USAID chief: Civilians will pay the price if war expands

GEOFF BENNETT: The U.S. Agency for International Development is engaged in humanitarian work across many of the conflict zones around the world.

From Gaza to Ukraine, Sudan, and beyond, nearly 300 million people in the world are in need of humanitarian assistance.

The agency's work is crucial in getting that help to the most vulnerable, despite challenges of access and violence.

Amna Nawaz sat down earlier this afternoon with the administrator of USAID, Samantha Power, in New York, where world leaders have gathered for the U.N. General Assembly.

AMNA NAWAZ: Administrator Power, welcome back to the "News Hour."

Thanks for joining us.

SAMANTHA POWER, USAID Administrator: Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: I want to begin with some news today, and that is specifically out of a ProPublica report just today, that they're saying that, in the spring of this year, USAID submitted a report to the State Department that included an assessment that said Israel was blocking aid into Gaza, specifically medical and food aid.

You know that would trigger the U.S. stopping weapons supplies to Israel.

Can you confirm that you sent that report, and, if so, what happened to it?

SAMANTHA POWER: Well, I think we have made very plain our desire to see as much aid as possible flow into Gaza,our concerns about a lot of the roadblocks that have been put in the way.

I'm not going to comment on any report from today, from a long time ago, beyond to say that our focus is as laser-sharp on that set of issues around access, as the number of trucks flowing in today is not sufficient.

AMNA NAWAZ: If I may, because the report is not just alleging that there are roadblocks.

As you have lamented before, it's difficult to get aid in.

They're alleging that Israel was deliberately blocking aid.

In your assessment, have they been at any point in this war deliberately blocking aid?

SAMANTHA POWER: Again, there needs to be improvement, and particularly in advance of winter.

There also needs to be improvement, needless to say, in terms of civilian protection.

Almost every day, it feels like we wake up to a report of an internally displaced person camp, or a school, or a medical facility being subjected to fire.

It's extremely challenging to fight in an environment where Hamas is deliberately using civilians as, effectively, human shields.

But the responsibility, again, on every professional military is to fight in a manner that minimizes the harm to civilians.

AMNA NAWAZ: As we speak here today, of course, the conflict seems to be expanding as well.

There have been some leaders who are expressing concern about the way in which Israel is now waging war in Lebanon.

The UNICEF chief said yesterday that reports of 24 children in Lebanon among the hundreds dead, and she urged people to adhere to international humanitarian law.

Can you offer your assessment of the way in which Israel is waging this war?

Are they adhering to international law?

SAMANTHA POWER: Watching the risk of escalation and expansion of a conflict that has already displaced tens of thousands of people on the Israeli side, on the Lebanese side, on top of the crisis we were just talking about in Gaza, with all of the human consequences of that, it would be catastrophic.

And so all of our diplomacy, again, is invested in trying to contain this conflict.

That is what this week at the U.N. is about, is pressing the parties to make sure that cooler heads prevail, because, if you need a reminder of what conflict looks like, look at the human consequences in Gaza, the fate of the hostages still hanging in the balance, the fate of Palestinian civilians.

Look at the displacement that has already occurred in Lebanon, even with this lower-grade conflict.

So if this were to spiral further out of control, it will only be civilians who pay the price.

AMNA NAWAZ: You have faced criticism, I think it's fair to say, from even within your own agency, staffers on your team, who express a frustration with what they see as a hypocrisy of U.S. foreign policy, that the U.S. continues to supply humanitarian aid on a large scale, to try to get that into the people of Gaza at the same time that it's supplying Israel with weapons to continue to wage that war.

And I know some of your staffers, it's been publicly reported, have asked you about what they see as the Biden administration's being complicit in what they see as genocide being waged by Israel in Gaza.

And one of the things they point out is the fact that you wrote a book on genocide.

They have called on you to speak out or to resign.

How do you handle that kind of frustration within your own agency and what are you telling your staffers?

SAMANTHA POWER: Well, USAID is an incredibly mission-driven agency where people come to work every day to save lives, to improve lives.

It's honestly inspiring to work, including among those people who criticize me, the incredibly talented people that could be working in the private sector.

Instead, they come to work every day to help people like the people who are suffering in Gaza.

More than 40,000 civilians have been killed in Gaza, more than 13,000 children, more than 308 workers.

I would honestly be disappointed if my staff were not in churn and pressing for more.

And I just feel lucky that I'm in the government, in the room engaging the Israelis, working with a team that's pushing for a cease-fire, because fundamentally that's what's needed most of all, because, clearly, none of us can be satisfied with where things are now in Gaza.

AMNA NAWAZ: Do you share any part of their concern that there's a hypocrisy to the U.S. policy there?

SAMANTHA POWER: I share their focus on the human consequences of everything we do, and that's why we have live debates inside the administration.

It's also why President Biden in the General Assembly today just talked about the importance of the cease-fire.

AMNA NAWAZ: We heard the president also today speak about Sudan and what is now the largest humanitarian crisis on the planet.

He recently said that now famine has taken hold in the Darfur region.

I know that aid trucks have not been able to reach one of the largest camps for displaced people there and access there has been blocked by some of the militia forces.

What more can the U.S. do?

I know you're already providing record levels of aid, but should we be considering airdrops, some other means of getting aid in?

SAMANTHA POWER: All of the above.

But it is really important to say that we cannot humanitarian aid our way out of the kind of widespread famine that is at risk of breaking out across Sudan.

You're right.

USAID is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in commodities, but many of those trucks are just sitting at checkpoints.

And that's just a matter of political will.

It's a matter of, do these self-interested generals who clearly care more about themselves than their country, are they willing to put their own interests above even letting trucks get through that could avert famine?

And so there are plenty of countries who are providing weapons to those actors who could be exercising their leverage, and that is what the diplomacy is about this week.

AMNA NAWAZ: We heard the president call for people to stop that supply of weapons into that conflict.

Is the U.S. doing enough, in your opinion, to leverage those relationships, to stop that flow of weapons in?

SAMANTHA POWER: Well, every channel that we have to those major players in this conflict, we are using, including this week, in very high-level engagements, including some that I have had myself, certainly those, the president the most important.

AMNA NAWAZ: And do you feel there's been progress in those talks this week?

SAMANTHA POWER: We will see.

I mean, there's certainly verbal progress.

And we have heard a lot of commitments to peace that are not then followed through with actual termination of weapons supply.

But we also have a responsibility, as you said, to think about airlift, airdrop, even if it's more expensive and less efficient, just as with Gaza.

We had to take measures like that.

AMNA NAWAZ: You know the duties and responsibilities of USAID are so vast and, I know just yesterday you made a major announcement when it comes to a particular initiative around eliminating lead in a number of low- and middle-income countries, a huge increase in funding to $150 million in partnership with other agencies as well.

It was stunning to read that in some places that level of lead exposure for children is more than 10 times the rate of what we were also alarmed to see here in Flint, Michigan.

Why is this particular initiative a priority for USAID right now?

SAMANTHA POWER: Well, first of all, thank you so much for raising it.

This is a silent killer globally, kills more than 1.5 million people a year.

That's more than HIV and malaria combined.

And yet, while we spend billions of dollars, and rightly, in combating those diseases, up to this point, we have only spent $15 million a year.

And there hasn't been a salience to this issue.

Many of the heads of state that I engage and bring what is quite rudimentary data about the one in two lead poisoning that exists in most developing countries, most of those heads of state are shocked.

AMNA NAWAZ: That's one out of every two children in these countries.

SAMANTHA POWER: One out of every two kids, when it was one in 20, as you said, in Flint, Michigan, when we were rightly scandalized by that.

So it won't take much to get lead out of paint, lead out of spices, lead out of cosmetics, these consumer products.

We did it in advanced economies.

But then the playbook stayed here and it didn't go to developing countries.

We can address something that is literally poisoning kids when they go to school, when they pick up their toys, when they eat the food that their that their mothers prepare because they might be lead residue in some pots.

What a tragedy that this is something we could have solved all these years, but what an opportunity actually to make a huge difference in a short time.

AMNA NAWAZ: USAID Administrator Samantha Power, thank you so much for your time.

SAMANTHA POWER: Thank you.