Afghan Girl in Need of Expensive Surgery
SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL), PRESIDENT-ELECT: May God bless the United States of America.</s>ZAIN VERJEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Mr. President, just hours after your victory speech, a threat from Moscow, President Medvedev warning he'll move Russian missiles near Poland to cancel a U.S. missile defense shield based there. Tough talk as Russia comes roaring back on the world stage, bolder, richer, rolling in oil and gas money.</s>JAMES COLLINS, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO RUSSIA: Russia has reemerged as a major economy, major political player, security player. Much more organized, much more self-reliant than it was at the beginning of this decade.</s>VERJEE: And behind Medvedev is one of the toughest world leaders, Vladimir Putin, determined to flex Russia's new muscle.</s>NICHOLAS BURNS, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: The new president will have to find a way to work with Vladimir Putin.</s>VERJEE: Russia wants to be taken seriously. Can the U.S. work with Russia without giving in? (on camera) On every big international issue the U.S. runs into Russia. On ending North Korea's nuclear program, on confronting Iran over its efforts to build the bomb, on getting a Middle East peace agreement. The U.S. needs Russia. (voice-over) But Russia is also the bear, threatening its neighbors, crushing opposition at home, echoes of old Soviet ways. Its heavy hand beating back Georgia, a U.S. ally, has damaged what seemed to be a promising partnership between Washington and Moscow. How far can the U.S. push back? Putin is fuming over the U.S. trying to get Georgia and Ukraine into NATO, and that American missile defense system in eastern Europe, all in Russia's backyard.</s>BURNS: All that, I think, speaks to the need for the next American president to have a relationship with the Russians that works. But on the other hand, we certainly don't want to see a world re-created in central Europe where Russia feels free to intimidate and bully its smaller neighbors.</s>PHILLIPS: Zain Verjee joins me now. Zain, don't forget: Russia is also a nuclear power. Right?</s>VERJEE: Right, exactly. I mean, it is the other nuclear superpower. It's got thousands of nuclear, biological weapons. It's even threatened, Kyra, to use them against Poland. So the U.S. really needs to address all of that and keep working with Russia, experts say, to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and especially to keep those weapons away from terrorists. So it's just better off that the relationship with Russia is good, and experts say that the U.S. really should take the lead on that -- Kyra.</s>PHILLIPS: Well, of course the U.S. wants good relationship, but is Russia really all that powerful here in 2008?</s>VERJEE: Well, it is a powerful country, but it's not the superpower, a superpower any more, in that respect. The financial crisis, things like lower oil prices, all of this is really hurting Russia now. Many, though, are saying that we shouldn't overestimate Russia's power or importance but acknowledge that it is a key player. And the bottom line, though, Kyra, is that U.S./Russia relation really does need a little intensive care.</s>PHILLIPS: Zain Verjee, great to see you.</s>VERJEE: You, too.</s>PHILLIPS: Well, a tiny Afghan girl is in dire need of an expensive operation. Three-year-old Nazia swallowed a battery, and now she's having some life-threatening complications. Our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr, met the girl during a visit to Bagram Air Base, where she's known there as the hospital princess.</s>BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Nazia cannot speak for herself. She has no voice. But her eyes tell the struggle of sick and injured children here in Afghanistan. We first met 3-year-old Nazia at this Egyptian hospital at Bagram Air Base. Her 16-year-old brother cares for her after an accident in April put this tiny life in jeopardy.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): She gave a little AA battery for her to play with, and she ate it.</s>STARR: Nazia's life might have ended there. There's no emergency care in much of Afghanistan. By the time she was brought to American military doctors, her esophagus and airway were so damaged she needed several surgeries.</s>JONES: We've sent her home twice now. She's returned within a week to ten days with a severe if a pneumonia and very significant breathing problems.</s>STARR: She has a breathing tube. Scarred vocal cords leave her unable to speak. The military doctors who treat her say her life still is very much at risk.</s>JONES: Her airway has narrowed so much. You think about a dull pencil. Look at the lead, the tip of the dull pencil, that is how small the opening is to her lungs. So you can imagine. You cannot breathe through that.</s>STARR: The massive scar tissue inside her airway can only be fixed with complicated corrective surgery. Cincinnati Children's Hospital has offered to help and is trying to raise funds on her behalf. But Nazia cannot survive the dust and dirt that is everyday life in poverty-stricken Afghanistan unless she gets surgery. Afghanistan does not have the medical care she needs. Charities here struggle every day to help sick and injured children. As for Nazia, she's feeling better for now. Nazia is, as I mentioned before, the princess of the hospital. She loves to blow kisses. She will be picked up by most everybody in the hospital. Brings laughter and joy to everybody.</s>STARR: But this little girl, like so many, needs urgent and expensive medical care, simply not available for children in this war zone.</s>PHILLIPS: Barbara Starr now joins us from the Pentagon. Barbara, I don't know how you didn't bring her home. But that's another story. You met several children while you were in Afghanistan. Tell us about some of them.</s>STARR: You know, Kyra, it is the little ones that really tug at your heart. I think we have some pictures to show everyone of another little boy that we met at the same military hospital. His name is Khan (ph). And Khan (ph) right now is trying to recover from being involved in a massive IED blast. He has massive brain injury problems. When we met him, he could not get out of that wheelchair. I have to tell you, in the last couple of days we've learned he's been finally moved to a Red Cross center in Afghanistan that's trying to look after him. So many children, sick, injured in this war, and in Afghanistan, it is very tough, because there is no medical care for them. I think most Americans probably have no idea that the U.S. military has kept a pediatric staff in Afghanistan for the last three years, just trying to help save these children. But the problem is, we see with Khan (ph), with Nazia and so many others, if the military saves them, then they have to find them additional help to get them better and back with their families -- Kyra.</s>PHILLIPS: What do you think the biggest challenge is with regard to getting help for these kids?</s>STARR: Well, the problem really is, as the doctors told us, there is no medical care in the towns and villages. No medical care at all in most places, or so limited, it would not be what we would recognize at medical care. We went to a village, for example, that had built a medical clinic, but had no medicine, and no money to buy medicine. In that village, we were with some U.S. soldiers, and a little boy walked right up to them, asking for help. He had broken his arm. He said he broke it from falling. Soldiers told us they suspected the little boy had actually been beaten. It's that type of thing that soldiers are running across every day in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and trying to help as best they can.</s>PHILLIPS: And they do it; that's for sure. Barbara Starr, thanks for bringing us such great stories.</s>STARR: Thank you.</s>PHILLIPS: Well, you can help. And we're going to tell you how. Just logon to CNN.com/impact to see more on Nazia's story. Plus, you can find out about other children in need, as well. We'll give you the link so you can pitch it to impact your world. Taking care of the workers, it might have done more harm than good for the nation's autoworkers. 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