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Inside the CIA: Secrets and Spies - Season 1 - Episode 03: Laura Thomas - A Double Life Within a Double Life
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00:11we're all products of where we come from and how we're raised I'm from sadness and
00:18darkness the land where they kill a girl before she opens her eyes at a very young
00:25age at CIA you can be making decisions that are life or death I feel they cut my wings and
00:32put me
00:33in prison we are in tenuous situations we are taking risks we have to put lives on the line
00:40for a greater goal I'm a girl in the land of the men beat me kill me bury me I
00:48don't have a right
00:48here I don't have a voice here at the airport in Kabul thousands of Afghans also trying to flee
00:55we were watching the country crumble you gotta get people to the airport you get them out of
01:00the country now all of a sudden there's a credible threat about a suicide bombing it is a ticking
01:05clock this is what authoritarianism leads to these impossible choices I will raise my voice I will
01:13get out of the grave I will stand for my rights one day I will show you my power
01:53I remember I was watching the news and I remember seeing people fleeing from crisis and grabbing on to
02:07anything anything they can to create a better life for themselves the one image that I'll never
02:14forget is the image of the lady passing her baby over the walls at the Kabul Airport compound and having
02:24my
02:25own child and just thinking what sort of desperation must a person be in to do that and that's that's
02:36incredibly moving I'm Laura Thomas and I spent over a decade at CIA I left the agency just a few
02:46months before the US government announced that it would be withdrawing from Afghanistan my first
02:54assignment was in Western Afghanistan the CIA originally was there to root out al-qaeda because
03:00al-qaeda had used Afghanistan as a base to plan the attacks of 9-11 but it was also to
03:07prevent the
03:07Taliban from coming back to power and unfortunately that all came to a halt during the 2021 US military
03:16withdrawal my military mission Afghanistan will conclude on August 31st the Taliban immediately
03:23pushed forward Ghazni is the 10th provincial capital to fall to the Taliban in only a week and a lot
03:32of
03:32the Afghan government collapsed we could see on the maps it looked like one of those election nights where
03:40the counties are turning color for who they voted on all these provinces they're just turning over to
03:46Taliban control and it happened super quick my name is James Mulligan and for 20 years I was a special
03:55agent with the diplomatic security service US Department of State as the timeline was drastically
04:02compressing everybody knew that those falling dominoes stop in Kabul
04:12I went to the office and I was busy with my own job when I heard that the Taliban are
04:18in town being a girl
04:19working with a humanitarian development organization living the life that the Taliban are against that it was
04:29really scary for me my family is so in Afghanistan I don't want to put their life in danger therefore
04:36I'm
04:37not using my personal name we start talking to the people in the office and asking them to get to
04:44the secure places we were looking at this situation and saying it's getting dicey now we were watching
04:52the country crumble everyone was screaming and our security guards were trying to help them to get to
04:59their house but one of my colleagues she was with me we both were not wearing the long black hijab
05:06that
05:06the Taliban want to foment to work and I was really scared of about going out and they will shoot
05:12us on the street
05:18the airport is America's last toehold in Afghanistan the Taliban has overrun the capital city Kabul and taken
05:26over the presidential palace I'm at the airport inside the terminal thousands of people
05:37they had literally rushed the civilian terminal like what you see in a zombie movie and broken through the
05:45doors and run out onto the flight line
05:48I was in Europe with my family on vacation when I saw stampede like conditions at the airport it was
06:03just a madhouse
06:05there are Taliban roaming in the area and beating people for people who had worked with the US government
06:13over decades were in danger the Taliban are going to take retribution they're going to take revenge on these people
06:22so for many of the Afghans this was their one chance at getting out of the country before
06:29you know potentially being found and executed by the Taliban it didn't matter that I was on vacation
06:37I mean I need to find a way to to help
06:42everyone was scared because we knew we already lost our rights that fear encouraged other Afghans to go to
06:51the gates people from all over Afghanistan from different provinces even the people who never
06:56worked on behalf of the US government before they all get together inside the airport so they can leave
07:02Afghanistan the only way out is through Kabul's airport where desperate scenes play out
07:11I was glued to a screen for 18 hours straight trying to figure out how we can help people and
07:18at that
07:19point I connected with Laura my name is Michael Moreno and I was a case officer at the CIA Laura
07:26and I
07:26worked together in the Middle East and we were collecting foreign intelligence recruiting spies to
07:33tell us secrets I was a counter-terrorism guy she focused on different topics it was a
07:39natural connection to make because you very quickly realized that you had to get everyone
07:46who was competent and and had an understanding of this type of crisis and how to manage it
07:51you needed to get them together and talking and working on this
07:59I remember seeing the airplane take off with Afghans clinging to the landing gear hanging on for dear life
08:11trying to escape that country and the fate that they thought awaited them at the hands of the Taliban
08:24the first thought in my mind was I wonder if my interpreters are out
08:31to my interpreters I mean they were always the first people that went out to greet sources
08:39and it was essentially their way of searching the source and they would give them a hug to see if
08:44they
08:44had a suicide vest or not I couldn't forget that they were out there risking their lives for me
08:51and I wanted to make sure that they were okay the CIA is totally dedicated to the safety of its
08:59assets
09:00and getting them out of harm's way when things go bad and even though this wasn't actually our job
09:08this was long after I left the CIA but it's almost a professional obligation so we were like how can
09:16we
09:17get people out that you would need to exfiltrate someone well Laura can do that at CIA I did have
09:26an experience with exfills and if there were an opportunity that I could help I wanted to do it
09:31an exfiltration is getting someone safely out of a place where they're no longer safe if it was
09:38someone that you worked with while you were there that's the person you're going to go after first
09:43the next day we were able to push the people outside with the airport and gain control of the footprint
09:49which would allow the consular officers to safely adjudicate as many people as they could for flights out
09:57so I reach out to my interpreter and asked are you okay he said he was fine he was in
10:02the u.s but his
10:03fiance was still in Afghanistan and she had turned in her afghan passport to the u.s embassy some weeks
10:11prior because they were worried that this could be the eventual result that the taliban would take over
10:18but she hadn't received her passport back yet so she had no documentation whatsoever he asked if there
10:25was anything i do and i said i'll check at the airport in kabul thousands of afghans who helped
10:31fight america's longest war are also trying to flee those are those afghans who worked for the u.s as
10:37translators or help the u.s in some way over this 20-year conflict this interpreter and i we had
10:44worked
10:44together in afghanistan for a long time he knew that i would need as many details as possible so
10:51immediately asked him i said please send me a copy of your passport send me every photo that shows a
10:57copy of her afghan passport any documentation she's ever had about a u.s visa all her contact
11:04information her address in afghanistan your address in the united states all your phone numbers your email
11:11address her email address all the phone numbers of all family members what she's wearing laura is
11:17methodical in her approach to planning she's thoughtful about resources and contingencies
11:24so she was uniquely suited to do these types of operations i'm no longer part of the government
11:32i have no say in anything i'm certainly not in afghanistan on the ground i'm certainly not a
11:37policymaker in dc but i would do everything in my power to try to get her out but there's tens
11:43of
11:44thousands of people and not all of them can get rescued i was trying to coordinate getting all of
11:55my interpreter's fiance's information and then that led to me reading a lot of different message boards
12:01and being on slack channels a group of tillman scholars created a slack workspace
12:09that grew from 20 people on day one to at its peak 1800 volunteers people would turn to laura and
12:19i
12:19and say hey this situation is happening we want your opinion it was all consuming a lot of what i
12:29saw was
12:31afghans afghans reaching out explaining their connection with the u.s government the work that
12:36they had done there were thousands tens of thousands of them
12:45mike and i started sharing information who we were talking to in the military former colleagues
12:51trying to strategize you know how how could we work together and how could we help
12:56in france we had rented an airbnb and i had a little makeshift command center in the airbnb's
13:03bathroom i began calling the afghans on the ground calling their relatives in the u.s and some of the
13:10individuals that i was passing the information to when they heard that it was me who was vetting
13:15some of these afghans they said keep keep the information flowing i think it was because
13:22i worked at cia and i had the recommendation of of those working on afghanistan that this is laura
13:29and we trust her judgment i grew up in a very small town of north carolina one stoplight down in
13:38the
13:38middle of nowhere my parents were very much service oriented people just the way i was raised it was
13:44very much about giving back to others i know that that influenced me to want to be in a role
13:48where i could
13:49help other people in some way i remember my freshman year was when the 9 11 attacks occurred i just
13:56thought what can i do to help prevent something like this from ever happening again so i started
14:04studying arabic with the hopes of making it more likely that cia would hire me you know the goal is
14:11to protect americans but also help protect all of us who collectively want peace in the world
14:20at one point in my tour in afghanistan i was made the chief of base i was in charge of
14:26all the
14:26personnel on the base and the facility certainly i was young that was my first tour you know i heard
14:32some grumblings like she's young she'll get us killed is there a feeling that you have to prove
14:37yourself absolutely i remember there was one new grs officer and i think he was probably quite shocked
14:45and that i was in charge as chief of base the potential that you could make a decision that ends
14:50up getting someone killed is it's a pretty heavy thing to carry around i took it very seriously
14:56a while later we were driving around and we see an afghan in a distance waving his hands frantically the
15:04one grs officer that was worried about me being chief said to me very clearly chief do i have your
15:11permission to break the seal breaking the seal means opening the car door rolling down the window
15:17i believe it was his way of saying that i recognize now that you're the one in charge and that's
15:23okay
15:26during the time of the withdrawal i was communicating directly with my interpreter
15:32in the u.s who was then communicating with his fiancee i also began compiling her documentation and i
15:40would put the information together and i started passing it to colleagues there was one other lady
15:47who was truly an absolute hero in all of this she was helping escort a number of afghans on the
15:56ground
15:56she helped keep people calm i was connected with them because i was working with a humanitarian
16:03organization and i was asked to help a group of people i had to provide them a place to get
16:10together
16:10that was my house i had to gather all of them and took them to the airport they were scared
16:17the women
16:17were all wearing hijab the kids were crying it was really hard i had to sit with them talk to
16:23them and
16:24give them the feeling that they would be safe by working on behalf of the u.s government i knew
16:30i'm putting my family's life in danger but i couldn't i couldn't stop myself from helping
16:41when i was growing up it was not easy to go to the school because of the taliban we faced
16:47lots of
16:48challenges when the war started everything changed the life of afghan girls changed as a girl i started
16:57going to the school i still remember the the first day that i went to the school life was full
17:05of joy
17:06because of the experience while i was growing up my face i didn't want another kid not to have access
17:12to their right in the early morning we had to leave for the airport
17:32this is the layout of the airport north is this direction north gate was here
17:39east gate the abbey gate here at these gates first things they did were layout concertina wire
17:47then they would put vehicles because the the crushing just got so much you needed something
17:52substantial and we were that front door that said to people you're either coming in or you're not
18:02so we started moving to the airport when i shared my location they were checking that on satellite they
18:08were tracking basically my my phone number because they were checking to see which way will get us
18:13closer to the airport and also the gate that we were going to it was my first time going to
18:19that gate
18:21what i was hearing from folks in this slack channel was that there was a cia gate which didn't
18:27surprise me at all the cia were operating a liberty gate or freedom gate it had various different names
18:33it was right here in the vicinity of the western edge of the airport it was my understanding they
18:40would move certain barriers and only open the gate when they needed to it was also guarded by their own
18:48security forces and they kept everyone away by shooting at the ground or shooting over their head
18:55people that knew about this and had contacts there were having way more success than at many
19:02other gates and so there was this kind of quiet effort to put folks in front of that gate in
19:10front of
19:10the cia gate we took the bus there and waited out of the gate for more than nine hours eventually
19:19i'm put in
19:20touch with an individual who identified himself as ryan i believed him to be grs
19:30he was working a gate they had a specific location for staging they passed it to me and i am
19:38the person who's ferrying the messages we were asked to stay at the gas station so people were coming
19:44to our bus i gave ryan a list of families that i had and then he would send me up
19:50the queue of which
19:51family okay send them across now and there was a family it was fiancio one of the interpreters that
19:58was already in the u.s i didn't have a hundred percent guarantee that they were certainly on a list
20:07but i told them to follow all the directions that they got from the guards i send them across i
20:14tell
20:14them to walk and then i wait and i'm sitting there waiting for probably 10 minutes before i get another
20:25message from them that they had gotten successfully on the other side of the gate they were okay
20:32obviously i felt relieved anytime someone makes it through such a harrowing situation you know i was
20:40relieved for them that they got across and that it that it worked there are a lot of quiet successes
20:46in the cia you don't necessarily celebrate those but it's not like hey good news i got someone else out
20:52she was doing her job it was just past midnight and i was about to go to sleep and i
21:03remember picking up
21:06my phone one last time and scrolling through a slack channel and i saw a post that said u.s
21:14citizen baby
21:15stuck in cobble and i opened it and i looked at it and i put my phone down and i
21:22closed my eyes and i
21:23said i just i need to just go to sleep i lay there for about a minute and i just
21:30i couldn't turn my brain
21:31off all i could think about was my own child asleep peacefully happily in the next room and you know
21:40not
21:40wanting to take that for granted and so i i got back up and i i just got back to
21:46work with vetting
21:47the story of the lady with the baby
21:53so the baby had a u.s passport but the mother did not and i am working with the mother
22:01as well as the
22:03husband who was in the u.s on how to direct her to get her to the right location so
22:08we could get that
22:08u.s citizen baby out along with the mother
22:19what assurances can you give to women and girls that their rights will be protected
22:24our women have the same rights they're going to be working shoulder to shoulder with us
22:28we want to assure the international community there will be no discrimination against women
22:33but of course within our religious framework
22:36all right that's alive i've ever heard one a complete window dressing as the taliban started
22:41to take power i mean this is the same regime that was stoning women in stadiums publicly for their
22:51perceived violation of the law and girls couldn't go to school it was just a human tragedy
23:03the actions were different from their words one of my colleagues called me and he was beaten really
23:09badly kids were crying women were crying
23:20they're threats that they're suicide bombers in route to this gate the challenge is that's often
23:31the rumor in my tour in afghanistan we would get the same threat reporting almost every day
23:39it felt like groundhog day you just never knew which day it might be real i'll never forget the first
23:47taliban member i met just a very imposing looking figure at cia we are not social justice warriors we're out
23:59to
23:59collect information but you have to put your personal opinions aside i'm there to get information
24:07not to argue about women's rights with the taliban as we were in the debriefing the taliban member
24:16tells me yeah i have a suicide vest in my car and i remember very explicitly telling him if you
24:24ever do
24:24that again all of my security they have my authorization to shoot you laws can change overnight
24:31but culture rarely does and so as soon as they claimed that they would respect human rights women's
24:40rights they would allow women to go to school they would allow women to work i knew it was a
24:46lie
24:47to say whatever needed to be said in order to continue raking in foreign aid
24:51and that they would reneg and they would change course as soon as the world diverted its attention
24:57and the media news cycle moved on so i'm on the phone with a number of afghans on the ground
25:06and i am talking with the father in the united states you i told him your wife should only bring
25:14you know the clothes that she's wearing enough formula and medicine anything for the baby
25:20the baby's documentation she was four months old she was lovely i was seeing her future differently
25:28from other kids her smile i still remember but after a few hours she just started crying
25:35she was tired and i could feel that tired of all the noise happening around the mom could not figure
25:44out
25:44how to get onto any of the other gates she could not get close enough to show her baby's passport
25:49the mother was really scared
25:53as i was talking with the father in the united states
25:59i told him send your wife and child to this location don't bring anyone else no one else will be
26:06allowed to go with her and you know within minutes he was calling me back lobbying for his brother
26:15the uncle of the child to be the escort and saying why
26:19she and the baby couldn't leave without the uncle
26:28it was literally it was life or death for these people
26:33we were the judge the jury and in some cases probably the executioner of not allowing people to come in
26:40and literally saw these like cheerful goodbyes
26:48seeing her in afghanistan i was looking a dark future for her a girl who has no right
26:58a girl that in future when she will she grow up people even won't count her as a human being
27:06i had to tell him many times the uncle will not be able to go through he responded as i
27:13think anyone
27:13would denial and why why i can't do it any other way i absolutely empathized and understood why people
27:24were pushing the bounds of the guidance that they were being given where i come from and how i was
27:30raised
27:31was to connect with people and to to care about the feelings of others at the same time
27:43you can never really predict how someone's going to react in such a a tense situation that's
27:49incredibly emotional because you're asking someone to give up essentially everything they know
27:54and to never look back i mean that's a very weighty decision he threatened that he wouldn't
28:01let the wife and the baby go through the gate if his brother couldn't go too and that's when i
28:07had
28:07to be very direct with him and also had to appeal to the emotional side
28:14i sent this message akha john you hold the world in your hands you're in charge of your family you
28:21know
28:21as well as i do that there are two types of people in this world there are those who wait
28:26and there are
28:27those who act you're the type of person who acts this is your wife and daughter's last chance and you
28:33hold their future in your hands if you don't let your wife and child walk through that open airport
28:38gate right now they will never get a second chance your little girl will grow up under taliban rule
28:43and never know her father you can't go back you'll be killed they might be killed because of you
28:51you have only two options right now and they aren't negotiable let your wife and child proceed
28:56without the uncle or leave them behind forever
29:06eventually he let them through
29:21the news from afghanistan where there are significant casualties including some americans
29:29from a suicide attack outside the country's main airport in kabul when i heard about the abigate
29:36bombing it was gut-wrenching over 180 people were killed 13 u.s service members
29:44in one of the most catastrophic losses of u.s life since 2011 in afghanistan you know it was it
29:53was
29:54horrific i mean these were the marines that we worked with every day it was such a target rich
30:01environment between the amount of people that were physically in that footprint of the embassy perimeter
30:06and the amount of aircraft that went there i mean there is a lot of irony in the situation where
30:14people are crowding around these gates for the chance at getting out and having a shot at a life
30:23very different than the life they would live under the taliban yet at the same time they're going into
30:31the lion's den as far as a threat scenario it was really scary and i had to leave the gate
30:37and because
30:38of the security to treat i was asked to go back to home
30:44i was in touch with the the mother of the child right before she went through the gate a few
30:52hours
30:52later i called her she said she was on the aircraft and she sent me a selfie of her and
31:00her child
31:01on the aircraft i you know i don't think that i had the time to really think about well i'm
31:08not
31:08going to send them to a location for staging because there could be a suicide bomber i mean there could
31:16have been a suicide bomber anywhere it is always you're thinking about the risk versus gain in any
31:22scenario today desperate afghans returned hoping to get a seat on one of the last evacuation planes out
31:29almost immediately the regular operations kind of stopped at this point it was clear
31:38that we're kind of like on borrowed time it is a ticking clock and even if formal handover
31:45isn't happening for a few days out the likelihood of it being sooner is high i received so many calls
31:56and messages from the team they were worried about my situation i was asked if i wanted to leave afghanistan
32:04but i was asked to get inside the airport and go alone without my family
32:11at first i refused as an afghan woman who never left country never left her family behind at age of
32:2025
32:21and then i talked to my family and my mom was thinking about my security
32:27she asked me to leave she wanted me to be secure all the stories how they are killing people secretly
32:38being in
32:40cabal with my family makes it more dangerous i had to leave my family behind and go back to the
32:51gate
32:55the only gave me 13 minutes to come back to the gate and that was the last chance and my
33:00house was far
33:01from the gate it seems impossible for me to go back to that gate i didn't have a car i
33:07wasn't allowed to
33:08get a taxi as a woman but my dad drove me back because of the traffic we couldn't make it
33:16to come to the
33:17gate by the gate by the car so i had to run we know that it's only a matter of
33:25time before the gates
33:26close and that the messages we're exchanging could be the last as i recall i had about five families
33:34that i had laid out in order of who was going to walk in in what order across the gates
33:41once i got the
33:42go ahead and one family went through i got confirmation where i got to another family
33:51and they wouldn't walk towards the gate because the guards were shooting and they were afraid they
33:57were going to be shot and they kept telling me the guards are they're threatening to shoot us
34:00we can't walk we can't walk they're going to shoot my son we can't walk the family talking to me
34:07is frantic saying that they're shooting they're shooting at us they're shooting at us they're going
34:11to kill us and i said walk they will not shoot you they were shooting because they were trying
34:16to do crowd control they're trying to keep people back you must walk i'm i'm assuring you i have it
34:21on
34:21good word from the american on the other end that they won't they won't actually shoot you how do you
34:27convince a person that you're talking to on the phone to walk towards a person holding the gun
34:34threatening to shoot them how do you convince them to trust you how do you convince them that just
34:41beyond that barrel of a gun is freedom for them and their family all they have to do is walk
34:52the family talking to me is frantic meanwhile i'm trying to get a word in and saying they won't
34:58kill you they're not going to shoot you they're shooting over your head continue walking you have
35:03my word you have the word of the american on the other side of the gate that they will not
35:08kill you
35:10and when i think about if i were in their shoes and someone is pointing a weapon at me and
35:16shooting
35:18i would be terrified would i want to take my small child and
35:23i'm just going to walk towards the gunfire just because someone on the other end of the phone tells
35:28me it's okay and to trust them i don't know what i would do this is what authoritarianism leads to
35:36though these impossible choices we know that the gates are likely to close very soon go back to the
35:45family they're afraid and i argued with them for probably 30 minutes and i was trying to say it in
35:53every way that i could think of that would try to get them to act and i just i just
35:57couldn't do it
36:01because they just refused to walk and they didn't get out
36:08i think back what could i have said differently what could i have done differently i don't know
36:12all i know is i couldn't get them to walk
36:18went to the next family on the list it was a father who had served as an interpreter
36:26and his wife and his three children one i remember a very young little girl he had sent me pictures
36:36of him with his family all holding their afghan documentation i was texting him saying you're up next
36:44you're on deck you're about to walk through in 10 minutes as i was telling that family that it was
36:52their turn to walk i got a text back from the father that said the taliban just arrived it looks
37:01like control of the gates has been passed over to the taliban and then right after that i received
37:10word that the gates closed we finally get told that's it we're done i knew that was the end and
37:17then i had
37:18to tell that father and that family that they weren't going to make it in
37:25the last u.s troops have left afghanistan officially marking an end to america's longest war
37:31social media showed the taliban celebrating their return to power tonight with heavy gunfire we knew it
37:37was coming and we knew that we had a limited amount of time but it was brutal having been immersed
37:44in
37:44that for two weeks and doing everything we could and at a certain point you're like well okay like
37:48we can't help anyone else we're done seeing those children in their pictures especially the little
37:56girl and just thinking to myself now she's going to grow up under the taliban
38:02and if only the order had been different maybe her life would be very different
38:09i never thought that i would leave my family in that situation i even couldn't say goodbye to my
38:14siblings i just knew that i'm leaving leaving everything behind my hometown my friends
38:25my family the people that i love sometimes we don't recognize the enormity of situations at first
38:37until you see something so visceral and moving as someone falling from an aircraft or passing a baby
38:47over a wall everything in a mother pushes us to protect our children giving up your child in hopes
38:56that they have a better future than you it is absolutely the depths of desperation but it also is the
39:02depths of love
39:09i had to run half of the way for a few miles but i made it on time it was
39:15a long flight
39:18i was worried about my future i was scared the only thing i was feeling safe safe and secure
39:28but worried about my family once i got the last message that the u.s government had left i flew
39:37back to
39:38the united states and walked down the jetway and walked in the immigration terminal and see all these
39:44people huddled in front of me and i knew these were the afghans on all of those aircraft that were
39:54being evacuated
40:03i see just rows and rows of afghans it was extremely emotional for me
40:14because uh i i saw them all standing there i i had some sense of what they had gone through
40:23and what
40:23left behind and i also kept thinking about the the children that were on my list that that didn't
40:33make it out and how they weren't standing there still keep a photo of that family on my phone
40:41i thought a lot about why did i keep arguing with the one family who wouldn't walk why did i
40:48not put this
40:49family up before them wish i had done things differently i can't bring myself to delete it because i i
41:02do want that
41:04reminder and it it just reminds me of the stakes it reminds me what authoritarianism leads to what
41:14fanaticism leads to and um that's a lesson i don't ever want to forget we are nearly three months into
41:25the taliban takeover of afghanistan and the list of human rights violations against afghan women is
41:30growing women have been denied the right to work and a secondary education and there are also reports
41:37of widespread harassment i see the future of afghan women differently i still have hope for them
41:44i see the the kids going back to school maybe not soon but in a few years when i move
41:53to the u.s i still
41:54continue working for humanitarian organizations i'm still helping people around the world including
42:01that's my goal to inspire women around the world how lucky are we in the united states that we have
42:10someone like that who is getting her american citizenship she is the type of person that makes
42:16this country what it is and we're the lucky ones for having her when i first met laura i thought
42:29i'm
42:30i'm connected with her i thought i know her for ages and i see that we had the same hope
42:37for afghanistan
42:38for afghan woman i feel privileged that i was able to be the person making some of these decisions
42:46i tried to do the right thing the ethical thing to the degree that i could and in many ways
42:52it was
42:52very rewarding to have a chance to serve again doing some good in the world you know that's the
42:58whole point the whole point of this career is to help the idea that in very small ways i could
43:04help
43:04shape a little bit of that role that the united states was playing and still plays is very important to
43:10me and i think important to almost anyone who spends most of their career and life working in service of
43:17something that's bigger than themselves
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