david iraq is a former pentagon official an associate professor at the national defense university and also in kabul victoria funtown professor of he said he's at the american university of afghanistan welcome to you or welcome to inside story david or ocean washington d.c. let me start with you because this is where this decision has come from president biden rejecting the pentagon's push to remain until afghan forces are able to assert themselves against the taliban why has he done this and in your view is this a good or bad decision. well i think it's a bad decision and i think that that's shared across the board washington post which has been severely pro biden has said it's a disastrous decision so i don't think this is just the military view i think that's shared across the board why has he done it well he's done it because quite frankly americans are weary of the war and the idea is that if the afghan government would have developed the capability to stand on its own 2 feet it's had enough time to do it i see a surge in the are in afghanistan when my son was 6 months old in 2002

when i got to college but then thanks to an opportunity presented by general david petraeus, was able to start going to iraq and then quickly shift to afghanistan as a freelancer during my summers and drink some time off at college. this is both an much more immediate way to see the worst during this critical phase that iraqi and afghan surges and also wound up being much more what i was interested in doing, trying to figure out and get to the bottom of what was going on in these conflicts. >> so you have been reporting on afghanistan since 2009. when did you decide you wanted to write a book, and that it wod take the form of a longitudinal study of the specific valley, the pech, to the rotation of u.s. forces? >> sure. i had the idea of doing a longitudinal study some part of the country come out of the trip in 2010. in the summer of 2010 it was the summer of the search president obama announced at west point in december 2009 and expect that some are bouncing around the country visiting different battalions involved in really tough fighting. basically to see what were the toughest places that the surge was

iraq," not knowing about the fighting going on in afghanistan at the time. in afghanistan i started seeing firsthand, what kind of fighting was going on. davidng were you over there? wes: i was there 10.5 months. david: then you came back to the united states? what did you do then? wes: i did a white house fellowship. i came back from a mission one night and a guy said " i want you to apply for a white house fellowship. it is important for people in washington to get an idea of they gear you are having right now -- year you are having right now." i had the privilege of working under condoleezza rice and her team, which was a life shifting experience for me to go through that. david: after the white house fellowship, your mother said " now can you get a serious job that is a full-time thing?" is that what you decided to do? wes: my mom said " slow down, start preparing a family." i was newly married. i started thinking about the things i was interested in, the skill sets i had. i decided maybe i should give finance a shot. i had the pleasure of working at citi first as an analyst, then as vice president. david: but you moved to new york? yes

iraq. not knowing the fighting in afghanistan at that time. within the first days of afghanistan, i started seeing firsthand a firefight, just what was going on. davidw long were you there? wes: shy of a year. david: you came back to the united states? wes: yes. david: then what did you do? wes: first, a white house fellowship. my friend was a former white house fellow. i came back from a mission and he said i want you to apply for this. he said it is important for people in washington to get a first-hand understanding of the year you are having right now, so they can see what is going on on the ground so i applied for a white house scholarship, and i had the honor of working under condoleezza rice and her team, which was unbelievable in a life-shifting experience to go through that. david: after your white house fellowship, working for condoleezza rice, did your mother say can you get a serious, full-time job, make some money? what did you do? wes: i did. my mother was like, slow down, start preparing a family. i was married at that point, so now you are thinking about, what are the things you want to be able to do? i started to think about my inte

david campanale, bbc news. let's take a look at some of the other stories making the news... funerals have been held in iraqan 80 people killed by a fire at a hospital in baghdad treating coronavirus patients. at least 100 more were injured. reports say an accident caused an oxygen tank to explode, sparking the blaze. fighting has erupted in the somali capital, mogadishu, between different sections of the security forces. some support the opposition while others back the president, whose mandate was recently extended by two years. ireland's prime minister has sharply criticised european football's governing body for dropping dublin as one of the venues to host matches for the delayed euro 2020 tournament. micheal martin said uefa had made "the wrong call" and was "out "of order" to insist that fans had to be at the games. this year's academy awards will begin in los angeles in a couple of hours' time — a very different occasion to the usual with part of the ceremony being held the historic art deco train station in los angeles. this year's ceremony is taking place two months later than usual because of the

david. >> chris, with three major foreign-policy announcements in as many days the president is redefining america's role in the world. >> bin laden is dead and al qaeda is degraded in iraq afghanistan. and it is time to end the forever war. >> almost 20 years after september 11, president biden said he will pull u.s. troops from afghanistan, a plan critics call dangerous. >> any withdrawal of forces that is not based on conditions on the ground puts american security at risk. >> on thursday the president announced economic sanctions against several russian companies and individuals in response to attempts to interfere in the 2020 election. the president says he is in talks to me if russian president vladimir putin. meanwhile on friday he met the japanese prime minister to discuss a growing problem for both countries. china. also friday after democrats complained, the president backtracked on plans to keep the trump administration limit on refugee resettlement this fiscal year. >> he said in february that he was going to lift the refugee cat. i believe he needs to do that right now. >> the white house clarified the president will later increase the cap. meanwhile in ten

iraq. u.s. troops could be back in six months. i think this is the right step but we must help get our afghan allies out of the country. >> pulitzer prize winning reporter david rohde, david, thank you for your time and your insight tonight. again, your experience there is unique and something that i think everybody has learned from. thanks for being willing to talk with us about it tonight. >> thank you. thanks so much. >> all right. we've got much more to get to tonight on this historic day in the news. as i mentioned at the top, we are keeping an eye on brooklyn center, minnesota, fourth night of protests tonight over the police killing of 20-year-old daunte wright on sunday. this fourth night of protests is under way right now as night falls in minnesota. we've got multiple reporters on the ground describing the situation there as mostly peaceful but tense right now. we'll be checking in with them and more ahead. stay with us. you know it's silly six-foot five, three hundred pounds i ride motorcycles on the weekends. so the thought of getting a hearing aid, i was.. i was scared. with lively, did a hearing test on the computer, when they sent them in the m

iraq after we left. >> and that's exactly the point a lot of military leaders, former military leaders, like general david petraeus made yesterday. he was very vocal of the criticism of joe biden. of course, general petraeus commanded forces in afghanistan for a long time and said the endless war doesn't end just because we leave. to your point, we may have to go back and clean up what we leave behind. katty kay, obviously, 2,500, nearly 2,500 americans have lost their lives over those 20 years. about 500 offer allies from the uk as well have lost their lives. this is not a celebratory moment, just talking to veterans yesterday and people who served there, they're thinking about the friends who they lost there. they're thinking about the long-term damage to their own lives. and they worry, frankly, about what joe was just talking about. leaving, yes, they want to go home, but they worry that they may have to go back. >> the irony of the u.s. forces in afghanistan compared to iraq is that the u.s. forces are actually welcomed by the afghan people. they recognize that they depend on them to preserve some so