in afghanistan. it s been a painful choice to leave. that s why they didn t heed the warnings back in april. does that square with your understanding? i have a relative who is forced to choose between coming home to see her children or staying behind to be with her parents. she chose to be with her kids. these are impossible positions. they should never have had to have been made. the tragedy is there was that difference between the iraq siv program and the afghan siv program. many of the iraqis had served as interpreters. they were allowed to bring their parents and siblings. when congress wrote the law in 2009, they limited afghans to only bring their spouses and children under the age of 21.
operation veterans. if you know anybody who served in afghanistan. do a quick buddy check. a lot of people are hurting. we are very, very concerned about their mental health. leadership. the siv program. we advocated through 7 administrations. my unit closed a camp in iraq. i worked with some of the best non-commissioned officers all from new york. nypd and learned a lot from them. they called it. they said we will see what happens. a few years later they walked out the door and became isis. i served at the driven in bagram. the same thing happened. you don t need a crystal ball. jesse: history is repeating itself. russians went in there. we went in there. that place is a cemetery for
the bank holding up pieces of paper and proof they had to make their case, that they thought, that they should be allowed to be part of the siv program. and packed together and that increases in density. a very desperate people trying to get in. it is, i have to say, given what we re hearing about this, quite likely that a dense crowd like that may have been in fact the target. quite how u.s. personnel who we hear from the important were also injured too ended up into that is unclear. did an initial part of the attack draw them out, were they trying to assist people who were caught in the first explosion, and then another one came. we simply don t know at this stage. but certainly the scene there means certainly judging from some of the pictures you ve been playing as well over the past half hour or so, we re dealing with a densely packed area, different casualties who could be behind this in afghanistan you can t count on a claim of
0 works. if the hope is for them to be a reasonable partner for afghan allies, other members of former of the afghan government or the u.s., that one indication there. i m jim sciutto. thank you for being with us. that is flick robertson with me there. at this hour will start now. this is cnn breaking news. hello, i m kate bolduan. we re continuing this follow the major breaking news in afghanistan. there has been an explosion outside of kabul airport. officials also say this appears to be a suicide attack. let s be clear. this is still unfolding and there are many questions and things are still very fluid right now. we don t know who is behind the explosion. but the u.s. officials have been warning about a credible imminent and compelling, that is how they put it, threat from isis-k for days now. the u.s. embassy in kabul just 30 minutes ago issued a new warning to u.s. citizens near the airport. essentially the message is very clear. leave immediately. let s get to it. barbara
these are known passport holders. okay. but have have lprs also been contacted? yes. and what about siv applicants, people who are we re in contact will we get i m sorry. i don t expect you to have all of it, but then, you know, since this whole thing began there s been a lot of criticism of the administration over how it handled it and there s been a lot of pushback from people within the administration about the hand that you were basically dealt or what you say you were dealt by the previous to deal with the taliban in terms of the siv program in terms of the broader refugee program. you guys have been in office for eight months. it s been five months since the president s decision was made. is there anything about the shortcomings have about been so readily identified by all sorts of people that you are actually