taking control of the city on the afternoon of the 15th, helicopters prepared to carry president ashraf ghani'so safety. but fearing ghani would be executed if he didn't depart with them, officials convinced the president to get on a helicopter, too. they had no idea where they were going but ended up making an unauthorized landing in uzbekistan where security agents met them with weapons drawn and asked them to leave. the next day they took a charter flight to the united arab emirates. rumors have swirled about ghani and his escape. today we will get answers in an exclusive interview. ghani spoke to me from the uae. i was in new york. president ghani, pleasure to have you on the show. >> thank you for having me. >> people around the world are wondering why you decided to leave in may 2021. just months earlier, you gave an interview in which you said, and i'm going to quote you, no power in the world could persuade me to get on a plane and leave this country. it is a country i love, and i will die defending. but you did get on a plane and leave the country. why? >> i did get on a plane because

what is the personal future for ashraf ghani?what i'm writing, i've dived deeply into the past 20 years. i'm now assessing it and distilling it in a series of articles and books. two, i learned to deal with uncertainty. and uncertainty, i'm working on a book called "the age of global uncertainty." uncertainty surrounds us. >> do you imagine you will be back in afghanistan? >> i hope so very much. it's my home. i come -- i belong to a family that has stayed in one village between 500 and 600 years. and in the last 300 years, almost every generation, we have lost everything. so exile is not foreign to us. but my heart beats with all afghans. there are 28 that have been really devastated by the taliban regime. the three majorities, women, youth, and the poor, are collapsing. hope is gone. a sense of belonging is not there. the world needs to think in terms of its own interest. do you want millions more of refugees to knock on your doors, or can you think about ways of stabilizing? those who are saying that the taliban have changed,

, we met president ashraf ghani, we met president biden.ude to the americans now? i don't know we were but you see claiming yourself to be illegitimate leader of afghanistan, but clearly, that is theoretical, certainly not practical. if you don't get support from the outside, it's hard to see how your armed resistance is ever going to threaten the taliban. you need, do not, the united states, and other allies, to provide with support? the way you are talking, there is not a hope on earth that the united states is going to offer your support. the united states is not god, it's not the only country in the world. hope is not related to what washington thinks, so therefore, our definition of hope today is different. we are not seeking western assistance. are you talking, sorry to interrupt, but we don't have much time, are you in contact with the americans today? the last time i _ with the americans today? iie: last time i contacted with the americans today? "iie: last time i contacted the americans was a couple of, a few days after the collaps

ashraf ghani slammed the united states claiming he was -- his words -- deceived and that the taliband by the plan to withdraw. why do you think that is? >> i mean, you know, i think he has some, a, ghani did leave precipitously unlike zelenskyy in ukraine. he had good reason to fear for his safety. he was deceived on a certain level, which is the taliban and the united states conducted this withdrawal agreement without any substantive input from the afghan government, which was the elected afghan government. the taliban don't believe in elections, they always wanted the afghan government to be excluded from this withdrawal agreement, which after all was going to affect the afghan government and the afghan people more than the united states and we sort of went -- the united states went along for the ride and believe i think in some delusional views about the taliban, they had reformed, they would moderate once they got into power, a year later we know none of that was true. >> and, peter, in the op-ed you point out that millions of people in afghanistan now are undergoing severe hunge

the former president of afghanistan ashraf ghani is slamming the united states in a new interview sayingquote, deceived, and the taliban emboldened by a agreement that laid the foundation for the u.s. troop withdrawal from afghanistan after nearly two decades on the ground. this withdrawal took place nearly a year ago, you'll recall, august 30th, 2021, a day where scenes like these showed desperation of some to escape after the city of kabul fell to the taliban a few weeks prior. hundreds swarmed the airport, some running on the tarmac to get on those planes out of the country. >> and since then the situation on the ground in afghanistan has deteriorated quite quickly. human rights watch is saying more than 90% of afghans have been food insecure during that time and the economy really has crumbled. so there is also startling new findings from save the children confirming the impact. afghan girls are almost twice as likely as boys to frequently go to bed hungry. nearly half of girls say they're not attending school compared to just 20% of boys. we find our cnn's clarissa ward on the groun

. >> earlier today fareed zakaria spoke with the former afghan president ashraf ghani who felled afghanistanica and what happened. let me play what ghani said. we need to deal with the present. the country is in a kier condition. i don't have the sense of engaging in a sense of betrayal. superpowers, big powers decide on the basis of their national interest and what i hope is that they have considered the implication of those. >> you mentioned though millions of a gains are star vinagre at this point and the question may be one year out is what can and should the biden administration do to help at this point? >> well, they created their own very difficult policy dilemma because essentially by enabling the taliban to seize power the taliban are in power and they are stronger today than they were before 9/11 in the sense that they control all the country pretty much. they are much better armed and they have armored vehicles and m 16 rifles. unfortunately, i think we lost the end of the audio connection with peter bergen. thank you for your time. thank you. >>> coming up for us, new details ton

. >> president ashraf ghani has fled the country. he has left.stan. that obviously leaves a pretty huge vacuum that one can only assume the taliban is going to fill. >> now look at these new images we're getting in from al jazeera, this is the images of the taliban in the presidential pal palace. >> scenes of complete chaos as people clamor to be evacuated. america's longest war was ended in humiliating collapse. >> their primary mission, to secure had a mad karzai international airport, the international gateway into and critically out of afghanistan at this point. if that were to fall into the hands of taliban, that would very much be a worst-case scenario. >> since taking control of afghanistan the taliban has issued dozens of bans and decrees limiting the freedom of women and the u.n. says afghanistan has been suffering through a grave humanitarian crisis since that time with 95% of afghans now going hungry. >>> this morning house republican lawmakers are set to release a scathing report criticizing the biden administration's withdrawal from

mass rumors and mask panic reach all the way to the presidential palace where president ashraf ghanid arab emirates, leading to a power bed, leading to the complete collapse of the government. -- the fall of saigon. american helicopters outside the u.s. embassy taking off the last remaining diplomatic staff. this, as frightening crowds of afghan civilians filled up at the airports filling onto the tarmac, desperate to be evacuated. covering the collapse of kabul from here, a year ago, one of the people they are on whom i relied that morning with matthew akins who has been covering the country for more than a decade. that is a pulitzer prize-winning journalist for the new york times magazine and wrote this week's cover story titled the taliban's dangerous collision course with the west. he's also the author of the naked don't feel the water, an underground journey with afghan refugees. good to see you. thank you for being with us. one year later, what's going through your mind? >> well it is surreal to imagine that everything that we have been working on for 20 years just fell apart a