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The Amanpour Hour

Interview With McCain Institute Executive Director Evelyn Farkas; Interview With "Ethel Kennedy" Author Kerry Kennedy; Haiti's Brutal Battle Against Gangs; Interview With Facebook Whistleblower Frances Haugen; Interview With Former Cambridge Analytica Director Brittany Kaiser; When U.S. Troops Flooded Saudi Arabia To Fend Off Invasion; The U.K.-U.S. Spat Over Winnie The Pooh. Aired 11a-12p ET

Aired October 17, 2026 - 11:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[11:00:35]

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello everyone, and welcome to THE AMANPOUR HOUR.

Here's where we're headed this week.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: It's a pity that we are losing -- we are losing strong partner.

AMANPOUR: Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he was shocked by the U.S. striking a deal with Russia, even as Putin hits Ukrainian civilians ever harder. I discuss why this is happening and where it may be headed.

Then, as President Trump takes on some of Washington's most famous landmarks, including the Kennedy Center, a scion of the dynasty, Kerry Kennedy joins me.

We also discuss how her brother, Health Secretary RFK Jr., is tearing the family apart and the legacy of her mother, human rights champion Ethel Kennedy.

And the desperate efforts to take on the gangs strangling Haiti. Nick Paton Walsh reports from Port-au-Prince.

Also on the program, Meta enters the A.I. race as "The Social Reckoning" highlights one of the company's darkest moments. I'm joined by whistleblowers Frances Haugen and Brittany Kaiser.

Plus, as Saudi Arabia suffers its deadliest attack in over a decade, from my archive how the kingdom reacted to the first Gulf War on its border.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nobody would like war, actually. But when you are forced, when you -- when you are forced to, there is no alternative actually.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.

Stunned, appalled, and deeply worried -- that's the reaction from Ukraine and its allies as the United States breaks its own sanctions on Russia with a diesel deal and reportedly slow walks crucial battlefield intelligence that helps Ukrainian forces fight their Russian invaders.

In his sharpest tone yet, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that he feels betrayed by his American friends.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You think you're losing America?

ZELENSKYY: Yes. Yes, but not because of us. We. I mean, we can't be weak otherwise we can't survive. That's why it's painful. When President Trump chooses one side, not our side.

But we are ok that he's in the middle. But if you're in the middle, you have to stay in the middle, not on the wrong side. This is not the right side of history.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Just imagine if President Roosevelt had turned towards the Axis powers and against his plucky little ally, Great Britain, during the blitz.

Now, of course, European allies are asking Zelenskyy to be cautious with his rhetoric because he and they still need American help.

The latest twist in Trumps relationship with Putin also imperils the whole continent of Europe, which is also facing Russian hybrid warfare.

And I spoke to Evelyn Farkas about this. She's the former deputy assistant secretary of defense. And she joined me from Germany.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Evelyn Farkas, welcome.

We've talked about this a long time and over many, many years of this war. What do you think is actually the U.S. plan, first and foremost? Why is this happening coming from the White House?

EVELYN FARKAS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MCCAIN INSTITUTE: Well, Christiane, I think it's head-scratching, frankly, and disconcerting, to say the least for all of us who understand what's at stake here.

And President Trump has not articulated very clearly how this diesel fuel is going to change -- this new Russian diesel fuel deal will change the price for Americans at the diesel pumps because most experts are saying it's going to have little to no impact at all.

So, what is the strategy here then, vis-a-vis Russia? You're essentially giving Putin a gift -- all the money, all the revenue that he will gain from this.

And that is completely disconnected to trying to get a peace deal, because as you know, the way to get a deal from someone like Putin is to put pressure on him, as you mentioned earlier.

AMANPOUR: And you're right, that seems to be lifted -- the pressure seems to be lifting on Putin, certainly for his war chest, certainly for the moment.

Now, you heard what President Zelenskyy said. He said it, you know, to allies. He said it in interviews, that he feels betrayed, that he feels that, as you said, it's a gift to Putin.

[11:04:47]

AMANPOUR: He also said, and they are absolutely clear about this in Kyiv, that they have had their access to the Starlink, Star Shield version of that, the military version of that, slowed or cut off without any prior warning.

How do you think that happens? Musk, who owns Starlink, has said it's not up to him. All his military hardware is sold to the Pentagon, and, you know, the president also has the final say over it. What do you think is going on there?

FARKAS: Well, Christiane, since the Pentagon is paying the bills, as Musk pointed out, and as we know, because this has come up in the past in the media, the reality is that, I guess, the Pentagon can tell the company how they want the Starlink system used.

So, it sounds like, you know, if we believe President Zelenskyy, and we have no reason not to believe him, you know, our understanding is that probably this was ordered by the Pentagon.

Now, whether that was because of a White House order, we don't know.

AMANPOUR: Tell me about intelligence sharing. Do you think that that has been cut off? What exactly would that mean? What exactly does that entail right now in the battle?

FARKAS: Right. So -- and this really comes down, Christiane, not so much to the troops fighting on the front line, which was what you were talking about with the Starlink.

It really comes down to protecting the civilians and protecting the civilian infrastructure, including the energy grid. And the ballistic missiles that Russia has, it's very difficult for them to be detected ahead of time by the Ukrainians. They don't have the satellite capability. They don't have the intelligence that the United States has.

And so, the United States has been providing this intelligence to the Ukrainian military, to the Ukrainian authorities, so they can warn their people to go and duck in the shelters, because remember, the Russians are trying to kill innocent civilians to try to get the Ukrainians to surrender.

So, the fact that the Ukrainians are saying this intelligence was not provided, this warning was not provided, means that roughly we are hearing six people died in these ballistic missile attacks, and 600,000 people experienced a blackout, right?

So, there are real consequences to withholding information, and that means, you know, in lives.

AMANPOUR: And Evelyn, I want to focus and to pull back for a moment. Focus on what President Trump does not want Zelenskyy to do, which is attack Russia's refineries and energy infrastructure.

Today, Zelenskyy said they are going to continue to do that after a pause of three days, he said to, you know, to show willing to President Trump that he was willing to go into a ceasefire. Of course, Putin did not respond. So, there's that.

Then if you pull back, where do you think this entire situation is headed? Because everything seems very off-kilter right now.

U.S. doubling down on appearing to be pro-Russian. NATO, as you said, the Supreme Allied Commander giving this extraordinary public defense of what they would do to stop Russia, you know, even trying to invade any NATO country.

It seems like there's a bit of a turning point going on right now.

FARKAS: Well, Christiane, I think this happened because there was another turning point happening, and Putin, Russia, was desperate.

Because the Ukrainians were having a huge impact on the Russian supply of oil, even to their own civilians. There were lines, you know, and there are still lines in Russia waiting for ability to get gasoline to tank up their cars.

And so, Putin was desperate, made his phone call to President Trump, you know, convinced him of this diesel deal, which President Trump is selling, you know, in the context of a heated election as a way to bring down prices.

Again, as I mentioned, that's not going to happen.

So, they were trying to address a turning point where Russia was severely weakened, and it is still severely weakened. So, they're trying to salvage the situation, and it appears that President Trump has been somehow brought into salvaging Russia's position, which is the incredibly alarming situation.

And I hope that Congress and the American people will speak because we know that they don't agree based on legislation and polling with the president's seemingly new approach to Russia.

AMANPOUR: Evelyn Farkas, head of the McCain Institute, thank you so much indeed for joining us.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Coming up later on the show, as "The Social Reckoning" reimagines a painful moment for Meta, two whistleblowers tell me it rarely and barely scratches the surface.

Up next, Kerry Kennedy on her mother Ethel's human rights work, pushing back against Trump and against her MAGA brother RFK Jr.

[11:09:29]

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

The Rose Garden paved over, the East Wing reduced to rubble, the Kennedy Center threatened with destruction. Throughout his second term, President Trump has projected his vision for America onto its capital and taken a wrecking ball to all that stood in the way.

Some of them are directly tied to one of America's most famous and tragic political dynasties, the Kennedys.

Well now, Kerry Kennedy is speaking out in her new book called "Ethel Kennedy". The daughter of Bobby and Ethel is championing her mother's legacy of human rights work carried out in the shadow of unspeakable tragedy.

[11:14:50]

AMANPOUR: In our conversation, we also discussed what Ethel Kennedy might have made of the policies of Donald Trump and her brother, Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Kerry Kennedy, welcome to the program.

KERRY KENNEDY, AUTHOR, "ETHEL KENNEDY": Great to be with you, as always.

AMANPOUR: Now, obviously, you're a woman who loves her mother, but what is it that you want the world to know about your mother's role and what she did for America and for the world?

KENNEDY: It's a story of a woman who had 10 children, was pregnant with her 11th, was standing next to her husband when a madman came out and shot five people and killed my father and killed her husband in her arms. And what do you do with that trauma.

She got up the next day and she went to work and she raised her 11 children, her 11 traumatized children, on her own. She became one of the most empowered women of her generation. And then she became this extraordinary human rights activist.

And I think her survival was really through her faith and her service.

AMANPOUR: Do you remember the trauma afterwards?

KENNEDY: Yes. I mean, the way I found out that my father was killed is, I had gone to -- I was eight years old. I was with him that day. And I went back to my hotel room, went to sleep, woke up the next morning to watch "Bugs Bunny", sat on the floor cross-legged, and turned on my TV. And then the newsflash came across.

You know, I was alone in a hotel room watching that. It was really, really hard.

And then the flood of attention and the seeing the scene again and again and again, never able to watch TV without that maybe coming up was really hard. And I think all of us experienced and continue to experience PTSD.

AMANPOUR: Let me ask you, I want to ask you because many of your siblings and of your cousins have actually run for office, believing in the Kennedy mantra of service to the nation.

But in 2023, your mother was reportedly broken-hearted when Bobby decided to run for president against Joe Biden.

And was she aware that Bobby endorsed Trump? And what would she have said? And what do you think about that?

KENNEDY: Bobby's endorsement of Trump is anathema to everything that we've ever been taught as a family about how to conduct one's self in public life.

I think that this is the most corrupt administration in history. And I think that it's been extremely painful to the American people.

We've pulled out of the commitments we've made around the world from the United Nations programs and human rights programs, the International Criminal Court. And he has been terrible, especially to the press, and undermining democracy.

I don't understand how Bobby said to himself that this is ok to do. I don't understand that, frankly. But that's the path he's on.

And I think for so many families, Christiane, in the United States, they're in this position of having a split, of people going one way or the other politically.

And we need to continue to see the dignity in one another and to find in our hearts a way to love people with whom we disagree.

AMANPOUR: I want to just also ask you about some very important things in your family's legacy. First of all, the Kennedy Center. After the assassination, it was named for President Kennedy.

So when you see this bipartisan now kind of under attack by the current president of the United States complete with putting his own name on it, what do you think? KENNEDY: Well, first of all, I think, you know, this is the memorial created by the United States Congress to a slain president. So, putting Trump's name on it would be like renaming the Washington Monument the Trump Washington Monument or the Trump Lincoln Memorial or the Trump Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

[11:19:51]

KENNEDY: And their argument is they're not -- there is not money for it. But in the Big Beautiful Bill, they -- the Congress passed $246 million in order to restore the Kennedy Center. So that's just not true.

But I think the main point here is, Christiane, that the people of America are suffering. Gas prices are through the roof. People can't afford to go to work because they can't afford the gas to get their car. It is -- this is a total disaster for Americans. So President Trump, do your job. Focus on the people's pain and the work that you're supposed to do in the -- in the Oval Office and not on the Kennedy Center. That's not your job.

AMANPOUR: How do you think that would have played out if this was happening when Ethel Kennedy was still alive, the destruction of all this history?

KENNEDY: You know, I think she'd be there with the pit backs at the Kennedy Center taking its name off the wall. I mean, you know, she was a woman of action and that's the way she rolled.

AMANPOUR: It's a really, really great read and it's really good to talk to you. Thank you so much, Kerry.

KENNEDY: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: A fierce warrior for democracy and human rights.

Now, when we come back --

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NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: About seven or eight shots have kind of flown over us. We've heard the crack.

It's a sign that the gangs are still really close by and don't want the police to ever feel comfortable down here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Years after a presidential assassination in Haiti, gangs are filling the power vacuum. We have a report on what that looks like.

[11:21:41]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

It seems to be a never-ending story of conflict and violence for Haiti, where gangs are holding the country's future hostage right now. Elections initially scheduled over the next few months have been indefinitely postponed as those gangs continue to disrupt preparations.

The reality on the ground is as dire as ever. According to the United Nations, more than 5,000 people have been killed or injured in the Caribbean nation this year alone. And millions are in need of humanitarian assistance.

As the government battles to regain control, CNN's Nick Paton Walsh sees how a controversial mercenary group is now entering the fray. And a warning: it does contain material that some viewers may find disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Haiti is so stifled and tormented by gangs, the fight against them has spread to hills outside the capital, Port-au-Prince.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (graphics): We are in misery. Kenscoff is in misery. The bandits killed our families, our kids. We had to run away from home.

WALSH: Here in Kenscoff, they were pushed out, but stormed back in again, killing and kidnaping dozens of locals in revenge.

We joined police on a day's long advance to reclaim tiny remote villages. We're blurring faces for security.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (graphics): The guys are shooting.

We cannot stay here. We are exposed.

WALSH: But as we move in with the police, the gangs use the fog and hills to keep shooting.

You can see that debris barrier there. I mean, another way, the gangs slow the police down. About 7 or 8 shots have kind of flown over us. We've heard the crack.

It's a sign that the gangs are still really close by, and don't want the police to ever feel comfortable down here. There's another one.

More barricades lie ahead. Locals eager on the road to get back to homes they've not seen for two years. The barricades dismantled and burned so the gangs can't return and remake them.

It is an extraordinary scene of locals just flooding in to kind of reclaim their own streets after the gangs have been pushed out.

A ritual praising the heavens, overshadowed by ruin.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (graphics): The gangs leave their youngest members behind while they run away.

WALSH: Hours earlier, two helicopters used a pause in the rain to land a police SWAT team in the hilltops.

The helicopters are part of American security tycoon, Erik Prince's operation here, bringing new capabilities and the experience of foreign ex-Special Forces. But not for free.

And these are the first pictures of Prince's private security fighters in Haiti, who led the push with specialized Haitian police in what's called the task force.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hear a lot of things about you.

You see up here.

[11:29:45]

WALSH: He tells the police where to position. Nobody has seen their operations in Haiti before. And this drone footage shows gang members fleeing.

Erik Prince made his name and millions in Iraq with Blackwater, sullied and reprimanded over civilian casualties there.

His ties to Blackwater long severed, he is now selling a new idea, the private security. Mercenaries to their detractors, can tackle security or gang problems for failing states that can't.

ERIK PRINCE, FOUNDER, VECTUS GLOBAL: Yes, that's a bad city (ph), right? That's the bad part right there.

WALSH: Yes.

He was first sent to Haiti as a Navy SEAL 32 years ago, and now he gave CNN his first interview and access to his operation here.

PRINCE: When we started, a police truck like the one we rode in here on (ph) pretty much one of those was lost every week, attacked, ambushed, burned, the occupants slaughtered, butchered.

That's done now because there's much better response, quicker air support, drones, whatever that prevents the police from being overmatched. That's really why we're here.

WALSH: Over 2,000 drone strikes on varied targets in the past year, a task force source said here and what they said was a gang Molotov cocktail factory.

Prince wouldn't reveal his annual fee of likely tens of millions of dollars. But on top of that, he gets a 10th of any new Customs revenue generated if his leaner operation ends smuggling at dozens of illegal border crossings. Could you put a number on what your contract is worth in terms of what the Haitian government is paying you?

PRINCE: The previous U.N. force is that our cost is one sixth of what their annual camp cost was. So it's a fraction of a fraction of a fraction.

WALSH: He had aimed to free up key roads within a year here, but hasn't. Although the U.N. has said this year has seen the gangs spread in the capital halted, even reversed.

You haven't killed any major gang leaders yet. Have there been challenges in some of the operations you're doing? Is not killing top leaders part of your strategy?

PRINCE: Look, insurgencies are not defeated by taking out just leadership. I know there's been an obsession of that in the United States, but wars are won by taking significant numbers of enemy manpower off the battlefield. We are in the process of doing that and enabling sovereignty to resume.

WALSH: To grasp the enormity of the collapse in daily trauma, we head to the once-vibrant downtown of the capital. So long gang-held, swathes of it are now overgrown, as though nature is tired of the violence and wants to take back control.

We patrol at dawn with the new U.N.-mandated gang suppression force. Here, soldiers from Chad.

First light, when those who live under the gangs make their daily break for it to head out to the rest of the world on foot, through rivers of sewage and trash, to reach work or food. A body lies abandoned in the road, likely dumped there overnight.

We go back with them at dusk to see it all happen again for the home trip.

We all talk about how desperate life must be here. To attempt this in the daylight must simply be terrifying.

It's eerie being here inside an armored personnel carrier, but they're risking it out on the street here in the dark, many of them carrying what looks like food for their homes, things back into gang-held areas.

The promise of a quick fix at a price that's still out of reach.

Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: When we come back, as Meta leans into A.I., a warning from the past about just how it runs its business. I'm joined by two Facebook whistleblowers.

[11:33:49] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

Despite dire warnings about artificial intelligence, Mark Zuckerberg's Meta is now pushing forward into the A.I. frontier, desperately trying to play catch up as it reveals new models and declares a benevolent goal.

But we've seen and we've been here before when Facebook's promises to connect us concealed how our data was being harvested and used.

This has all come to light again in a new movie, "The Social Reckoning", a sequel to the Oscar winning "Social Network".

I spoke with the whistleblower who inspired the film, Frances Haugen, along with Brittany Kaiser, who was a Cambridge Analytica director, before exposing how Facebook was being used by the company to influence the U.S. presidential election of 2016 and the Brexit referendum.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Welcome to the program.

Let me start with you, Frances Haugen. Just to remind us how bold it was and how scary it was to go against this mighty company, Facebook, when you did, to tell the world, to try to tell the world, some of the dangers that were inherent in their procedures.

FRANCIS HAUGEN, FACEBOOK WHISTLEBLOWER: Blowing the whistle on a big tech company is a really complicated thing.

[11:39:45]

HAUGEN: Probably the largest barrier that people have to jump over before they can even consider going to the public is being confident that what they're seeing is real.

You know, the reason why these cultures get so toxic is that there are lots and lots of stories that get told inside the company about why things have to be the way they are.

And I struggled with that for a long time. And until they dissolved the civic integrity team, so the team I worked on within Facebook that was responsible for keeping Facebook safe for elections, things like that, I was able to justify a lot of the things I heard.

But once they dissolved the team, that's when I knew the public was going to need to step in if Facebook was ever going to change.

AMANPOUR: Brittany Kaiser, you were the whistleblower for Cambridge Analytica. There was a case when you came forward about them harvesting and using personal data from millions of Facebook user profiles to allegedly influence the outcomes of the 2016 presidential election in the U.S. and Brexit. Now, a New Mexico jury recently found that Meta, as it's now called, had misled users about Facebook data practices, failing to disclose that it sold user data.

Now, the Meta spokesman has said the company disagrees with this verdict and would continue to defend itself against what it says are efforts to distort its record.

That is what you would expect people to say in this case. So, what was it like going through this whistleblower process?

BRITTANY KAISER, FORMER CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA WHISTLEBLOWER: Undertaking the whistleblowing process against multiple large companies, as well as different administrations that were involved in elections processes that were clients of my former employer, was definitely one of the scariest things I've ever done.

As whistleblowers, we call it a crisis of conscience moment, where you know that you might be the only person that has evidence and is willing to take an action and do something about it.

So, you jump off a cliff without knowing if you have a parachute, and you dive deep with investigators, legislators, regulators, journalists, anyone that's really willing to go through the process.

I did 27 different government investigations, over 50 different lawsuits since, and nothing has gotten better. In fact, in the age of A.I. or superintelligence, a lot of the problems that Frances and I identified in our whistleblowing processes have become exponentially worse, especially data protection and national security issues that are caused by these technology platforms.

HAUGEN: And we don't need, you know, superintelligence of three or five years from now when the A.I. wakes up to be dangerous. A.I. of right now is enough to run foreign interference operations that we would have never imagined in 2016.

AMANPOUR: So, I just want to ask you, because you were a consultant, Frances, on the Aaron Sorkin film. Mikey Madison plays you. I wonder how you thought she portrayed you, but also your earnestness about getting this out.

And just tell me a little bit about, you know, the collaboration with a journalist. In this case, the "Wall Street Journal", who really got your story out. What was that like?

HAUGEN: So, every film is an adaption, or every, you know, inspired- by-a-true-story film is an adaption. And adaptions require creative choices.

And the thing that I thought they did a really good job of capturing, in terms of like the relationship with the journalists, this is like one of my favorite things about this movie, is when I started working with Jeff. And the movie does an amazing job of capturing the joy of discovery. You know, like as you find the puzzle pieces, how do you fit them

together, that teamwork and that kind of -- that joint process of creation.

And I think when you have a really good whistleblower and journalist relationship, that's the kind of thing that gets unlocked, because both sides have different kinds of information and different kinds of insights, and together you can see the whole picture much more completely.

AMANPOUR: Listen to this research from Pew last year. It found that two-thirds of Americans had an unfavorable opinion of Mark Zuckerberg. And we see in the film Jeremy Strong playing him and his internal team trying to humanize him for court and congressional appearances.

How would you describe him, Frances, in terms of his care for the effect on the public, the commons, so to speak? Because we see Jeremy Strong playing what essentially appears to be somebody now focused only on winning and on the bottom line.

HAUGEN: I think part of the reason why people have such an emotional reaction to Mark and such displeasure with him is that there have been a series of large scandals.

Like Cambridge Analytica is one of the larger ones. But there have been multiple beyond that. I think the most recent around the creeper glasses. So, you know, the augmented reality glasses with the little cameras in them.

It seemed like he has not learned or like not incorporated the feedback from the public.

And I'll give you an example. They recently launched a second version of the glasses that don't have a camera. So, you have a camera version and no camera version.

A journalist asked him, like, wow, like we notice you now have a version that doesn't have a camera. Is that because you heard the feedback from people that they don't want to spy on their neighbors and their friends? Is it like you finally are like integrating some of that privacy feedback?

[11:44:50]

HAUGEN: And he said completely with no self-consciousness, "no, no, it's so much cheaper".

It really concerned me when it comes to A.I., because if he -- he's either not being told the feedback from the public or he does not care about the feedback from the public. We don't know which.

But when you have a single person who gets to direct one of the major frontier A.I. labs who is not taking seriously the implications of frontier technology, that's a serious risk for all of us.

AMANPOUR: We need to have a longer conversation about this. But for now, Frances Haugen and Brittany Kaiser, thank you so much

indeed. Really great to have your perspective.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Now, both Frances and Brittany are working now on a whistleblowing initiative to protect employees who expose the wrongdoings of tech giants like Meta.

After a break, as Saudi Arabia comes under fire from the Houthis, a look back at the first Gulf War, when the shadow of conflict loomed heavy over this kingdom.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think maybe going to war might be the lesser of the evil than seeing what happened to Kuwait happens here.

[11:45:56]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

Saudi Arabia is in trouble. Over the past week, the Iran-backed Yemeni Houthis have bombed the capital's international airport, killing 13 people and injuring dozens more. They've been the deadliest attacks on Saudi Arabia in many, many years.

The Houthis are also directly threatening its economic lifeline by closing a key oil transit point in the Red Sea.

Ever since the first Gulf War, Saudi Arabia has depended on the United States to protect it. But now the United States has not entered the war on Saudi Arabia's side.

Back in 1990, thousands of U.S. troops did flock to the kingdom to fend off the threat of an invasion by Saddam Hussein. But also back then, many in Saudi Arabia had complicated feelings about the American military buildup as I reported from there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: As day breaks, the voice from the mosque calls the faithful to prayer. Then the vendors can set up shop and get ready for another day of business as usual.

Except for a few soldiers strolling the city streets, there's hardly a sign that this part of the country is now home to hundreds of thousands of American and Allied Forces.

Hardly a sign that war may be on the horizon, those who can't take the heat have fled across country, but most have stayed to face the facts.

KHALID AL ZAMIL, BUSINESSMAN: I think maybe going to war might be the lesser of the evil than seeing what happened to Kuwait happen here. AMANPOUR: Khalid al Zamil's (ph) family heads the largest private

enterprise in Saudi Arabia. These are strong words from a businessman who worries that war could cripple the powerful economy his father's generation helped to build.

AL ZAMIL: It's a matter of how great is the nation, any nation. I mean, ok, if you are afraid to die, yes. And let the principal go. Well, I don't know how great you will be after a while.

AMANPOUR: From the businessman to the intellectuals, the sentiment's the same.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nobody would like war, actually. But when you are forced. When you are forced to, there is no alternative actually, than to go to war.

AMANPOUR: It's the first time the clouds of war have darkened this kingdom. The first time American troops have been deployed here. And though many resent their presence, they know they need them.

NABILA AL-BASSAM: That the foreigners have come in and they're pitching in to help us, that's fine.

AMANPOUR: But, says Nabila al-Bassam (ph), this crisis should make Saudi Arabia bolster its own defenses.

AL-BASSAM: The mere fact that we realize our own weaknesses, and that we have to do something about it.

AMANPOUR: As they come and go about their daily lives, there are many who say this country won't be the same, whether at war or peace.

But some things never change for Muslims who are again raising their fists against fellow Muslims.

Christiane Amanpour, CNN, in Saudi Arabia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: To this day, 35 years later, Saudi forces with all their top flight U.S.-made equipment, are still struggling to defend themselves from the Houthis and from Iran.

When we come back, a political spat a century in the making. 100 years since the arrival of Winnie the Pooh, how has the inspiration for the British bear ended up in a New York library?

We'll tell you next.

[11:54:12]

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AMANPOUR: And finally, Winnie the Pooh and his friendly bear stories were first published by A.A. Milne on October 14th, 1926 -- 100 years ago this week. Since then, the honey-hungry British bear has reached hallowed status,

beloved by both children and the bean counters as Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore and Tigger became one of the most profitable media franchises in history.

But not without wandering into a surprising amount of controversy. There was that time Chinese censors descended on Pooh after he became a symbol of rare dissent against President Xi Jinping.

Now, it appears the cuddly, yellow bear is a thorn in the side of U.S.-U.K. relations because the original Pooh bear, owned by the real- life Christopher Robin, now resides in the New York Public Library.

[11:59:47]

AMANPOUR: And despite many, many requests from the Brits over the years, New York is clinging on to the toy, which was bought at London's legendary Harrods Department Store 105 years ago, five years before the book was even published.

Perhaps, though, it does give the U.K. and the British Museum, filled with contested treasures from around the world, a taste of its own honey.

That's all we have time for this week. Don't forget, you can find all of our shows online as podcasts at CNN.com/audio and on all other major platforms.

I'm Christiane Amanpour in London. Thank you for watching. And I'll see you again next week.