JUDY WOODRUFF: Good evening.

I'm Judy Woodruff.

On the "NewsHour" tonight: JOE BIDEN, President of the United States: This is the right decision, a wise decision, and the best decision for America.

JUDY 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 the 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.

JOHN ROGERS, Northwestern University: All of the materials that we're using for these pacemakers are a recommended part of the daily diet.

JUDY WOODRUFF: All that and more on tonight's "PBS NewsHour."

(BREAK) JUDY WOODRUFF: Today brought a moment to take stock of two decades in Afghanistan.

President Biden addressed the nation to mark the end of America's longest war.

He again forcefully defended the decision to withdraw, claimed a messy exit was inevitable, and praised the sacrifice of service members and their families.

White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor begins our coverage.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: At the White House today, President Biden marked bring America's longest war to an end.

JOE BIDEN, President of the United States: The war in Afghanistan is now over.

I'm the fourth president who has faced the issue of whether and when to end this war.

When I was running for president, I made a commitment to the American people that I would end this war.

Today, I have honored that commitment.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: After facing fierce criticism, the president forcefully defended his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan after 20 years of fighting.

JOE BIDEN: There is no evacuation from the end of a war that you can run without the kinds of complexities, challenges, and threats we faced, none.

I give you my word, with all of my heart, I believe this is the right decision, the wise decision, and the best decision for America.

YAMICHE 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.

JOE BIDEN: Most of all, after 800,000 Americans serving in Afghanistan have 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.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: President Biden also addressed the broader global threat from terrorism in places like Syria, Somalia, and Yemen, and 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.

JOE BIDEN: 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.

And 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.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: This afternoon, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley also spoke for the first time since the U.S. departure.

GEN. MARK MILLEY, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff: Today is an incredibly emotional day.

For any soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine and their family, your service mattered and was not in vain.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Overnight, the Pentagon released this image showing the last American soldier to leave Afghanistan.

Major General 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 takeoff, 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. ZABIHULLAH MUJAHID, Taliban Spokesman (through translator): 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.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Susannah George is the Afghanistan bureau chief for The Washington Post.

She is one of the last foreign journalists left in Kabul.

SUSANNAH GEORGE, The Washington Post: There weren't as many people out on the street, 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.

YAMICHE 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.

MIRZA KHAN, Kabul Resident (through translator): There are no jobs.

That is why the people are worried.

The Taliban should try to create jobs and allow for more education.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR: Susannah George of The Washington Post: SUSANNAH GEORGE: People who are staying at home, who are too scared to go out on the streets are most concerned about retaliation from the Taliban.

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 1990s in Kabul.

YAMICHE 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.

REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): We should get every American home.

I believe there should be accountability for what I see as probably the biggest failure of American government on a military stage in my lifetime.

And we can never make this mistake again.

YAMICHE 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.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And we will talk with the author of a new book that reveals the twists, turns and mistakes throughout the U.S. mission in Afghanistan.

That's later in the program.

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.

ROBY CHAVEZ: 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.

OLIVIA ALEXIS, LaPlace Resident: We woke up and the water would just kept rising and rising.

ROBY CHAVEZ: Olivia and Joyce Alexis were evacuated today by the Louisiana National Guard.

They initially thought they were safe, but were caught off guard as waters overflowed from nearby rivers and lakes.

JOYCE ALEXIS, LaPlace Resident: To actually go through it, it was traumatic.

OLIVIA ALEXIS: Go through it again.

JOYCE ALEXIS: Because it made me very anxious, because you relive all these previous experiences that you have had.

And -- but I hope this will be a better thing.

THEOPHILUS CHARLES, Houma Resident: I got nowhere, and I done lost everything I had.

ROBY CHAVEZ: In nearby Houma, Louisiana, residents like 70 year-old Theophilus Charles were still struggling to grasp the devastation.

Charles has lived in Houma his entire life.

He says he had nowhere to go as Hurricane Ida blasted ashore on Sunday.

THEOPHILUS CHARLES: I was born here.

We went through all the major hurricanes here.

So, I figure I have got to stay here and ride this one out.

But I couldn't.

ROBY CHAVEZ: 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.

He urged people not to return to their homes.

GOV.

JOHN BEL EDWARDS (D-LA): Now is really the most dangerous time over the next or couple of weeks.

And so we are asking people to be patient.

We're asking people to be careful.

ROBY CHAVEZ: 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.

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.

AL RYAN, New Orleans Resident: It seems like it worked pretty good this time.

And the power is the power.

It's -- you learn to live with it and -- or you move somewhere else.

COLLEEN RYAN, New Orleans Resident: We were just hopeful.

And as it turned out, it -- you know, it really -- I think people are pleased that it wasn't another Katrina.

ROBY CHAVEZ: But now, with power outages expected to last weeks, they and many of their neighbors are leaving town.

Back in LaPlace, where there's little levee protection, residents like Lakeisha Hammett are still trying to make sense of what's happened.

LAKEISHA HAMMETT, LaPlace Resident: It honestly felt like a movie.

Like, I just kept thinking, it's going to be over in 30 minutes.

I survived it, but it's not something that I really would want anyone to go through.

ROBY CHAVEZ: 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.

As you can see behind me, some of the work on the power lines now happening.

They literally will have to repair thousands of power lines - - Judy.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, give us a sense.

We know what a hot day this is, what the weather is like there.

What are people saying to you?

ROBY CHAVEZ: 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 that they owned in their hands.

Many of them got on -- in the National Guard vehicle.

They didn't know where they were going or what they were going to do next.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Roby, we know this, of course, is happening as Louisiana is one of the worst states in the country affected by COVID, the pandemic.

How is the hurricane affecting the state's ability to deal with that?

ROBY CHAVEZ: Well, many of the hospitals are still full.

They have been operating on generator power, but they don't believe that can go on forever.

And so they have started to evacuate some of those patients to other areas.

Nursing homes also having the same problem, some being evacuated as far away as Texas.

JUDY 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?

ROBY CHAVEZ: Yes, 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 enroll their kids in school, because, at this point, it is still a big unknown.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Roby Chavez reporting for us from Baton Rouge.

Roby, thank you very much.

ROBY CHAVEZ: Thank you, Judy.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And now let's hear from state and local leaders on the ground in Louisiana.

John Yang starts with a look at the efforts and the struggles to help get help to residents.

CYNTHIA LEE SHENG, President Of Jefferson Parish, Louisiana: So, we still haven't been able to get to Grand Isle.

I know there's been some helicopter flights.

Actually, the media has shown me some of the first footage this morning that I have seen.

I'm getting reports that there were people on buildings trying to get help.

Very difficult situation, when we don't have access there, we don't have communication there.

This is what we're dealing against.

I mean we have incredible first responder teams that can do search-and-rescue.

But when you don't have the communication or you're blocked by water, or trees in the road, or electric lines down, it becomes very, very difficult.

So we're still in the very first stages of this.

But it looked like they -- the water had subsided Grand Isle.

Other areas of the parish, namely, Lafitte, are still underwater, tremendous amount of water.

They're still bring boats in that neighborhood today.

And so our issues are really, it's supposed to be a hot day to day up here.

We don't have electricity.

We don't have many of the modern-day amenities.

Our water, our sewer is very fragile.

It becomes very, very difficult.

JOHN YANG: Now, I also read somewhere that there was -- there was some talk of moving people out, of people who didn't have -- because of -- they don't have water and power, of busing people out of the parish or passing out of their homes to a safer place.

What's the situation with that?

CYNTHIA LEE SHENG: Well, what's going on is, many people are already leaving, because it's just -- conditions are deteriorating, and stores aren't open.

There's no gas.

So, until our community can get resources, it's hard living here, especially if you're elderly, especially if you're medically vulnerable.

So I just got back from a shelter that we have.

And so, until we can start putting the pieces back together, everybody's tired already, and we're not coming into this.

If you can't take care of yourself, we need to get you food and air condition and water and medical help.

And it's better that you -- we use the state resources and get you away from home in another part of the state until, we can kind of regroup.

So, my messages 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.

So we got to -- government can take care of you.

But it's got to be a little bit away from now, until things start -- some of the resources start getting here.

JOHN YANG: And you said you just came from a shelter.

Can you tell us a little bit about the situation there, how things are going there?

CYNTHIA LEE SHENG: Yes, so this is all about our local government and our state working together.

They're at the shelter right now.

At 4:00, the buses from the state will pick them up, and they're going to go to Alexandria, where they will have the air condition, they will have food, they will have water.

More critically, they will have -- in a centralized location, they will have the medical needs that they will need.

That's difficult for me to provide too, because our hospital systems were already filled with COVID.

They're 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.

JOHN YANG: You talk about the government.

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?

CYNTHIA LEE SHENG: Well, we need a lot of help.

I mean, I don't know if they have set up a number for donations.

We have a lot of aid.

I was heartbroken at the shelter this morning.

I met a man.

He said he was in Barataria.

The water started coming up.

He was by himself.

He spent the night in the attic.

He was dehydrated.

He had to go to 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, a 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 and rebuild, 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 have with him.

It really was.

And he will rebuild.

I could see the determination in his face.

But he has been through just a harrowing 48 hours.

You could see -- you can see the worry and the exhaustion.

But I was -- I was glad he made it through and I was glad he survived.

JOHN YANG: That was Jefferson Parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng.

Rebuilding and recovering from Hurricane Ida is going to be a long-term proposition and could be an expensive undertaking.

Senator Bill Cassidy is Louisiana's senior senator.

He joins us from Baton Rouge.

Senator Cassidy, thanks for being with us.

I understand you did a flyover a little bit of some of the hard-hit areas of the state.

What did you see that may not necessarily translate?

SEN. BILL CASSIDY (R-LA): We flew over first a place called LaPlace, which, if you follow the I-10 out of New Orleans towards Baton Rouge, it's just -- for those who have done, it is the first area after you go past Lake Pontchartrain.

And there was just complete flooding of the whole community.

Gas stations I routinely stop at, you don't see the ground.

You just see water.

We continued over to Houma, lots of wind damage.

Clearly, as you might guess, the less expensive the housing, the more damage.

So, trailer parks, it was just scattered all over the place, but nicer neighborhoods as well either had water up to their doorstep or were completely flooded, as well as wind damage to some structures that were used in Port Fourchon, which are where the boats are that go to the rigs in the Outer Continental Shelf.

But even going back through New Orleans, there wasn't damage, but there weren't any lights either, to tell you that the issue there was that of no electricity.

And then, finally, north of Lake Pontchartrain to the Florida Parishes, where there was flooding that was just all through those parishes, not every place, but certainly around Lake Pontchartrain, other areas closer to the rivers that were still rising at that time.

JOHN YANG: You say no power in some areas and also no running water in some areas.

What are you being told about when those systems will be back up?

SEN. BILL CASSIDY: As far as I know, Entergy has not yet committed to a date of getting them back up.

And, of course, there's the issues of sewer, water, but also hospitals.

Can the generator continue to work for all the things a hospital needs it for?

The New Orleans Airport is shut down because of lack of running water, electricity.

I will also mention, if you just think of the human dimension, the person who's at home or on home oxygen -- I'm a physician -- immediately comes to mind.

She does not have the electricity.

She may have a generator, but the gas station doesn't have electricity to fill up her gasoline to put into her generator to run her O2 tank.

JOHN YANG: You mentioned that you're a physician.

Louisiana having a bit of a surge of COVID-19 at the same time, hospitals stressed.

As a physician, what worries you about this sort of confluence of events, hospitals under stress, people being put together in shelters?

What worries you about that?

SEN. BILL CASSIDY: Well, the briefing we received from Red Cross and others is that the shelters would have people separated from one another.

They will be asked to wear masks.

And they're well-ventilated, and not require, but, if people wish, they can get vaccinated.

So I think that we learned the lessons of last year, when there was some events like this during COVID, in order to construct an environment to keep people safe.

That said, I will just say, as I have been saying for quite some time, if someone is vaccinated, the risk of going to the hospital and ICU is far lower.

JOHN YANG: Earlier today, you tweeted out a message saying that you thought Congress needed to get back and pass a supplemental disaster aid bill.

How much money do you think we're talking about?

SEN. BILL CASSIDY: First, I actually was speaking about the one in Southwest Louisiana from a year ago.

So, Hurricane Laura and Delta hit Southwest Louisiana, and we still have not passed that.

So frustrating.

And we have been working on it for a year, and it's not done yet.

There will be an assessment that will take weeks, maybe even a month, in order to get completely together that which -- that which needs to be 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.

And we want the folks in Southwest Louisiana to know that they are not being forgotten.

Still fighting for them, still trying to raise their case.

JOHN YANG: Also, when you get back to Washington, you're going to -- one of the items of business is going to be reconciling whatever the House does on infrastructure with what the Senate does.

There's a lot in that bill about flood mitigation that could help in instances like this.

Do you think what happened here is going to help build support for that?

SEN. BILL CASSIDY: I sure hope so.

My gosh, everybody is sighing a sigh of relief that New Orleans' levees held.

They held because George W. Bush made a commitment to building those levees.

And 16 years later, we see the payoff.

If we invest now, not just in Louisiana, but around our nation, in issues such as coastal restoration, flood mitigation, hardening the grid -- there's billions to harden the grid, so they don't topple again, leaving our parishes without electricity -- $50 billion nationwide for sewer and water, $65 billion to make sure every American has access to broadband Internet.

And, John, you may say, what does that have to do with it?

Turns out FEMA, governors and local offices send out messages over social media.

And now that has become part of our armamentarium to reduce risk, to reduce death, et cetera.

So, I sure hope so, because just like George W. made that investment 16 years ago, we need to make it now for a hurricane, a tornado, a fire, an ice storm for 10 years from now.

JOHN YANG: Senator Bill Cassidy, thank you very much.

We're thinking of all of you down there in Louisiana right now.

SEN. BILL CASSIDY: Thank you very much, John.

Thank you.

JUDY 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 percent contained, and has destroyed nearly 700 structures.

Traffic out of the area was heavy, as thousands of residents and tourists evacuated.

MIKE JOHNSTONE, South Lake Tahoe Resident: 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 that I have had, I don't know, 40 years now.

GLEN NAASZ, South Lake Tahoe Resident: 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 planes, and I don't see any helicopters.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Next door, 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 COVID response coordinator said the nation's vaccination rate is improving.

JEFF ZIENTS, White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator: Today, we are averaging 900,000.

That's an 80 percent increase in the number of shots we are getting into arms each and every day.

Importantly, we have 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.

JUDY WOODRUFF: The European Union is also celebrating its progress.

The E.U.

announced that it's met its goal of fully vaccinating 70 percent of adults in the 27-nation bloc by the end of the summer.

In Texas, a sweeping GOP 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 will 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 under way 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 that 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 that he will 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 homebuyers competed for a limited number of houses.

That's according to a leading home price survey out today.

Prices spiked more than 19 percent compared to a year earlier.

Phoenix, San Diego, and Seattle recorded the biggest jumps.

And stocks gave up a bit of ground on Wall Street today.

The Dow Jones industrial average lost 39 points to close at 35361.

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.

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.

Earlier today, our Amna Nawaz spoke with him from his home in South Carolina.

AMNA 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?

DAVID BEASLEY, Executive Director, World Food Program: You know, it'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 have 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 have done that so far.

They have honored their word.

We have 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 is a small part of the issue.

It's 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 and the winter months are coming, and we have got to preposition food.

But that's another discussion.

AMNA NAWAZ: Well, let me ask you about what they have been saying to you so far, what you have been seeing so far in the early days and what's ahead, because this is the big 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?

DAVID BEASLEY: No, exactly right.

And the more they cooperate, the better it is for everybody.

So far, we have 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 have had a couple I would say hiccups, but that's normal.

And they have 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.

And so, as I have 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 we're working through a lot of issues right now.

And, actually, in a couple of places, we have 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 have got a new government they're designing, putting together.

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-Qaida and life-and-death situations.

AMNA NAWAZ: So this is a new government that's come in.

They have inherited a budget that was essentially 75 percent dependent on international aid, right?

And we know billions of dollars from the U.S., from the IMF, from others have been frozen.

Based on your impression of the Taliban so far, based on the promises you have been made and what you have 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?

DAVID BEASLEY: This is the dilemma, the paradox is that, what's your alternative?

If you're not careful, you could have stopped a lot, lot worse.

And so the reality going forward, you have got moderate Taliban, you have got hard-liners.

And if we're not careful, then if we allow the extremists to take over, then everybody loses.

So we don't have a choice.

I mean, we just can't walk away and say, oh, we don't care.

People can't go without food for a month.

They just can't do that.

And so we have 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 already getting very positive operations moving forward in Taliban-controlled areas, but there are some other areas that are more hard-liners.

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.

We want to reach girls and boys.

And so far, so good.

But let's see.

We have got 14 million people right now marching towards starvation.

And we can't turn our back on them.

And if we do that, we have created an incredible opportunity for extremist groups to exploit, to recruit.

And we have seen what happened in Syria.

We have seen it happen in other places around the world when we have turned our back on innocent people.

They have become obviously victims to using food as a weapon and recruitment for war.

We don't want that.

AMNA NAWAZ: If they do continue to restrict women's movement, as we have seen, if they do go back to their ways of oppressing minorities, committing horrific abuses against them, you're saying you will continue to deliver aid because you have no choice?

So why would they act differently then?

DAVID BEASLEY: Well, I think what we're being told so far, with our women working with the WFP, we evaluate all of these different dynamics.

And so far, so good.

I can imagine there will be some difficult areas.

We have got to work through those.

And we want, obviously, food to be used in a humanitarian way.

Where there's going to be complications, obviously, we are going to deal with it, because we're not -- we will go in -- first and foremost, we feed women and men, girls and boys.

That, I just can't imagine that being tampered with.

That would be a red line, for sure.

AMNA 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.

DAVID BEASLEY: Well, thank you very, very much.

We are going to get it done.

I can assure you of that.

It's just, that's the World Food Program.

Thank you.

JUDY 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 that things were headed in another direction.

Those harbingers, stories of failure, corruption and lack of a clear strategy, are the focus of Washington Post reporter 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 1,000 people and you had access to documents that 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 years, don't they?

CRAIG WHITLOCK, The Washington Post: Yes, these documents were interviews with -- the core of them, with more than 400 officials who played a key role in the war.

And this is from White House officials, to generals, diplomats, aid workers, and also Afghans.

And they really -- they thought these were confidential interviews the government had conducted, and they thought that -- their assessments were brutal.

They said that the U.S. government didn't know what it was doing in Afghanistan, it didn'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 being delivered in public year after year, that the U.S. was making progress, that victory was around the corner.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And this goes back to the very beginning.

President Bush goes into 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 being assessed was different from what people were being told.

CRAIG WHITLOCK: Well, and one of earliest examples of this is, President Bush gave a speech in April of 2002 to the Virginia Military Institute.

At that time, the Taliban had been defeated, al-Qaida was on the run.

But Bush was addressing concerns already that Afghanistan could turn into a quagmire, like Vietnam, or like what had happened to the Soviets in Afghanistan or the British in the 19th century.

And he was dismissing these concerns, saying, don't worry, we won't get bogged down.

This isn't going to happen to us.

On that very same day Bush gave the speech, his defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, dictated a memo to several of his generals and top aides at the Pentagon.

And he said the exact opposite.

He expressed his real fear that we could get bogged down.

He said, if we don't come up with a plan to stabilize Afghanistan, we will never get the troops out.

And he ended the memo with one word.

It said, "Help!"

on the very same day.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And that was Donald -- the late Donald Rumsfeld.

But you write about a number of instances during the Obama administration, then, of course, into Trump, and just this new administration.

CRAIG WHITLOCK: That's right.

I mean, this happened with all 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, in which the U.S. officials 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 still dying in combat for 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.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Craig Whitlock, you cite one military leader after another.

I'm thinking of General David Petraeus, who's been out very critical lately of President Biden, saying that he should have realized that the Afghan military was helping fight off ISIS and al-Qaida.

But you cite him and other military leaders telling Congress again, as you're saying now, that things were going well, when they weren't.

CRAIG WHITLOCK: That's right.

We heard this month after month, year after year under Bush, Obama and Trump, that the Afghan army and police forces were capable of defending their own country, that they no longer needed U.S. troops to fight the Taliban in ground combat.

And yet, in these interviews in "The Afghanistan papers," U.S. military trainers and other officials were sending up highly critical reports of the Afghan forces.

They said they couldn't shoot straight, they were illiterate, their leaders were corrupt.

And they expressed real doubt that they could stand up in a fight to the Taliban.

So the Pentagon has known this for many years.

And yet, again, as you said, in public, they kept telling the American people that this - - everything was going according to plan.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And when people try to understand what went wrong over all these years, I mean, you have got a chapter on corruption.

You have got another chapter on the opium trade, the poppies that so many the farmers were growing, and again on the military that -- the Afghan military, how hard it was, with change in leadership after change, how hard it was to get the results that Americans were looking for.

CRAIG WHITLOCK: That's right.

And I think most Americans, they 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.

But in these interviews in "The Afghanistan Papers," generals, ambassadors, other people, they were very blunt.

They said, we didn't know what we were doing in Afghanistan.

They literally would say this.

We never understood the country.

In their early years, there was no strategy.

So it really was worse than people thought.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And what about the role of Pakistan next door?

It's been hard for many Americans to understand what that has been really all about, the connection between Pakistan and the Taliban.

CRAIG WHITLOCK: And this is something the U.S. government has never really figured out what to do.

It took the Bush administration several years to really come to the realization that the government of Pakistan was -- on one hand, it was fighting al-Qaida, but it was lending support secretly to the Taliban.

It took them a while to sort of accept that Pakistan was playing a double game.

During the Obama administration, I think they recognized that, but they were really dependent on Pakistan for supply routes to U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

So they really couldn't get that tough on the Pakistanis.

Same under Trump.

There was all this tough talk about getting the Pakistan to clamp down on the Taliban.

But we never really had an effective strategy to deal with that.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And when we hear President Biden today 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 that the alternative was to escalate, is that the whole story here?

CRAIG WHITLOCK: I don't think it's the whole story.

I mean, 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.

But I think he's right in one respect, that this was not a winnable war, and the Taliban had held off on attacking U.S. troops since Trump cut his deal with them in February 2020.

So I think he's right.

If we were going to try and have a military victory over the Taliban, which was highly dubious, we would have had to commit more troops and double down on the fighting there.

And that was something that Biden didn't want to do.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Can you come away with all this research and reporting you have done, Craig Whitlock, with lessons for future American leaders, when we are tempted to go into another country to fix a problem, to fight an enemy?

CRAIG WHITLOCK: 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, again, they said, we learned our lesson from Vietnam.

We're not going to do that again.

So they knew about it, but it still happened.

And I think, 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.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Were there particular truth-tellers who stood out to you in all your research?

CRAIG WHITLOCK: I think, in these interviews, which the government tried to keep a secret from the American people, there were truth-tellers.

People admitted that the strategy was a failure and... JUDY WOODRUFF: After the fact.

CRAIG WHITLOCK: After -- and not too many.

I wish there have been more people that spoke up.

There was one in particular.

General David McKiernan was the war commander during the end of Bush's term and the beginning of Obama's.

And 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 the first war commander relief since Douglas MacArthur in Korea.

In the documents we obtained, there are military officials who said McKiernan knew that he was getting in trouble for telling the truth about how things weren't going well, and that was the reason.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And, finally, based on what you have learned about the Taliban, what is your expectation about what's going to happen now in Afghanistan?

CRAIG WHITLOCK: Well, this is really fascinating.

We fought this war on the assumption that the Taliban was the enemy.

Right now, the Taliban, they have gotten everything they wanted to kick out the foreign forces, but they crave 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 recognize a diplomatic -- give diplomatic recognition to the Taliban, but they have already started to do business with them militarily.

And you may recall that the CIA director, Bill Burns, made a visit to Kabul recently to meet with the Taliban leadership.

So I think, on counterterrorism operations against groups like the Islamic State, I think the U.S. and the Taliban will probably work together fairly closely.

They just may keep it hidden from the public.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Which is what so much of the book is about, just a remarkable book, as we say, I -- definitive, in my view, "The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War."

Craig Whitlock, thank you very much.

CRAIG WHITLOCK: Thank you, Judy.

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.

JOHN ROGERS, Northwestern University: The story is part of our Breakthroughs series.

This is one of the devices.

Is this the latest design?

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: John Rogers has no medical training, but his engineering laboratory at Northwestern University is a pioneer in the emerging field he calls electronic medicine.

MAN: Very small, wireless and soft device.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: As hardware goes, it doesn't get any softer.

MAN: This is the location.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: 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 it's controlled wirelessly from a small module attached to the chest.

It would replace a far more invasive approach used today, and Rogers says it's made from elements the human body actually needs.

JOHN ROGERS: All of the materials that we're using for these pacemakers are a recommended part of the daily diet, silicon, molybdenum.

Magnesium is what we use for the current-carrying elements.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: 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.

DR. CHRISTOPHER MEHTA, Northwestern Medicine: If this device really is successful in what it's accomplishing, then I think it could be a game-changer for the field.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: 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.

DR. CHRISTOPHER MEHTA: So, 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.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: With wires protruding through the patient's skin, he says, there are inherent risks.

DR. CHRISTOPHER MEHTA: The risk of infection, because you have something inside the body that is now exposed to the outside environment through this wire.

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.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: The new wireless pacemaker is controlled with the same technology used for touchless credit card payments, for example.

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.

JOHN ROGERS: 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.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: 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' lab made a pivotal discovery, that silicon, the foundation material in all modern electronics, actually dissolves in water.

JOHN ROGERS: 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.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: 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.

ROSE YIN, George Washington University: We were able to capture the heart rhythm for the human heart on the human scale.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: It's expected to be at least two years before the new technology gets a green light for live human trials.

Despite the promise, Rogers says plenty is still unknown, like what exactly happens to the materials once the pacemaker breaks up.

JOHN ROGERS: And those fragments are free-floating.

Where are they going?

And what kind of risk is associated with that?

The FDA has never looked at a technology like this before.

It's totally new.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: The promise is both therapeutic and economic.

The new pacemaker would reduce expensive hospital stays, for example.

And 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 lifesaving procedures.

DR. CHIP BOLMAN, Team Heart: I can remember a few cases where we weren't able to get the wires out without risking injury to the heart.

And so I think, in a setting like that, where even a regular operation is much more difficult, the opportunity to avoid emergencies, it would be a very beneficial.

I think it will be another step in the long trajectory of technology and improving medicine.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: And vastly reimagining the meaning of wearable technology.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Fred de Sam Lazaro in Chicago.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Just fascinating.

And we can all hope that it works.

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.