All language subtitles for Afghanistan.Getting.Out.S01E01.1080p.WEBRiP.x264-DARKFLiX_track3_[eng]

This programme contains some scenes
which some viewers may find upsetting

On 15th August,

I was not expecting anything
big to happen.

Breakfast went so normal,
that day was normal.

I had to attend my 9am meeting
with President Ghani at the palace.

And President Ghani welcomed me

and it was, honestly speaking,
very normal. We cracked jokes.

He recorded a statement.

STATEMENT PLAYS ON TV

Then after that, we said goodbye
to President Ghani and he went

because it was afternoon time.

Usually always between 12.30
and 3pm, he take a nap.

So let's go now and eat.

All the president's protocol
people were in their suits.

They were serving us food.

After lunch, we came out.

It's only me and my colleagues.

There is no-one else.

The palace is quite quiet.

Then I received a call from
Minister of Foreign Affairs.

He said, "Where is the boss?"

I told them he was with us
half an hour ago.

He's at home.

And he told me, no.

He ran away.

Sound of a helicopter.

NEWS: President Ashraf Ghani has
fled the country... ..has gone.

Fleeing to neighbouring
Uzbekistan... ..leaves a pretty huge

vacuum that one can only assume
the Taliban is going to fill.

I received a call from my wife and
she was saying, "What's happening?"

I just kept telling her, "I'm safe.

"Don't worry about me."

She was crying and begging me
to leave palace and it's not safe.

We went to one place from there.
Another place.

There was running,
like they were panicked.

GUNFIRE

I managed to get in the airport.

Things were getting out of control.

I'm thinking, "What happened?"

NEWS: A desperate scene unfolds
at the Kabul airport.

People here in the capital are
utterly petrified and essentially

have nowhere to look to now.

I might face consequences
that I never even dreamed of.

The Taliban stormed into Kabul.

Images emerging of insurgents
in the country's equivalent

of the Oval Office.

The British and the Americans
have spent billions, but the policy

has been an abject failure.

This war used to be called
Operation Enduring Freedom,

and it's turned out not
to be enduring,

and they're not leaving
behind a society that is free.

TRUMP: The greatest foreign policy
humiliation

in the history
of the United States of America.

I think most Americans were
disturbed by the chaotic,

desperate images of Kabul Airport.

As though there had been a sudden,
unexpected destruction of the state.

But I'm sitting at home watching
all this, and I thought to myself,

"You know, this is the result
of a long, slow-burning fuse."

It wasn't months long.

It wasn't even years long.

It was about 15 years' long.

This is a history of missed
opportunities where we could

have snuffed out this fuse.

Of course, there are things
that we ought

to have done differently.

Can people find fault with
the decisions that we made?

I'm sure they can.

There's a set of burdens and
everybody who is involved has got

to carry that with them.

I was born in 1986 in north-west
of Afghanistan.

My father was a senior member
of the national resistance

against Taliban.

As a child, I could see a lot of
people, a lot of meeting happening

in our house.

And then in 2001, the fate
of our country changed.

Hey, guys, no more airplanes.

New York's a no-fly zone.

Way to go....

SHE SCREAMS

Oh, shit.

SCREAMING

Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

I remember I was in my constituency
at home on the day

that 9/11 happened.

My wife was in Manhattan at the
time, and so for several hours

I couldn't get hold of her.

TONY BLAIR: We've identified Bin
Laden as the prime suspect.

There's no doubt at all
that the Taliban are helping

and harbouring him.

On my orders, the United States
military

has begun strikes in Afghanistan.

I thought Tony Blair reacted rapidly
and correctly by standing foursquare

with the Americans.

I voted for it in
the House of Commons.

There was no choice, in my view,
but to effectively sanction

the removal of that regime
and the clearing out

of the terrorist training camps.

Key towns have fallen very
swiftly, first Herat in the west

of Afghanistan, and now
the capital, Kabul.

But intervention has to be followed
by a process of building

a provisional government
that includes every single element

of the country.

Fatima Gailani, I mean, you were
about to go and live in the

United States at the very moment
that all this happened.

Now you're going to go and live
in Kabul.

Actually, for us, the Afghans,
the life has changed dramatically.

I have been working for the cause
since the communist coup d'etat...

I was born in a very
privileged household.

My father was a religious
leader and well respected.

We are descendant of Hasan, the
first grandson of the Prophet.

The five years the Taliban had,

what happened to women
disturbed me enormously,

and I was very vocal about it.

THEY CHANT

So I had to leave Afghanistan.

I thought I will have a
quiet life in Rhode Island.

Then everything changed
and I had to go back.

A new era of human rights
and human dignity.

In the streets, barbers
have been doing a roaring trade,

shaving off beards that
the Taliban insisted on.

The rights of the women
of Afghanistan

will not be negotiable.

The schools start opening
for all Afghans - girls and boys.

And Afghanistan became home
of all Afghans again.

I thought our miseries
are over, the world will not

abandon us any more.

For me, it was a huge optimism
before going to Bonn conference.

NEWS: At this German
hilltop retreat,

talks on a future government for
Afghanistan appeared to be making

some progress today.

The aim, to set up an
interim administration.

One stumbling block... We will never
compromise upon equal opportunity

of education, equal rights and equal
opportunity of work, equal rights

and equal opportunity of
political participation.

Going to Bonn was a huge honour.

I mean, big honour.

Everyone wanted to be part of it.

I went there and I realised
that it was just us

and Taliban are not there.

I was shocked.

Taliban were not outsiders.

They were people of Afghanistan.

They are not pieces of ice
that you put on a hot stone

and just wish for them to disappear.

You are not invited
to the conference.

So from there, the problem
deteriorated.

I told to Americans
that war is not a picnic.

Let's talk and resolve this issue.

Otherwise, your fate
will be like the fate

of those who have invaded
Afghanistan before you.

No, no, we don't know about that.

He entered Afghanistan illegally.

But they didn't hear.

It was a very big mistake
on their part.

We were the people of Afghanistan.

Mr Karzai, can you tell us...
Good morning.

It was decided that Hamid Karzai

will be the head of the
interim government.

..as the new interim leader.

To make sure that peace and
stability

is permanent in Afghanistan.

Thank you.
Prime Minister, concerning...

I mean, you cannot artificially make
a political situation for people.

It will not sustain.

There was instruction
from our leadership.

Just go into hiding.

I myself went into hiding.

Armed with rockets, radios
and rifles, the Taliban retreat.

They're heading for the hills
to carry on a guerrilla war.

Manage yourself.

Don't appear in the public.

And after that, step by step,
the resistance started.

Feels like the Inquisition
or something in here.

Right, so, where does this story
begin for you? Right.

So in late 2006, President Bush
decided that he wanted to be kept

up to date literally every working
day of the week on events

taking place in Iraq
and Afghanistan.

He decided to find a military
officer who could be his guy

in the West Wing, keeping him
informed.

And it turns out that I either
won or lost that competition,

depending on how you look at it.

Good morning, everybody.

We welcome this morning
Lieutenant General Douglas Lute.

I don't know why you would put
yourself in this position,

but I wish you well.

At 7.00 in the morning,
President Bush would walk

from the residence, past the portico
and into the West Wing.

He'd sort of hang his hat up
on the on the coat rack

and yell, "Lute!" My name.

So I had three to five minutes to
essentially brief him on overnight

events in the two war zones.

A year after I got to the
White House, things in Iraq

had reasonably stabilised.

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan,
things were going

in the opposite direction.

The Taliban were resurgent.

Suicide bombings were up.

So President Bush called me
in and said, go over there,

spend enough time to get a feel for
what's happening on the ground.

We've got nothing to lose here.

I want a very honest assessment
of the situation in Afghanistan.

I said to my team,
"We're going on a road trip."

So one of the stops was in the city
of Kandahar, the birthplace

of the Taliban.

And in this large base, my
team-mates and I went around to the

Nato command and we'd get one
picture of the situation at hand.

We'd go down the street to the US
CIA and we'd get another take.

We'd go to those who were training
the Afghans and we got

yet another take.

They were not talking
to one another.

As an example, a US military
unit would be in charge

of a particular geographic area.

But when the sun set and darkness
came, the high-end counterterrorism

forces would conduct a raid,

make off with the target
of the raid.

and by the time the sun came up,
leave this space back

in the hands of the conventional
unit in charge, who then had to deal

with all the consequences
the next morning of the raid

the night before.

It was happening from day one.

These raids of the army
in the villages.

Sometimes it went beyond
that bombing and all that.

I mean, there was an air attack on a
wedding and lots of people died.

HE SHOUTS

Men, women and old people.

Children.

Years and years of experiencing
night raids, civilian casualties,

detentions of elders, was a steady
strain for the Afghan people

and over the long term actually
eroded our ability to do

successful counterinsurgency
operations.

It was a strong dose of realism.

After years of focusing on Iraq,
we had not paid the same level

of attention to Afghanistan, and now
perhaps we were paying the price

for that inattention.

Because the report from our trip
was nearly coincidental

with the 2008 presidential election,

President Bush in large part
deferred the report

to his successor.

CROWD CHANTING: Yes, we can.
Yes, we can.

Now, after this long campaign,
so many of us know this man.

Barack Obama.

I was 29 years old and I was working
at a think tank in Washington,

and I basically offered myself
up to work for Barack Obama

for free at first.

Welcome a new generation
of leadership.

I helped write some speeches
for him.

Thank you.

You know, he really wanted
to present himself as someone

ready to be commander in chief.

Our nation is involved in two wars,
a war that we have to win against

Al-Qaeda, but also a war of choice
that I believe should have never

been authorised and should
have never been waged -

a war in Iraq that's
cost us billions of dollars.

He wanted to make the point
that just because I oppose the war

in Iraq doesn't mean I oppose
all military intervention.

First response to you,
Senator Obama. You have two minutes.

We hadn't finished the job
in Afghanistan.

We have four times the number
of troops in Iraq where nobody

had anything to do with
9/11 before we went in.

And that is a strategic mistake...

And you know what?

From that moment on, like, to win
this war in Afghanistan, you know,

became kind of a core message
of the whole Obama presidency.

The place where we have to deal

with these folks is going
to be in Afghanistan.

And until we do, Americans here
at home are not going to be safe.

The President was surrounded
by all these very young people,

and I'd probably been director
of Central Intelligence when most

of them were still in
grammar school.

Obama was the eighth president
I'd worked for, and I actually

didn't hear ever hear this directly,

but the younger staffers in
particular referred to me as Yoda.

The first meeting on Afghanistan
really was basically a briefing.

This request had been passed
from the commander in Afghanistan

for an additional 17,000 American
troops to help secure in particular

the region in the south
of Afghanistan, where the Taliban

were very active.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff said, if we want to get

these additional troops
that the commander has asked

for into Afghanistan in time
for the summer fighting season...

..we had to start
moving them immediately.

There was a bit of a quick review
over what would the troops do.

How soon were they available,
where would they go and so forth.

And he agreed with the military's
request for the additional

17,000 troops.

In the midst of this, the Pentagon
contacted my office and said,

"Please hold the press on this
memo because it's not 17,000.

"Turns out we need 21,000."

I replied, "The President's made
the decision for 17,000.

"How do you expect me with some
sleight of hand to make it 21,000?

"This you're going to have
to explain."

It kind of planted a seed
of some scepticism around...

..are we getting jammed here?

It got us off to a poor
start with the Obama folks

because they felt like
we were boxing them in.

So this turned out to be the first
sign of tension between the Pentagon

and the Obama White House

that played out throughout
the course of 2009.

Obama was always even tempered
with me.

He never raised his voice,
and he always

treated me very respectfully.

But the real problem was
in the Vice President.

We had a very cordial relationship.

But what I took into the room
with me was my view

that he'd been wrong on some
of the most important strategic

issues of the previous 40 years.

Congratulations, Senator.

Thank you very much.

Senator, excuse me, could
we ask you to do it again.

He'd opposed every aspect of
Ronald Reagan's military build-up.

How can the party that went to war
with itself over stopping a war

in Vietnam fail to stop this
administration in Latin America?

He voted against every major
new strategic weapon,

from ICBMs to strategic defence.

He'd voted against
the first Gulf War.

President Bush must obtain
a Congressional Declaration

authorising the attack.

I just felt that there was a long
history there of him

getting stuff wrong.

FANFARE PLAYS

The Vice President told me
that, in his decades of experience

in the Senate, he had never
met a military commander

who didn't want more troops.

If we just constantly fed
these demands,

we would be there forever.

So over the course of 2009,

they began to develop two camps.

Those led by the Vice President,
who were sceptics, and others

who were advocates
for the military effort.

By 2009, I was the Commander
of US Central Command, responsible

for the Greater Middle East,
to include Afghanistan and Pakistan,

after having commanded the surge
in Iraq.

I was just struck by how far
behind and how under-resourced

the effort in Afghanistan was.

And so I was not going to be silent,
frankly.

And I told the President
we needed something else.

NEWSREADER: The United States'

top commander in Afghanistan is
being replaced

after less than a year in charge...

..that Lieutenant General Stanley
McChrystal be nominated to replace

General McKiernan as commander
of US forces in Afghanistan.

General McChrystal was kind of this
mythic figure in the military

who'd led the special forces in
Iraq.

Exactly that kind of officer.

He was a Green Beret, well-skilled
in not only in counterinsurgency

and counterterrorism, but also
training domestic security forces...

McChrystal
had a different skill set

and he'd been running operations
against Al-Qaeda

and just was a very, very effective
commander.

What we're likely to see with
General McChrystal is a much

more intensified counterinsurgency
campaign,

which may mean more troops.

General McChrystal is told
to conduct a review.

And then we went to Belgium
over a weekend

to have discussions with him.

And basically McChrystal
briefed his whole report.

He laid out quite an alarming
situation.

Dire and deteriorating

If it's already dire,

then the second word says it all.

SIRENS WAIL

Things have gotten worse.
We are stationed...

REPORTER: Every few days, this
happens.

The mortars hit the base.

The insurgents now have finally
amassed around the compound,

beginning an attack from all sides.

Fire.

I was Leader of the Opposition
in 2009 and I made a point

of going to Afghanistan.

And I remember being with
William Hague

and we were sitting
being briefed

by the military on top of the
sort of military base in Sangin.

And the sun was beating
down. Just at that moment,

you heard a whistle through the air,
and it was a bullet.

You could see that I was beginning
to understand this,

that we were spread a bit
too thinly.

If you have too few forces,
too thinly spread, you might be able

to defend the territory you hold

but you're not actually
helping to achieve the defeat

of an insurgency because, of course,
you're not

just fighting against insurgents,

you are trying to win
over the hearts and minds

of the local population.

INDISTINCT

If we think of war in a more
conventional sense, we think

of taking terrain or killing
the enemy.

And that's what we were
trained to do.

This is not that. This is a war
for the people.

It's not a war with the people.

McChrystal thought these were
changes that needed to be made

in our tactical approach, but also
strategically more attention paid

to securing the population.

When all is said and done,
our security and our success

is going to come
from the Afghan people.

If we can't protect them,
they'd rather the Taliban

than have their home destroyed.

General McChrystal delivered
a range of options.

I wish we'd done this a number
of years ago,

but it doesn't matter, we're
doing it now.

The basic logic was to protect
the population, win their confidence

and their allegiance, building
Afghan capacity, police governance,

building schools and so forth.

And that would require 40,000
troops.

Frankly, I think folks
from Washington were a bit shocked.

I didn't know whether I was going
to have an aneurysm or fall

out of my chair.

Having just gotten those 20,000 in,

now to go back and ask

for double that number.

And I just, you know, I just kind
of rolled my eyes

because I just, I saw a terrible
fight coming.

REPORTER: General McChrystal's
request for more troops

comes at a time of growing political
scepticism in Washington...

.. tell me that committing

more American troops risks
committing America to a quagmire.

Now the debate is said to be
civil in front of the President,

but it gets pretty heated
away from him. Those in favour...

It was a meeting in the Oval Office
and everybody just blew up.

The Vice President flew back
from California to be there.

He didn't believe in the model
itself. That we could build Afghan

capacity in these very remote rural
districts, prevent the Taliban

from returning, and then transfer
that completely to the Afghan

government where the Americans
were no longer required.

The demographics of the country,
the geography of the country,

the neighbouring regional
setting, the deep corruption

in Afghan society.

I said there were missions
to be conducted.

Those missions require a certain
number of troops, and if you don't

provide that, you are not
going to accomplish the mission

that has been assigned.

And these meetings continued
for months.

REPORTER: Four soldiers returned
from Afghanistan to Dover.

President Obama says these rising
losses are why he's taking his time

deciding his next move there.

Americans remain divided
over Afghanistan.

About a third want more troops,

a third want the status quo

and about a third want troops out.

Obama held up the chart
where the military was showing

what the troop levels were
in Afghanistan.

And they kind of went
like this, right, up to 100,000

and then they stayed there
for ten years, I think.

It was like, "I can't sell
this." Like...

..no president could, you know?
Winston Churchill couldn't make

the American people
spend that amount of money.

That's trillions of dollars.

You know, we're in the financial
crisis.

And, you know, he kind
of gets emotional.

These numbers on these slides are
like me having to be in a hospital

years from now with somebody
who got their legs blown off.

It was quiet for kind of
a weighty moment.

But then it just kind of resumed.

Eventually the President announced
that he would speak to the American

people in front of the
Corps of Cadets at West Point.

I remember we were backstage
at West Point and it's the last time

I ever sensed he was nervous.

He just said, "They're so young."

Good evening.

I want to speak to you tonight
about our effort in Afghanistan.

As Commander-in-chief, I have
determined that it is in our vital

national interest to send
an additional 30,000

US troops to Afghanistan.

Presumably, some of those kids
did end up in Afghanistan and...

Not presumably - we know some
of those kids died in Afghanistan.

I made it a point
to know that.

..send an additional 30,000
US troops to Afghanistan.

After 18 months,

our troops will begin to come home.

The nation that I am most interested
in building is our own.

He announced a surge,

we were happy, but then with
a timeline of withdrawal.

So I think it was meaningless.

His plan has been met with mixed
reviews... The commitment to send

more troops there in order to bring
US forces home early.

Get how that works?

So this is not a
militarily strategic decision.

This is a political decision to gain
time...

Can one realistically put a
date certain

on finishing the job in Afghanistan?

I think it's unknowable...

Two nights before the big
announcement at West Point,

we're floored to hear
that we're going to announce

the drawdown date at the same
time as the build-up.

So you're telling the enemy anyway,
I'm coming, but I'm coming

for a short time.

You can stay away, whatever you do,
but then I will leave.

Even there,
the moment of real commitment,

telling the enemy that you'll face

the right inputs really only
for about six or seven months,

because then the drawdown
is going to begin.

From that moment...

..a sense of pride, a sense of
victory start

emerging among the Taliban.

Our people were fighting
to liberate the country, to set

up an Islamic government there.

For that, we were ready to fight

for a century and wait for a
century.

REPORTER: The Taliban are watching
them from the mountains, waiting

for the mission to end.

As the Afghan proverb says,

"You may have the watches,
but we have the time."

When did you first set foot
in Afghanistan?

Erm, in April 2002.

Right, yes.
I designed the Afghan army.

Right. OK.

We realised by October 2009,
it was likely that there

would be significant reinforcements
coming to Afghanistan.

So we began to work out
where we would put the new resources

to begin with,

and we agreed that Helmand
would be where we would go first.

We were going to go after the two
key districts

of Nad-e Ali and Marjah.

NEWS REPORTS: The US Afghan force
and the Marines have effectively

cut off all escape routes leading
out of Marjah.

It's also a key test of America's
new strategy to end the conflict,

which has claimed more than...

It was probably the largest
operation ever mounted

in Afghanistan, and certainly used
more aviation than any other

operation has used since Vietnam.

And I call this this operation
Operation Moshtarak. And Moshtarak

essentially means in Pashto and
Dari, it means together.

And of course, the bottom line
was, it would be together

with the Afghans.

You don't want to mess with this
guy, I'll tell you that.

The idea here was to clear an area
of the enemy, then to hold it,

then to build, literally
infrastructure - local markets...

Like schools, hospitals, security...

And then, over time,

to hand off to local governance,

to get the people to buy
in to what was going on

because this was, at the end
of the day, about them.

The thing that's changing
is going to be the level of security

in the area but the governance. I
mean, that's really the big change.

After the clear,

a new district governor
would come into Marjah.

Not my line, but a line was used -

It would be governance in a box.

General McChrystal was going to go
in and see President Karzai

and ask him to agree
to the operation

being launched that night.

And as bad luck would have it,

President Karzai wasn't very well
that day and he certainly

didn't want to see some
annoying American commander,

as he might have thought
about it at the time.

So here we were with everybody,
you know, good to go.

Everyone can hear me, right?

THEY ANSWER IN AFFIRMATIVE

Rely on your brothers.

Thousands of troops sitting
on the pan

with their weapons and ammunition.

And I was sitting in my headquarters
with the Afghan commander, looking

at our watches. And he said to me,
he said, "Well," he said,

"what about if I speak to
Ahmed Wali Karzai?"

And Ahmed Wali Karzai was the chair
of the provincial council

in Kandahar and, of course,
was Hamid Karzai's half-brother.

And he picked up the phone.

Ahmed Wali said, "No problem at
all."

He rang up his brother
and his brother got off his deathbed

and told General McChrystal
it was good to go.

Nad-e Ali was relatively
straightforward.

Marjah was more of a problem.

One of the assurances that had been
given to President Karzai

is that the collateral damage

would be kept to an absolute
minimum.

So they had to often fight their way
into

really quite well-defended
positions...

GUNFIRE

Conserve ammo.

..without access to aerial-delivered
munitions.

SSD reports enemy...

And often with the insurgents
using families of Afghans to provide

some form of protection
to them. It was going

to be a very difficult operation.

As soon as you become Prime
Minister, you feel incredibly

responsible for the fact
that there were, in my case,

you know, 10,000 young men and women
in a very dangerous part

of the world.

And we were losing a lot of people.

I was determined that Afghanistan
would get the attention

it really deserved.

One of the first meetings
I had was with President Karzai.

Very, very good to see you.

VOICE-OVER: I barely knew my way
around the house at that stage,

but I remember welcoming him

and I think I took him for a
walk round the Rose Garden.

You know, just to try to reassure
him

that we were there for the
long term, we weren't going

to cut and run.

But the quid pro quo was
always that

we will do that,
but we need you to do more.

Karzai liked to run the government
in rather an old-fashioned way,

dealing with a whole lot of
informal contacts and tribal elders

and leaders, and sometimes warlords.

It was never going to be Denmark
in the desert.

It was never going to be the world's
most perfect government.

But it had to be good enough.

It was sort of two steps forward,
one step back the whole time,

and then these appalling instances
of corruption like the Kabul Bank.

I was sitting in my office, my
assistant said that there is someone

from Kabul Bank and insists
to talk

to you and it's very urgent.

"Take your money out of Kabul Bank
as soon as possible."

I said, "Oh, it's all right."

He said, "No, do it now.
Do it immediately.

"Kabul Bank will collapse."

And it was days after the money
was transferred

that Kabul Bank closed.

REPORTER: Panicked customers

have been pulling their savings out
of Kabul Bank

as fast as they can.

And reports
that tens of millions of dollars

had been lent to political elite...

Loans have been given to allies of
President Hamid Karzai's government.

The chairman is accused of buying
up $160 million worth of villas

like these with the bank's money.

It was shocking.

Tens and tens of thousands of people
were lining in the hope

of taking their money out.

SIRENS WAIL

It was the Afghan people's money
for which the Afghan government

was very much responsible

and it clearly implicated relatives
of the president.

The third largest shareholder

is the president's
brother, Mahmud Karzai.

He has asked for
an American bailout,

but US officials say
it's an Afghan problem.

I remember hearing US officials
arguing with Afghan authorities

that they should be arrested,
detained, tried and so forth.

But we poured money into
Afghanistan, and as a result,

we own some of the responsibility.

It became a public knowledge
that contracts were given

by the Americans to important people
in the government without a system,

without tender, without any kind
of transparency.

We've got a bunch of Afghan
officials on our payroll,

and then we criticise them because
they're on somebody else's payroll.

The Afghans think we're a bunch
of hypocrites.

So on one hand, the Americans
were complaining

that Afghanistan
is a corrupt country.

On the other hand, the door
of corruption was opened

by the Americans themselves.

The Taliban have got a really
sophisticated network.

Local people with mobile phones.

As soon as they see us coming,
the Taliban know our every movement.

We had no problem about
recruitment from the people.

They were ready to shelter us
because they were not happy

with the government
officials and police.

Afghanistan's police
are regularly accused

of petty theft and wanton damage.

They see those people as criminals
who have been taking advantage

of the international community
and filling their pockets.

When they would go
to a government office,

they would not get that work
done without greasing

the palms of officials.

THEY CONVERSE

And what he say?

And we began to discover
how bad it was when we decided

to switch all of our intelligence,
surveillance and reconnaissance

effort off the enemy and apply
it to the district governor

and the district chief of police.

And we learnt very quickly
that all of the US development money

that was going into this district

was actually being siphoned
off by the local warlord.

And the upshot of all of that,
of course, was that the population

felt that it was stuffed.

We convened a huge provincial
shura - or council,

and President Karzai
came to address them.

And General McChrystal.

And we sat in the corner
with our interpreter,

having the whole
thing translated for us.

They ran through a litany
of things that upset them.

Corruptions in the Customs House.

THEY DISCUSS

Policemen fleecing them
every time they went out and about.

And lead, frankly, to them
perhaps being more inclined

to support the Taliban.

I remember sitting in a shura
meeting with tribal elders

in Helmand and one of them saying,
you know, "The problem is,

"for all the Taliban's failings,
you know, justice was dispensed

"and order was kept and we need
justice and order now."

This demonstrated, I think,

that this was very much
more a political problem than a war.

There are at least 33 bodies,
but many, many more were injured.

We had a spike in deaths
of Afghan civilians.

At least ten civilians
have been killed in the bombing

in eastern Afghanistan.

At that time, I was president
of the Afghan Red Crescent Society.

We could see on the government side
what happened in the cities,

but also what happened to those
villages where the tribes

had Taliban within them.

For finding one Talib or a group of
one or two to three Talibs,

easily, an entire village
would have been destroyed.

We could see the miseries
of both sides.

I'm Sean.

I'm Will.

Matt, hey. Casey.

I had wanted to visit
the 3rd of the 5th earlier,

but they were still too much
in the fight.

They'd taken more casualties
than almost any unit in Afghanistan.

I think they'd suffered
something like 29 killed.

My new senior military assistant
was Lieutenant General John Kelly.

John Kelly's son was
one of those 29 killed.

I'd been a marine all my life,

and I've stood next to an awful lot
of open graves.

I can only speak for myself
and my family.

You lose a son or a daughter
fighting with a country,

have sent them off to war,

the sadness is forever,

but so is the pride.

We went out to one of
the battalion locations

and the unit that we visited
happened to be my son's unit.

3rd Battalion, 5th Marines.

They... These guys are bringing
the fight to the Taliban.

You know, yesterday...

His platoon was still there.

And I'll never forget, Kelly
went over to visit that platoon,

and they showed him a lot of
pictures that they had of his son.

Most of them hadn't had a shower

or a change of clothes
in 30, 60, 90 days.

You know, most of them,
there was a certain odour,

a little bit like a farmyard.

They were all very complimentary
of their lieutenant,

and he was a great guy.

And, you know, he went out
on every patrol, every firefight.

You know, for the rest of my time
in the Marine Corps,

I tried to be half
as good as he was.

Secretary Gates said to them,
"Look, I'm the Secretary Of Defense.

"I can do a lot of things for you.

"Tell me what
you might want me to do."

He said, "I probably can't
get your wife sent out here

"for a long weekend in Kabul
or your girlfriend or something.

"But tell me what I could,
you know, maybe I can do for you."

And of course, everyone
in the room looking down.

No-one wants to make eye contact.

But when he kept pressing them, one
of them stood up and said, you know,

"Sir, don't let them forget
what we did here.

"And don't let them ever forget

"the people that we're
leaving behind."

How was that moment for you?

He was speaking for me.

That young man
was speaking for me, too.

I felt very strongly coming away
from there that we had to make sure

that those sacrifices
were not in vain.

In March of 2011, we were headed
to the end of the surge.

But how many troops to be withdrawn?

How fast were key variables?

And we're not yet decided.

But just as President Obama
was approaching his decision,

something significant happened

and changed the situation
dramatically.

Good evening.

Tonight I can report to the American
people and to the world

that the United States
has conducted an operation

that killed Osama bin Laden,
the leader of Al-Qaeda.

On nights like this one,

we can say to those families
who have lost loved ones

to Al-Qaeda's terror,
"Justice has been done."

And burn in hell, Osama bin Laden!
Hell, yeah!

There's justice in the world!
CHEERING

THEY CHEER

I remember, later that night,
walking out to get some fresh air.

And as we walked outside
of the West Wing,

we could hear the college students
from George Washington University

chanting, "USA, USA."

CHANTING: USA, USA!

I remember saying, "Oh, it sounds
like the Olympics or something."

CHANTING: USA, USA, USA, USA!

I said to my deputy,
"Well, this simplifies things.

"The president's been very clear
that we're in Afghanistan

"because of Al-Qaeda,
and now we got Al-Qaeda."

To the American people,

I think it was like, well,
"Let's come home,"

you know, like,
"We went... We got the guy."

The Vice President argued that
the 72 districts were not cleared,

held, built and transferred,

that corruption was still endemic.

The last 18 months had
essentially proven his case.

I told him that I thought pulling
everybody out would be an admission

of defeat and that...

And that he couldn't do
that to the troops, that,

that the troops would feel
like we hadn't given them

enough time to do their job.

This is a contest of wills.

The enemy is watching us.

And if we actually want to succeed,
the enemy has to realise

that we're willing to do what it
takes for as long as it takes,

and they have to compromise.

You don't necessarily end
an endless war by drawing down,

you may actually prolong it.

Because why does the enemy now...
Why would they negotiate with you?

They know you're leaving.

Starting next month,
we will bring home a total of

33,000 troops by next summer,

fully recovering the surge

I announced at West Point.

And so that's the beginning
of ending the war, is June of 2011.

But it would be ten years
before, you know, the last

American left, obviously.

They're the kind of people
that believe when they die,

they're going to wake up
with 27 virgins,

and, you know, so
how can you fight against someone

like that who doesn't give a shit?

There was a danger
that if we weren't careful,

it would just be another year,
another year, another year,

and pretty soon, you would
have done another decade.

And I thought we need to set
a deadline for British troops

in front line combat roles,
and we set that at the end of 2014.

A strategy that said
we're just going to stay here

with our own forces forever and ever
and ever was never going to work.

I don't want to let no-one near me.
I want to go home.

I was in Ministry of Interior.

The secretary told me, "There
has been a blast in your hometown."

I received a call from
my mum's number.

Someone was screaming on other side
saying, "Father has been attacked."

She was screaming and crying to me,
saying, "Dad has been attacked."

He's immediately killed.

He's not any more with us.

She was crying, she was crying.

I left Kabul around midnight.

I reached to my hometown.

The next day, we had the funeral.

There was thousands,
thousands of people.

And I didn't see my father's body
because half of his face was gone.

I wanted to keep his -
what I had a picture of a dad,

a kind and charismatic leader,

I wanted to keep that picture
alive in my memory.

It was a dark day in my life.

They killed him because they said,
"Well, after American withdrawal,

"these are the people
who will mobilise

"the community against Taliban."

And that was a moment which made me

to focus that our society
has become radicalised.

SHE RAISES HER VOICE

ROARING

SHOUTING

I said, "The world should know
what's happening to us."

The Taliban has decided to wait out
the US military withdrawal

and eliminate all major figures

who would potentially play
a critical role

in mobilising support against
them and Al-Qaeda.

While mourning my father's
death, I wish to speak up.

America's Afghan strategy is
short-sighted

and probably based on domestic,
rather than strategic consideration.

Hundreds of Afghans
who believed the US

and partnered with the Afghan,

they're being killed
on a daily basis.

Maybe for America,
it's a policy deliberation.

For Afghans, it's about our life.

I remember being in Camp Bastion,
which had grown from being

a small military base to
a base the size of Reading,

and then shrunk back again.

The Afghans were losing troops,

but it felt like if we went on
backing them, there was a viable,

not perfect, but there was
a viable situation.

We thought about, you know,
there were meetings about,

"OK, do we remove all these troops?"

And Obama pressed the question,
"Well, what will happen?"

And if you really pushed,
the answer was, "Kabul will fall."

And we're talking to Obama
about just, like,

"We're barely holding
this thing together."

Cos this whole thing could just
collapse, like, tomorrow.

So Obama decided,

"Look, I need to let the next
president decide what to do."

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

And you know, well,
the rest is history.

TRUMP: Let's get with it.

Get out of Afghanistan.

We've wasted billions
and billions of dollars.

GUNFIRE

American troops
cannot and should not

be fighting in a war
and dying in a war

that Afghan forces are not willing
to fight for themselves.

GUNFIRE