captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: gd evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight... >> this is the right decision, the wise decision, and the best decisi for america. >> woodruff: out of afghanistan: president biden defends the u.s. exit, as the taliban celebrate their return to power. then, assessing the damage-- recovery efforts begin in e wake of hurricane ida as more than a million remain without power. plus, disappearing act-- how naturally dissolving pacemakers present a potential breakthrough in the treatment of heart surgery patients. >> all of the materials that we're using for these pacemakers are recommended part of the daily diet.

>> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> a raymond james financial advisor tailors advice to help you live your life. life, well-planned. >> our u.s.-based customer service team is on hand to help. to learn more, go to consumercellular.tv

>> the john s. and james l. knight foundation. fostering informed and engaged communities. more at kf.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: it is a moment of reckoning and remembrance.

president biden addressed the nation today to mark the end of america's longest war. he forcefully defended the decision to withdraw, acknowledged a messy exit was inevitable and praised the sacrifice of service members and their families for decades. white house correspondent yamiche alcindor begins our coverage. >> alcindor: at the white house today, president biden marked bringing america's longest war to an end. >> the war in afghanistan is now over. i'm the fourth president who has faced the issue where and when to end this war. when i was running for president, i made a commitnt to the american people that i would end this war. today, i've honored that commitment. >> aindor: after facing weeks of fierce criticism, the president forcefully defended his decision to withdraw u.s. troops from afghanistan after 20 years of fighting. >> there is no evacuation from

the end of a war that you can run without the kinds of complexities, challenges, threats we face. none. i give you my word, with all of my heart: i believe this is the right decision, a wise decisn, and the best decision for america. >> alcindor: the president also spoke about the sacrifices made by american service members. and he paid tribute to those killed over the last two decades including the 13 service members who died last week. >> most of all, after 800,000 americans serving afghanistan traveled that whole country, brave and honorable service, after 20,744 american service men and women injured and the loss of 2,461 american personnel including 13 lives lost just

this week, i refuse to open another decade of warfare in afghanistan. >> alcindor: mr. biden also addressed the broader global threat from terrorism: in places like syria, somalia, and yemen, from groups like isis, and al qaida. both terrorist groups remain active in afghanistan still, with deadly capabilities. he argued the u.s. had other ways to fight the groups and did not need troops on the ground. >> we will maintain the fight against terrorism in afghanistan and other countries. we just don't need to fight a ground war to do it. we have what's called "over the horizon" capabilities. to isis-k, we are not done with you yet. as commander-in-chief i firmly believe the best path to guard our safety and our security lies in a tough, unforgiving, targeted, precise strategy that goes after terror where it is today, not where it was two

decades ago. >> alcindor: this afternoon, chairm of the joint chiefs of staff general mark milley also spoke for the first time since the u.s. departure. >> today is an incredibly emotional day. for any soldier, sailor, airman, marine and their family: your service mattered and was not in vain. >> alcindor: overnight, the pentagon released this image showing the last american soldier to leave afghanistan. maj. gen. chris donahue boarded the final c-17 plane at the kabul airport just before midnight. the u.s. aircraft dropped flares as it rose into the night, gone for good. soon after take-off, celebratory gunfire filled the air as taliban fighters took the airport. in the daylight, taliban convoys rolled across the tarmac. their fighters walked where american troops had stood just hours earlier.

taliban spokesman zabihullah mujahid toured the site and spoke to fighters. he declared victory over the u.s. >> ( translated ): the u.s. aggression was a reckless act from the beginning. now they are defeated, and the afghan people won the battlefield and liberated their country. >> alcindor: susannah george is the afghanistan bureau chief f“" the washington post”. she is one of the last foreign journalists left in kabul. >> there weren't as many people out on the street, there weren't as many cars out on the roads. shops were open, taliban fighters were around, they were celebrating, handing out flags, calling today an independence day of sorts. but the city as a whole felt very quiet. >> alcindor: but across afghanistan, residents are anxious. the country is severely impoverished and heavily reliant on international aid. in the coming weeks, extreme food and cash shortages are expected to worsen. >> ( translated ): there are no jobs, that is why the people are

worried. the taliban should try to create jobs and allow for more education. >> alcindor: susannah george o“" the washington post”. >> people who are staying at home, who are too scared to go out on the streets, are most concerned about retaliation from the taliban. departs, once there are no american troops here, they fear that the u.s. will look away from the country and that the taliban will return to the harsh tactics that really defined their rule in the 1990's in kabul. >> alcindor: despite two decades of war and hostility, the taliban spokesman said the group wants to establish diplomatic relations with the u.s. without a military presence, and with the u.s. embassy in kabul closed, the u.s. will depend on diplomacy to evacuate the remaining americans and afghan allies who want to leave. but with the taliban in control of the airport, it's not yet clear how people will get out. back in washington at the capitol, republicans continued criticizing the president for what they say was a mismanaged

pullout. >> i believe right now we should get every american home. i believe there should be accountability for what i see is probably the biggest failure of american government on a military stage in my lifetime. and we can never make this mistake again. >> alcindor: some of the last afghans able to leave on a u.s. military flight landed today in rota, spain. they will be housed at the military base there before permanently relocating to the u.s. meanwhile, thousands of afghans who didn't make it out in time hope they can one day do the same. for the pbs newshour, i'm yamiche alcindor. >> woodruff: we will talk with the author of a new book that reveals the twists, turns and mistakes in the u.s. mission in afghanistan, later in the program. >> woodruff: residents along the

u.s. gulf coast are struggling with the huge impact of hurricane ida tonight. temperatures felt like they reached 100 degrees today. power is out for more than a million people in new orleans and the surrounding areas. there's no air conditioning, and no real sense of when it will be restored. at least five people are dead. officials warned those who evacuated to stay away for now. roby chavez, our newshour communities reporter based in new orleans, begins our coverage. >> reporter: on tuesday, the huge task of surveying the damage inflicted by hurricane ida continued. rescue operations picked up after initially being hampered by widespread flooding, downed power lines and scattered debris. all caused by the fifth most powerful storm to hit the united states. hundreds of residents trapped by floodwaters have been brought to safety by rescue teams in some of the hardest hit areas, including in the town of laplace, just outside of new orleans.

>> we woke up and the water would just kept rising and rising. >> reporter: olivia and joyce alexis were evacuated today by louisiana national guard. they initially thought they were safe but were caught off guard as waters overflowed from nearby rivers and lakes. >> to actually go through it, it was traumatic, go through it again, because it made me very anxious. oh, because you relive all these previous experiences that you've had and but. i hope this will be a better thing. >> i lost everything i had. >> reporter: in nearby houma, louisiana, residents like 70 year-old theophilus charles were still struggling to grasp the devastation. >> reporter: charles has lived in houma his entire life. he says he had nowhere to go a hurricane ida blasted ashore on sunday. >> i was born here, we went through all the major hurricanes here.

so i figure i'll stay here and ride this one out but i couldn't. >> reporter: the entire city of new orleans and hundreds of thousands of other residents remain without power during sweltering summer heat. long lines have been building for fuel as well. with no power and no water, louisiana's governor john bel edwards spoke to reporters this morning from laplace and urged people not to return to their homes. >> now is really the most dangerous time over the next couple of weeks. we are asking people to be patient, to be careful. >> reporter: dangerous moments like this are only expected to increase. scientists say hurricanes like ida are likely to become more devastating. that's due in part to climate change, which is adding warmer waters a natural fuel for hurricanes. in new orleans, many breathed a sigh of relief in the immediate aftermath of ida that a levee system overhauled after

hurricane katrina held. the federal government spent billions of dollars to fortify the city's defenses, including installing these refurbished pumps to keep the water out. >> reporter: colleen and al ryan stayed in their home in the new orleans lakeview neighborhood, which saw flooding and lost power. still they're relieved it wasn't worse. >> it seems like it worked pretty good this time. and, you know, the power is the power. like i said before, you learn to live with it and or you move somewhere else. >> we were just hopeful. and as it turned out, you know, it really, i think. people are pleased that it wasn't another katrina. >> reporter: but now, with power outages expected to last wks, they and many of their neighbors are leaving town. back in laplace where there's little protection, residents like lakeisha hammett are still trying to make sense of what's happened.

>> it felt like a movie. i thought it was going to be over in 30 minutes. we survived, but it's not something i want to go through again. >> clearly the area is battered and crippled. governor john bel edwards said today it will be a long road to recovery. he is urging patience. some of the work on the power lines nw happening, they literally will have to repair thousands of power lines. judy? >> woodruff: give us a sense -- we know what a hot day this is, what the weather is like there. what are people saying to you? >> reporter: look, judy, today the temperature was in the upper 90s, it felt like well over 100. folks did not have water. they did not have cell phone service. they're still trying to reach out to their relatives. we saw so many people being evacuated by boat, bringing everything they owned in their hands. many of them got in the national guard vehicle. they didn't know where they were going or what

they were going to do next. >> woodruff: and, roby, we know this is happening as louisiana is one the worst states in the country affected by covid, the pandemic. how is the hurricane affecting the state's ability to deal with that? >> reporter: well, many of the hospitals are still full. they've been operating on generator power, but they don't believe that can go on forever. and so they've started to evacuate some of those patients to other areas. nursing homes also having the same problem. some being evacuated as far as weigh any texas. >> woodruff: and, roby, we know this is going to take a long time to fix, to repair the damage across the state. people are saying weeks, even a month, or longer. what does it look like? >> reporter: yeah, it is a big problem, judy, because they have so many people that evacuated from the area. and because there is not enough infrastructure, they're going to have to stay away. some people we spoke with

were moving to other areas so they could enoll their kids in school because at this point it is still a big unknown. >> woodruff: roby chavez reporting for us from baton rouge. roby, thank you very much. >> reporter: thankou, judy. >> woodruff: and now >> woodruff: now, let's hear from state and local leaders on the ground in louisiana. john yang starts wh a look at the efforts, and the struggles, to get help to residents. >> we're still -- we still haven't been able to get to grand isle. the media has showed me some of the first footage that i've seen. i'm getting reports there were people on bulding trying to get help. we don't have access there. we don't have communication there. this is what we're dealing against. we have incredible first responder teams that can do search-and-rescue, but when you don't have communication, or you're blocked by water or trees in the road or electric lines down, it becomes very, very difficult. we're still in the very first stages of this.

it looked like the water had subsided on grand isle. other areas of the parish are still under water, a tremendous amount of water. they're still bringing boats in that neighborhood today. and so our issues are really -- it is supposed to be a hot day today. up here we don't have electricity. we don't have many of the modern-day amenities. our water and sewer is very fragile. it becomes very, very difficult. >> i read there was some talk of moving people out, people who didn't have -- because they don't have water and power -- of busing people out of the parish or busing out of their homes to a safer place. what's the situation with that? >> reporter: well, what is going on is many people are already leaving because the conditions are deteriorating, and stores aren't open. there is no gas. so until our community can get resources, it is hard living here, especially if you're elderly. especially if you are

medically vulnerable. so i just got back from a shelter that we have. so until we can start putting the pieces back together, everybody is tired already, and we're not coming into this with -you know, if you can't take care of yourself, we need to get you food and air conditioning and water and medical help, and it is better that we use the state resources and get you away from home in another part of the state until we can kind of regroup. my message for today and tomorrow is: until we start getting more help here, i can't take care of you because i don't have the resources here. the government can take care of you, but it has to be a little bit away from now, when some of the resources start getting there. >> you say you just came from a shelter. can you tell us how things were going there? >> this was all about our local government and our state working together. they're at the shelter right now. it is 4:00, and the buses from the state will pick them up, and they'll go to alexandra, where they'll have air conditioning,

food, and water, and more critically, in more critically, they'll have in a centralized location. they'll have the medical needs that they will need. and that's difficult for me to provide to because our hospital systems were already filled with covid their on generator. we have water issues. so those basic amenities right now, we just cannot if you're a vulnerable person, we just cannot provide those basic amenities in our community right now. >> yang: you talk about humanitarian groups for viewers out here who want to help, what's your message to them? what would you ask them to do? >> well, we need a lot of help. i mean, you know, i don't know if they've set up a number for donations. we have a lot of aid. i was heartbroken at a shelter this morning. i met a man. he said he was in barataria. the water started coming up even by himself. he spent the night in the attic. he was dehydrated. he had to goo the hospital overnight. he was at the shelter. and you could just see all he said is, i don't want to go to alexandria. i want to rebuild my house. people want to put their lives back together. and physically, that means cleaning up your house.

but that is the human element that we want to do is the tragedy has happened and you want to do something and that means put your life. back together, start cleaning up and start, and that makes you feel better and that's the difficulty here, is that people want to do something to regroup anrebuild, and we're not in that place yet. i mean, his house is still filled with water. and so it was a hard conversation for me to havwith him. it really was. and he will rebuild. i could see the determination in hiface. but he has been through just a harrowing 48 hours. you could see you could see the worry and the exhaustion. but i was i was glad he made it through and i was glad he survived. >> that was the president of parish, cynthis lee sheng. recovering could be an expensive undertaking recovering from hurricane ida. bill cassidy joins us from

baton rouge. i understand you did a flyover of some of the hard-hit areas of the state. what did you say that may not necessarily translator? >> we flew over a place called la plaz, if yu go towards baton roe, for those who have done it, it is the first area after you go past lake pontchartain. it was just complete flooding of the whole community. gas stations are -- you don't see the ground, you just see water. we continued over to homa, lots of wind damage. the less expensive the housing, the more damage. so trailer parks, they were just scattered over the neighborhoods. and nicer neighborhoods as well. they either had water up to their doorsteps or were completed flooded, as well as some wind damage to some structures that were used in port puchan, which go to the riggs and the

outer shelves. even going to the new orleans, there weren't any lights. and north of lake pontchartain, to the florida parishes, there was flooding that was all through those parishes. not every place, but certainly around lake pontchartain, and other areas closer to the rivers that were still rising at that time. >> no power in some areas and no running water in some areas. when are you being told they'll be back up? >> entity is not committed to a date of getting them back up. and there is the issues of hospitals. can a generator continue to work for all of the things a hospital noticias needt for. and the new orleans airport is shut down. the person who is at home or on home oxygen -- i'm a physician -- immediately comes to minds. she does not have the electricity. she may have a generator,

but the gas station doesn't have the gas to fill up her generator to run her o-2 tank. >> you say you're a physician. louisiana having a bit of a surge of covid-19, hospitals stressed, and as a physician, what worries worris you about these events? hospitals under stress, people being put in shelters. what worries? >> repor >> the shelters will have people separated from one another. they'll be asked to wear masks and they'll be well-ventilated. not required, but people can get vaccinated. i think we learned from the events of last year, during covid, to constru an environment to keep people safe. that being said, if someone is vaccinated the risk of gointo a hospital and i.c.u. is far lower. >> earlier today you

tweeted out a message that you thought congress should get back and pass a disaster supplemental bill? how much are you talking about? >> i'm talking about the one from last year. and we still have not passed that. so frustrating, and we've been working on it for a year, and it is not done yet. there will be an assessment that will take weeks, or months, to get what we need to rebuild. but what i don't want to happen is a supplemental for this area, to kind of linger, as it has for southwest louisiana. we want the folks in southwest louisiana to know they're not being forgotten. we're still fighting for them; still trying to raise their case. >> also when you get back to washington, one of the items of business will be rreconciling whatever the house does and infrastructure. there is a lot in that

bill about flood mitigation that could help in instances like this. do you think what happens here is going to help build support for that? >> i sure hope so. my gosh, everybody sighed a sign of relief that the levees held. they held because george w. bush made an invesent for the levees. if we invest now, not just in louisiana, but around our nation, food mitigation, hardening the grid -- there are billions to harden the grid, so they don't topple, leaving our parishes without electricity, $55 billion for sewer and water, $55 billion to make sure everybody has accesto broadband internet. john, you may think what does that have to do it? governors and local offices send out messages over social media. and that is part of our armor to reduce risk and

to reduce death. just like george w. made that investment 16years ago, we need to make it now for hurricanes, tornadoes, fire, and ice storms for 10 years from now. >> senator bill cassidy, thank you very much. we're thinking of all of you down there in louisiana right now. thierk>> thank you very much, john. >> woodruff: in the day's other news, nearly 4,000 firefighters in northern california are racing to defend the lake tahoe resort area from the massive "caldor" fire. the raging inferno is just 16% contained, and has destroyed nearly 700 structures. traffic out of the area was heavy, as thousands of residents and tourists evacuated. >> i have a home right in the danger area and i'm getting out as soon as i secure this area, which is my business and i've had, i don't know, forty years now. >> it's more out of control than i thought. and i can't believe that california is going to just let

the jewel just burn up. i don't see any plans and i don't see any helicopters. >> woodruff: nevada has also warned its residents near the california state line to prepare for possible evacuations. on the pandemic, pennsylvania governor tom wolf has issued a mask mandate for all public and private schools and child care facilities due to a surge in covid-19 hospitalizations. meanwhile in colorado, all health care workers in assisted living facilities, nursing homes and hospitals must now be vaccinated by the end of october. that comes as the white house covd response coordinator said the nation's vaccination rate is improving. >> today we are averaging 900,000. that's an 80% increase in the number of shots we are getting into arms each and every day. importantly, we've accelerated the pace of first shots. in august we got over 14 million.

that's almost four million more first shots in august compared to the prior month july. >> woodruff: the european union is also celebrating its progress. the e.u. announced that it's met its goal of fully vaccinating 70% of adults in the 27-nation bloc by the end of the summer. in texas, a sweeping g.o.p. bill to rewrite the state's election laws is now headed to the governor's desk. both the state house and senate gave it final approval today. the bill will restrict voting hours and empower partisan poll watchers, among other things. governor greg abbott has said he'll sign it into law. virginia governor ralph northam granted posthumous pardons today to seven black men executed in 1951 for the rape of a white woman. he said that back then, the state's death penalty for rape was almost exclusively applied to black people. the so-called "martinsville seven" were convicted by all

white juries. northam abolished virginia's death penalty in march. jury selection got underway today in the fraud trial for theranos founder elizabeth holmes. her now-defunct silicon valley start-up company is accused of deceiving investors and patients by falsely claiming its technology could run an array of medical tests using just a few drops of blood. she arrived at a federal court in san jose, california, where around 170 prospective jurors will be interviewed. the 37-year-old has pleaded not guilty. more top personnel changes at the popular tv game show "jeopardy!" amid a backlash over past crude comments that executive producer mike richards made about women, jewish people, and others. sony pictures television announced richards' ouster today, and said he'll also no longer be the executive producer of "wheel of fortune." all this comes more than a week

after richards was dropped as the newly-named on-air host of "jeopardy!", after being named to succeed the late alex trebek. home prices surged at a record annual pace in june, as home buyers competed for a limited number of houses. that's according to a leading home price survey out today. prices spiked more than 19% compared to a year earlier. phoenix, san diego, and seattle recorded the biggest jumps. and, stocks gave up some ground on wall street today. the dow jones industrial average lost 39 points to close at 35,361. the nasdaq fell nearly seven points, and the s&p 500 slipped six. still to come on the newshour: the head of the world food program on the dire hunger situation in afghanistan. a new book on the secret history of the war in afghanistan. plus, how new pacemaker technology presents a potential breakthrough for heart surgery patients.

>> woodruff: as america leaves afghanistan, there remains a growing humanitarian disaster. feeding millions of people is a top priority of the united nations world food program. its director is david beasley, who negotiated with taliban leaders in qatar last week over the continuation of aid. and earlier today, our amna nawaz spoke with him from his home in south carolina. >> nawaz: david beasley, welcome back to the newshour. thank you again for making the time. i have to ask you, today is the very first day of taliban rule across afghanistan. you met with the taliban last week in doha. what did you agree to with respect to world food program's continuing work in the country?

>> you know, there's been an interesting time because the taliban have been assuring us that they want us to continue. i met with them and said, let's be very clear. we need our independence, impartiality, neutrality. and they've assured us of that. and so in the areas that they have gained control over the last few weeks, they have, in fact, assured us, protected our warehouses, made certain that we can operate independently. they've done that far. they've ordered their work. we've had very frank discussions about the needs. please don't get in the way of our helping the innocent victims of conflict, the people that are in need. and quite frankly, so far, shockingly, to many people, they have done that. and we are working through many issues as we speak, like our national women that work with school meals program for little girls, they are assuring us that we will be able to continue to do that. and so far they haven't. but they are actually putting their people in the place now and particularly in the

provinces. this is kabul. this is a small part of the issue is the rest of the country where we have our massive operations. and of course, this fall, we're very concerned because we're running out of money in the winter. months are coming and we've got to preposition food. but that's another discussion. >> nawaz: well, let me ask you about what they've been saying to you so far, what you've been seeing so far in the early days and what's ahead, because this is theig question. there is a very big gap between the messaging we're hearing from the leadership now and their actual record, horrific abuses against minorities, not allowing girls into public spaces, oppression of women. if those practices pick up, what can you do? can you withhold aid? can you not work with them now? >> exactly right. the more they cooperate, the better it is for everybody. so far we've received the cooperation, but again, we're just now getting out into the weeds, so to speak, throughout the country operations. so far, so good. we've had a couple hiccups, but

that's normal and they've corrected them quickly. for example, they're not catching our trucks. they're allowing us the access, we're now moving people back out into the field. operations are starting again. so as i've told them, i said, i will speak the truth. if you become a problem, i will tell the world so. so please cooperate with us. we are here to help the innocent people of afghanistan. and so-- and we're working through a lot of issues right now and actually in a couple of places, we've had the taliban say give them a little bit of time to get their act together, which is actually not surprising because they're putting their teams into place. they've got a new government there, the designing putting tother. but i hope that we could get all that resolved so that we can get about our business to reach the people in need so they don't become vulnerable to isis and al qaeda and life and death situations. >> nawaz: so this is a new

government that's come in. they have inherited a budget that was essentially 75% dependent on international aid. right. and billions of dollars from the u.s., from the i.m.f., from others have been frozen. based on your impression of the taliban so far, based on the promises you've been made and what you've seen, do you think that those leaders, as you have, should trust the taliban, that they're building an inclusive, different government to the one they had before and release those funds? >> but, you know, this is this is the dilemma. the paradox is that what's your alternative? if you're not careful, you could have stopped a lot, lot rse. the reality going forward, you've got moderate taliban, yet hard liners, and if we're not careful, then if we allow the extremists to take over, that everybody loses so we don't have a choice. i mean, we just can't walk awa and say we don't care. people can't go without food for a month. they just can't do that.

so we've got to work with whomever is in charge. and while we're doing that, we want to do everything we can to help stabilize and build a path forward, some of the areas that we are to get very positive operations moving forward in taliban controlled areas, but there are some other areas that are more hardliners. so we're sitting down explaining what we're doing, why we're doing it, how we will do it. we want to reach women and men to reach girls and boys and so far so good. but let's see, we don't have a choice. we've got 14 million people right now marching towards starvation and we can't turn our back on them. and if we do that, we've created an incredible opportunity for extremist groups to exploit, to recruit. and we've seen what happened in we've seen it happen in other places around the world. when we've turned out back on innocent people, they've become obviously victims to using food as a weapon recoupable war.

we don't want that. >> nawaz: but if they do continue to restrict women's movement, as we've seen, if they do go back to their ways of oppressing minorities, committing horrific abuses against them, you're saying you'll continue to deliver aid because you have no choice. so why would they act differently then? >> well, i think what we're being told so far with our women working with the w.f.p. is we evaluate all of these different dynamics. it's so far so good. i can't imagine there will be some difficult areas. we've got to work through those. and we want to obviously food to be used in a humanitarian way where there's going to be complications. obviously, we going to deal with it because we're not we'll go in first and foremost with the women and men, girls and boys that i just can't imagine that being tampered with. that would be a red line for sure. >> nawaz: you and your team are doing such necessary work under incredibly difficult circumstances. david beasley, executive

director of the world food program, we wish you luck ahead. thank you so much for making the time. >> well, thank you very, very much. we will get it done. >> woodruff: despite american presidents and military leaders providing years of positive assessments that the u.s. was winning the war in afghanistan, behind the scenes, there were clear warnings of an unsuccessful ending. those harbingers-- stories of failure, corruption and lack of a clear strategy-- are the focus of craig whitlock's new book "the afghanistan papers: a secret history of the war." and craig joins us now. thank you so much for being here. congratulations. this is a definitive book. craig whitlock, you

interviewed over a thousand people, and you had access to documents at your newspaper, the "washington post" had to sue to get. and they tell a very different story in many cases from what the public has been told over the last 20 ears, don't they? >> yeah. these documents were interviews with the -- the core of them with more than 400 officials who played a key role in the war. from white house officials to generals, diplomats, aide workers, and also afghans. they thought they were confidential interviews that the government had conducted, and they thought -- their assessments were brutal. they said that the u.s. government didn't know what it was doing in afghanistan. it doesn't have a strategy, and it misled the american people of how the war was going for 20 years. so it was a complete opposite of the message that was delivered in public year after year, that the u.s. was making progress, and that victory was around the corner. >> woodruff: this goes back to the very beginning.

president bush -- the u.s. goes into afghanistan initially to get osama bin laden after the 9/11 attacks, but it very quickly changes to nation-building. and you have a lot of behind the scenes information from then on about what was going on and how what was bog being assessed was different from what people were being told. >> one of the early examples of this is president bush gave a speech, and at that time the taliban had been defeated and al-qaeda was on the run. bush was addressing that afghanistan could turn into a quagmire like vietnam, or what happened to the soviets in afghanistan, or the british in the 19th century. he was dismissing these concerns, saying don't worry, we won't get bogged down. and don rumsfeld dictated a memo to several of his top aides at the pentagon, and he expressed this fear

we do get bogged down. and he said if we don't come up with a plan to stabilize afghanistan, we'll never get the troops out. he ended it with one word, and it said "help." >> woodruff: and that was the late donald rumsfeld. you write during the obama administration and then into trump, and, of course, this new administration. >> that's right. this happened with all of the presidents. people may recall back in 2014, president obama said that the war was coming to a conclusion. there was actually a ceremony in kabul, at nato headquarters, and the u.s. official said that the combat mission for u.s. troops was over. and yet behind the scenes, the pentagon and obama all knew that u.s. troops were still going to be in harm's way and people were dying in combat during the duration of the war. more than 100 people died in afghanistan, u.s. troops, after obama said that mission was coming to an end. >> woodruff: you cite one military leader after

another, i'm thinking of general patreus, very critical of biden, saying he sould have none tht the afghan military was fighting off al-qaeda and isis. but he said things were going well, when they weren't? >> we heard this month after month, year after year, under bush, obama and trump, that the afghan military could defend their own country. and yet in the interviews, u.s. military trainers and other officials were sending up highly critical reports of the afghan forces, saying they couldn't shoot straight, they were illiterate, and their leaders were corrupt. and they expressed doubt they could stand up to a fight against the taliban.

and so the white house has known that, but they kept telling everybody things was going according to plan. >> woodruff: you've got a chapter on corruption, and other chapter on the opium trade, the poppies that so many of the farmers were growing, and, again, on the afghan military, how hard it was with change in leadership, after change, and how hard it was to get the results that americans were looking for? >> that's right. i think most americans knew the war wasn't going well, but they always assumed there was a plan, that there was a strategy that was in place that was maybe just tough to carry out. in the interviews in th afghan papers, generals and ambassadors and other people were very blunt. they said, we didn't know what we were doing in afghan. they would say we never understood the country. in the early years there was no strategy. so it really was worse than people thought. >> woodruff: and what about the role of pakistan next door? it is hard for many americans to understand what that has been really

all about, the connection between pakistan and the taliban. >> and this is something that the u.s. government has never really figured out what to do. it took the bush administration several years to come to the realization that the government of pakistan on one hand was fighting al-qaeda, but it was lending summer secretly to the taliban. it took them a while to learn that pakistan was playing a double game. during the obama administration, i think they recognized that, but they were depending on papakistan for supply routes. so they couldn't get that tough. the same under trump, there was all this talk of getting them to clamp down on the taliban, but we never had an affective strategy to do that. > woodruff: when we hear president biden saying, among other things, that he really had no choice, that president trump had negotiated this withdrawal date and he really couldn't change it. and the alternative was to escalate.

is that the whole story here? >> i don't think it was the whole story. certainly president biden was not obligated to accept trump's deal with the taliban. he could have tried to modify it or take a different approach. i think he is right in one respect: that this was not a winnable war. the taliban had held off attacking u.s. troops since trump cut his deal with them in 2020. if we were going to have a military victory over the taliban, which is highly dubious, we would have had to commit more troops and double down on the fighting, and that is something biden didn't want to do. >> woodruff: can you come away with all of this research and reporting you've done, craig whitlock, for lessons for future american leaders when we are tempted to go into another country to fix a problem, to fight an enemy? >> well, and that's right. and the parallels to vietnam are very strong. but the irony here is we don't learn these lessons from history. at the beginning of the war, bush and rumsfeld and

others said we learned our lessons from vietnam, we're not going to do that again. so they knew about it, but it still happened. sometimes we turn a blind eye to history and we forget. and we had a lot of hubris in afghanistan, that we thought we could do something that clearly in retrospect failed. >> woodruff: were there particular truth-tellers who stood out to you in all of your research? >> i think in these interviews which the government tried to keep a secret from the american people, there were truth-tellers. peopledmitted the strategy was a failure -- >> woodruff: after the fact? >> not too many. i wish there were more people who spoke up. that was one in particular, general david mckernan, he was the one general who said in public that the war wasn't going well, that things were going south. he was fired in the obama administration. and there was really no concrete reason given, but he was the first war

commander relieved since douglas mcarthur in korea. in the documents we obtained, there were military officials that said mckernan knew he was getting into trouble for telling the truth that things weren't going well, and that was the reason. >> woodruff: and, finally, based on what you've learned about the taliban, what is your expectation of what is going to happen now in afghanistan? >> this is really fascinating. we fought this war on the assumption that the taliban was the enemy. right now the taliban has gotten everything they wanted to kick out the foreign forces, but they crazed diplomatic recognition from the united states. they want humanitarian aid and other assistance to flow in. i think the biden administration is going to be slow to give diplomatic recognition to the taliban, but they have already started to do business with them militarily. and you may recall the c.i.a. director, bill burnes, made a visit to meet with the taliban leadership. so i think on

counterterrorism operations against groups like the islamic state, i think the taliban and the u.s. may work together fairly closely. they may just keep it hidden from the public. >> woodruff: which is what so much of the book is about. a remarkable book. "the afghanistan papers: a cret secret history of the war." craig whitlock, thank you very much. >> t thank you, judy. >> woodruff: each year, millions of americans spend weeks recovering from heart surgery and other operations to repair brain and bone injuries. as special correspondent fred de sam lazaro reports from chicago, researchers are working on a novel approach to aid in that recovery. the story is part of our breakthrough series. >> repter: this is, uh, one of the devices, is this the latest design? >> yeah. >> reporter: john rogers has no

medical training, but his engineering laboratory at northwestern university is a pioneer in the emerging field he calls electronic medicine. >> very small, wireless and soft device. >> reporter: as hardware goes, it doesn't get any softer. it's a temporary, or transient, pacemaker that will be laminated, like a piece of scotch tape onto the heart after a patient has had surgery, and its controlled wirelessly from a small module attached to the chest. it would replace a far more invasive approach used today-- and is made from elements the human body actually needs. >> all of the materials that we're using for these pacemakers are recommended part of the daily diet. silicon. molybdenum, magnesium. >> reporter: and, like many nutrients, when the device's job is done over a few weeks it will disintegrate and be absorbed or

excreted, illustrated in this time lapse video filmed by rogers' lab. >> if this device really is successful in what it's accomplishing, then i think it could be a game changer for the >> reporter: cardiac surgeon christopher mehta estimates that he does about 200 procedures a year that require temporary pacemakers. today's devices tether the patient through copper wires to an external box; wires that must be pulled out once the heart has regained its normal function. >> this wire here has an electrode right there, that sits on the surface of the heart. and we just put a little suture to keep it there in place. we have the ability to artificially pace the heart. >> reporter: with wires protruding through the patient's skin, he says, there are inherent risks. >> a risk of infection, because you have something inside the body that is now exposed to the outside environment through this wire, and on rare occasion, when we pull the pacing wire, it can cause bleeding on the surface of the heart. and so sometimes we have to

actually bring the patient back to the operating room in order to correct that. >> reporter: the new wireless pacemaker is controlled with the same technology used for touchless credit card payments, for example. >> reporter: the idea for so- called transient medical devices like the temporary pacemaker traces back not to a clinic or an engineer's lab, but to a military incident involving the u.s. and iran about a decade ago. in 2011, not long after iran downed an american military drone over its territory, rogers says, he got a call from the pentagon. >> the vision was that if an adversary captured a piece of sensitive electronics, it'd be very powerful, very useful to be able to trigger the dissolution or disappearance or disintegration of that piece of electronics as a way to enhance >> reporter: rogers gained the attention, and then defense department funding, for research he'd begun into building electronic devices that can self-destruct. and that research took a huge

leap forward in medical application when a grad student in rogers's lab made a pivotal discovery: that silicon-the foundation material in all modern electronics-actually dissolves in water. >> that was very surprising to us. nobody thought that was the case. silicon is kind of a miracle material in a lot of ways, because it's providing the semiconductor functionality in our bio resorbable devices, but it's needed for natural body processes as well. so it's almost like there's a vitamin tablet element to our dissolvable electronic devices. >> reporter: rogers' team began collaborating with medical scientists-looking to implant transient devices that can track the recovery from brain injuries, for example, or stimulate nerve regeneration. for the pacemaker, researchers at george washington university have been testing the device on animals and even a few human hearts, from patients who were brain dead and had earlier consented to be donors.

>> we were able to capture the heart rhythm for the human heart on the human scale. >> reporter: it's expected to be at least two years before the new technology gets a green light for live human trials. despite the promise,ogers says plenty is still unknown, like what exactly happens to the materials once the pacemaker breaks up. >> and those fragments are free floating, where are they going? what kind of risk is associated with that? the f.d.a. has never looked at a technology like th before, it's totally new. >> reporter: the promise is both therapeutic and economic. the new pacemaker could reduce expensive hospital stays, for example. d it would be especially welcome in low-resource settings. dr. chip bolman heads the volunteer surgical charity team heart that, before the pandemic, traveled to rwanda to perform life-saving procedures. >> i can remember a few cases where we weren't able to get the wires out without risking injury to the heart.

and so you leave in a foreign so i think in a setting like that, where even a regular operation is much more diffult. the opportunity to avoid emergencies if this can be made, cost effective in that setting it would be a very beneficial. i think it will be another step in the in the long trajectory of technology and, you know, improving medicine. >> reporter: and vastly reimagining the meaning of wearable technology. for the pbs newshour, i'm fred de sam lazaro in reporting from chicago. >> woodruff: fred's reporting is a partnership with the under-told stories project at the university of st. thomas in minnesota. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you, please stay safe, and we'll see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

>> a raymond james financial advisor tailors advice to help you live your life. life, well-planned. >> the kendeda fund. coitted to advancing restorative justice and meaningful work through instments in transformative leaders and ideas. more at kendedafund.org. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions

>> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

♪ hello, everyone. and welcome to "amanpour and company." here's what's coming up. tropical storm ida trs across america's southern states. we're on the ground in louisiana and i speak to the mayor of jackson, mississippi. then the chaotic evacuation of afghanistan nears its hand. what happens to the refugees? helping afghans. plus -- ♪ striking a defiant note. my conversation with the founder and a student of the