bob, in your view what are the challenges facing intelligence services right now when it comes to finding this one person who could be anywhere at this point? well, pamela, the big question is did he get help? we don t know that yet. did he have an exit route that he had planned? did somebody on the other side meet him, pick him up in a car? remember, this occurred next to a police station. the turks were deployed all over the city. it seems to me he had an escape route. if he did, as tom said, they get him out of the country, but the longer this goes on, the more worrisome the problems are in turkey. i mean, they re fighting a two-front war against the kurdish workers party and against the islamic state, and you just have a coup.
just had a sick feeling all day long. about midnight, i remember the sand kind of came over that wall and it reached our patio, like, within minutes. the time that we decided to evacuate was i think some time around 1:30 a.m. on monday morning. when the frams returned by daylight, it s an alarming scene. the lake water has found its own exit route. it s flowing over the lake shores and downhill across the county highway. it s a serious turn of events, but could be good news for the frams. tim said i think we might be okay, because it might take the water away from our home. but so much fast-flowing water has the force of a raging locomotive and the highway starts to crumble under the momentum. 5,000 pound pieces were falling into a creek that was newly created between the river and the lake.
my producers in in the book were telling me look at this. outside the theater now. you see the ladders there on the side of the building. this is the exit route for some who were on the upper floors. france 24 is reporting that the gunmen while in there threw grenades into the faces of the hostages. drew grenades at them while they were trapped inside. the french president francois hollande. first video from here. listen. [. [gunfire] [explosion]
ground but looks like it is political. cut it in half and off we go. i think what the president is doing now is enough to contain the damage at least until he leaves office. but i still don t see how a small number like this, whether it is 9,000 or 5,000, is going to be enough to defend. i m glad he stopped the drawdown. it is not a sufficient number. joining me now is former u.s. ambassador to afghanistan james cunningham, now with the atlantic council. ambassador cunningham was the lead author on a new. reporter: out this week from a group of former officials urging president obama to keep troops in afghanistan. good morning. good morning, thank you for having me on. ambassador, the start of this war, i recall many warnings about afghanistan being a quagmire that empires enter and never leave. great powers tried to figure it out. isn t there a concern among your group of former officials that there is no exit route from
afghanistan? there is an exit route and we re on that route, actually. though it is not proceeding as rapidly and as quickly as one might have wished. but the essence of the argument that we made in that paper you referred to is that we have a strategy in afghanistan that is working, that the afghans have taken responsibility for security, but they need a little bit more help and a little bit more time to solidify the gains that have been made and give them the best chance for success. what gives you reason to think that things have changed in that regard about training afghan security forces. it is not a new thing, a new effort to train up the afghan military. you know, we spent 14 years of fighting, $65 billion. many thousands of lives lost there. american lives, not to mention afghan lives. is there a reason to believe that the afghan powers have are getting there, their act together here? yes, there is.