. the big city of power will be handed over temporarily to a third party and it is our duty to secure the city. they say kabul will be safe. there won t be any problems in kabul. richard, as we bring you and, it says don t be a victim of taliban propaganda. do you think that the afghan people have confidence that their safety can be guaranteed? it looks like we lost richard. we ll continue on. shannon is pettypiece joining us from the white house. we also are very fortunate to
there on the field. colonel, can afghans right now, the government guarantee that they can be safe during this transition? no, the government can t guarantee anything. one of the reasons we are leaving is that after three presidents in a row said were leaving, the conclusion is that the afghan government can t protect itself. the afghan army, as big as president biden says it is, 300,000 strong with all its equipment they can t protect the afghan people. there isn t the will among the afghans to protect themselves, even after all the time and money we ve spent their. and there s a number of reasons for that. one of them is that there s terrible corruption inside the government and inside the army as well. ammunition, weapons, basic items such as food and water, have been diverted in many cases. and the front line troops,
after the devastating 7.2 magnitude earthquake. relief workers say they are dealing with problems right now. the threat of gangs making it difficult to access areas. speak with one of them a little bit later on this hour. yeah that really country really can t catch a break. their president was excessive needed last month. a tropical storm is heading there. we were gonna talk with one of those groups. but first we do say good morning. i m lindsay reiser. we re talking about two countries right now that can t catch a break at all. of course i m candice gibson. let s get straight to the big breaking news out of afghanistan where the taliban claims every major city accept cobbled, at least for now, is under their control. we re going to take a look at a time lapse mask here and it shows the districts across afghanistan, how quickly the taliban has gained ground. this was compiled by the longhorn journal. and the red you see shows the districts control by the taliban. so everything