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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Crisis in Iraq Continues; President Obama to Speak on U.S. Strategy; Two Americans Arrested for Terror Plots in Texas; Nazi War Criminal in America

Aired June 19, 2014 - 12:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to CNN. We're expecting President Obama to come out to the White House Briefing Room any moment to discuss his plans for Iraq.

We have been talking with Barbara Starr at the Pentagon about a plan being floated by the Pentagon, one we presume the White House has signed off on already about sending up to 100 special operations forces to Baghdad to help the Iraqi government battle the threat from is.

Let's go to Baghdad now, if we can, where our own Anderson Cooper is. Anderson, tell us about the security situation in Baghdad that will await -- that is awaiting these special operations forces should President Obama give the go order?

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR, "AC 360": Yeah, the security situation is extraordinarily tense, extraordinarily tight. I was driving around today. To get anywhere now is harder than I've seen it in years.

I mean, there are checkpoints probably every several blocks or so. There's certainly military or police or other security units on just about every block in Baghdad.

Nevertheless, there is -- there are still bombings going on, three bombings today, at least three people killed, more than 15 wounded, so there are cracks in the security. But I've really never seen it as tense, as kind of well covered as it has been right now.

And it really does raise questions about whether this has bought some time for the Obama administration to plan what they want to do. A lot of the inroads, the fast movement that ISIS forces and their Sunni supporters have been able to make are predominantly Sunni areas, in Mosul up in the north and elsewhere, even in the western part of Baquba.

But as you get closer to Baghdad, more Shia-controlled areas, there are more motivated fighters here, certainly in the Iraqi military, Shia fighters, and also you now have these tens of thousands of volunteers who have signed up, some of them with military training, some of them even with training over the last several years fighting for Bashar al-Assad in Syria who have returned to fight ISIS.

So you don't hear people in Baghdad itself worrying about this city falling. Nevertheless, the situation is very tense here, Jake.

TAPPER: Anderson, the last time I was in Baghdad, it was a period when there was a big debate in the American media whether to call what was going on in Iraq a civil war, since the sectarian conflicts between Shiite and Sunni and Kurd were so stark, yet there was a real reluctance by the U.S. Government to call it that.

What are you hearing on the ground there in Baghdad?

COOPER: You know, in Baghdad, a lot of people giving lip service to the idea that this is not a civil war. People -- you know, I was at a military base today where volunteers were signing up, and two men, they all said, look, we are one nation, Sunni, Shia, Kurd.

But we all know there are real sectarian divisions in this country. We're seeing it play out right now. I don't think one can say it's a full-on civil war at this point. I don't think we know enough about what Sunni groups exactly are supporting ISIS in the field and how able the United States will be or other actors will be to peel off some of those groups if there is a change of leadership.

That's certainly going to be one big motivating -- motivation for the White House to try to -- through these greater use of intelligence special forces, to try to kind of get a handle on some of these other Sunni groups, even some of the Sunni groups that the U.S. worked with during the Sunni awakening back in 2006/2007, to try to get them back on board, supporting the central government, if Nouri al Maliki goes.

TAPPER: Anderson, stay right there. I want to go to Capitol Hill right now to our chief congressional correspondent, Dana Bash.

I can't imagine, Dana, that there is excitement about the announcement that President Obama is about to make, whether it's from Democrats or Republicans, even though there have been several -- on both sides -- calling for some steps to be taken.

It is a Capitol Hill that is wary of war as the American people are these days.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Incredibly wary.

Look, these are -- for better or worse, these are the people who represent their constituents who have, over the years, become very reluctant and very wary, and that is especially so when you're talking about the president's fellow Democrats here on Capitol Hill.

Nancy Pelosi, who is the Democratic leader in the House, said pointblank this morning that the president should use caution, even in spending -- sending this very small group, allegedly, of special forces to Iraq because she says the number has a tendency to grow.

Just point of fact, she has seen this movie before, and she and other Democrats worked incredibly hard when George Bush was president, having vote after vote after vote, pushing to get these troops home.

Finally they got a Democrat, a like-minded Democrat in the White House who did that, and now they're very concerned about this.

The other point I would make is that after this meeting last night at the White House with Nancy Pelosi and other leaders of Congress, bipartisan leaders, they came back and didn't say anything.

They talked a little bit this morning, but they didn't say anything, which certainly was an indication that something was in the works already at the White House because, as you know, Jake -- you've covered this a long time -- when things break down and things are unclear, that's when other parties tend to spout off, and that didn't happen.

TAPPER: Dana Bash on Capitol Hill.

We're going to take another quick break. We are expecting President Obama to come out at any moment to talk about plans for Iraq, whether or not he is going to be sending in up to a hundred special operations forces.

Stay with us. We'll be back after this quick break.

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TAPPER: Welcome back to CNN's continuing coverage of the crisis in Iraq.

The president is expected to come out into the White House Briefing Room at any moment to talk about what he intends to do as commander in chief.

We're hearing a lot about possibly his sending up to 100 special operations forces to Baghdad to assist the Iraqi government in combating and destroying ISIS, the militia terrorist group that is descending upon Baghdad after conquering much of the rest of the country.

Let's says go to our chief international correspondent, Christiane Amanpour in New York.

Christiane, there's a lot of semantic debate right now about whether or not special operations forces constitute boots on the ground or not.

But more important than the word choice, I think, is the question of what will they be able to achieve once there? What do you think?

CHRISTIANA AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, here's the thing. I do think you're correct. It's a lot of semantic conversation about this in the face of a very dire and existential threat to the United States as well as to Iraq. So the U.S. really has to try to do all it can to stop ISIS.

What we've seen, which is very interesting, is that ISIS has not moved further than Baiji, that place where they are fiercely contesting the power plant. They did have a lightning-fast movement towards that, but they're stopped, and they're not moving on Baghdad, as you heard from Anderson.

But what is really a problem is that there's a core of ISIS surrounded by a coalition with former Baathists, former Sunni forces, former tribal leaders, and clearly what the United States thinks it can do is put in some advisers who, after all, trained these troops in the first place to help them with intelligence, to help them stiffen their spine, to help them get their forces and logistics and operation in order, if they possibly can, for them to then go out and fight a harder fight.

Because otherwise what you have is the fighters being taken over by Shiite militias and potentially even ground troops from Iran, if it gets so bad that Baghdad or the rest of the country might fall.

TAPPER: Christiane, do you think this is a civil war? Obviously the sectarian differences between the two sides right now are stark.

There are, of course, even though the government is run by a Shiite in a plurality if not majority Shiite country, depending on whether or not you count Kurdistan, the question of whether or not the military is almost entirely Shiite comes down to also the dispute about who you have on the other side and how many of them are being fueled by sectarian impulses, such as ISIS, and how many of them, just like the former Baathists you referred to, just don't want Maliki in power?

AMANPOUR: Well, there's a little of both, really. I think the tragedy is, as you heard Anderson say, when you talk to people, they want to keep their country unified. Nobody blithely talks about separating Iraq and how we should have done it earlier and federalizing it and partitioning it.

Well the Iraqi people didn't want that, and some of them, most of them, still don't, but what you do have is a real problem, and that is the authoritarian, sectarian nature of the Maliki government.

And, yes, he's pushed out all significant Sunnis in various key, key areas like the intelligence, for instance, certainly in parliament. I spoke to the top-ranking Sunni politician yesterday, who is the deputy prime minister, and even at this moment of maximum need, he says he can't see Maliki really reaching out and having any kind of real power sharing.

So what you have is not so much a civil war right now, actually. What you have are battle lines that have hardened, partition lines that exist right now, and that is what presumably the United States wants to try to change and to be able to stop and push back ISIS.

Let's not forget, this is a partition that's happening right now with an al Qaeda-type entity in control of one-third -- you know, one of those three parts of the country, and that is an unacceptable reality, so whatever has to be done to stop that has to be done.

TAPPER: Christiane, stay right there. We're going to take to take another quick break.

We're expecting President Obama to come out shortly after the hour, maybe around 1:15 Eastern time.

Stay with us for more on the announcement President Obama is about to make and the crisis in Iraq.

Back after this.

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BANFIELD: Welcome back to our continuing coverage of the crisis in Iraq. We are continuing to watch the podium in the White House briefing room where the president is expected to emerge, having had a very significant meeting with his national security team. It's running somewhat over. But you can see all the reporters are in place. And as soon as the president emerges, CNN will continue its special coverage.

Jake Tapper's going to have a special on this, in fact, at the top of the hour, as well. So stay tuned, whether we send forces or whether it's much, much more than that, yet to be seen.

In the meantime, since we've been talking about jihad and terror and a lot of violence, why not talk about it again, but not overseas in faraway places. Instead, right here at home. In fact, nope, not Syria, not Iraq, the good old United States of America. Because federal authorities right here in the U.S. have moved in and arrested these two men in the state of Texas.

They are charged with trying to provide material support to terrorists. Michael Todd Wolf and Rahatul Khan, both of them 23 years old. And the FBI says they both told undercover agents that they wanted to go overseas and fight the insurgent fight. Whatever that means.

Here's Ed Lavandera on how the FBI caught those two wannabe jihadists in Texas.

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ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These two American men arrested in Texas have been charged with supporting terrorist groups in Syria and Somalia. A SWAT team surrounded 23-year-old Kahn's home in Austin. According to a complaint Kahn used internet chat rooms to spot and assess potential recruits for committing violent Jihad overseas.

Michael Todd Wolf also 23 was arrested at Houston George H.W. Bush Airport before boarding the flight to Europe where you allegedly planned to later enter into Syria through Turkey and provide his services to radical groups. Wolf referred to al Qaeda representatives as righteous brothers according to the criminal complaint. Even showing an undercover FBI agent, a YouTube video of foreign fighters in Syria. Wolf discussed which militant groups he should join including the brutal Islamist group ISIS, currently staging an offensive against Iraq.

The Texas native also told undercover officers he had been physically preparing to join Jihad by practicing martial arts, running and cross- fit, the competitive sport which uses military-style techniques.

STEVE MOORE, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT: This is something that has been going on for a while and since even the early 2000s people from America have gone over to terrorist camps overseas, but sites like YouTube can be used to recruit people, even in the United States very easily where before they were -- they were out of reach.

LAVANDERA: Analysts believe as many as 100 American citizens have made the trek to fight in Syria. Last month, an American suicide bomber who grew up in Florida set off a massive truck bomb at a Syrian military checkpoint.

Syrian Jihadists tweeted several photos of the American before he took his life with bombs strapped to his chest. Social media has now become one of the many ways al Qaeda recruits westerners to fight alongside radical Islamists.

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BANFIELD: And that was Ed Lavandera reporting for us.

We may have just celebrated the 70th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, and World War II may seem like a very distant memory certainly with the breaking news we have today, but believe it or not, a Nazi war criminal, and several perhaps, still out there living amongst us. And the effort to bring them to justice never stopped.

Case in point, federal prosecutors in Philadelphia are moving to extradite this man, Johann Breyer, for Nazi war crimes. He allegedly committed them in his late teens and early 20s. He is now 89 years old. According to the court documents, Breyer admits that he was assigned to Auschwitz as a guard in Hitler's SS death head battalion. He is accused of being complicit in the murder of more than 200,000 European Jews.

CNN's Jean Casarez reports now on the case against this accused Nazi who has lived in the United States since the 1950s.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 158 trainloads, not individuals, trainloads of people.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Germany, 1944. Over 216,000 Jews from eastern Europe were taken by force to Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. Many were murdered.

89-year-old John Breyer, a U.S. citizen living in Philadelphia, may be on his way back to Germany. Authorities say he worked at Auschwitz and was complicit in those murders as an armed guard.

ANDREA FOULKES, ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY: His guarding, along with all the other guards who were in that circumstance, in the death head battalion that he belonged to, were -- made it possible for those killings.

CASAREZ: The United States has arrested Breyer at Germany's request. Officials there now want him extradited.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Breyer has been charged with a crime in Germany. We have an extradition treaty with Germany. He is being turned over, arrested here, and turned over to the German government, consistent with our treaty with Germany, which says we will help you enforce your laws.

CASAREZ: The U.S. has known about Breyer for many years. In the 1990s, federal authorities tried to strip him of his citizenship when he admitted to serving as an armed guard at Auschwitz and other concentration camps. Among the reasons he remained in the U.S., a court found he was only 17 years old when he joined a Nazi unit. But every time authorities spoke to Breyer, he gave alleged statements that may come back to haunt him.

According to the federal complaint, he knew that people would be cremated and could see the smoke, but did not know how the prisoners had died. And that he may have fired into the air occasionally.

This isn't the first time the U.S. has helped Germany. Another Nazi guard, John Demjanjuk, was extradited in 2009 after living in the U.S. for over 50 years. He died in Germany in 2012.

What Breyer has on his side, experts say, is time. Memories fade. Witnesses die.

TOOBIN: One of the core issues in a case like this is how can the German government, any government, charge someone with a crime so long after the actual crime? How can you have the evidence? How can you put on witnesses? How can you prove what happened in the 1940s?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BANFIELD: And as Jeffrey Toobin just nailed it, how do you find the evidence? And there's so many other questions as well. By the way, Jean, I just want to draw our viewers' attention to what is down on the right-hand side of the screen. We are still watching for the president to come out and give his briefing after this big national security meeting. He's a little bit later than expected. Who knows if that means that the meeting was more contentious than he expected. I'm not going to draw any conclusions there.

But clearly the Pentagon with a very big proposal to send 100 special forces over to Iraq. That mean boots on the ground, folks. And we're not sure whether that's exactly what the president will address, or what that very high-level national security meeting, there may be more to it. We're watching that.

Meantime, Jean, I want you to dovetail out of that report. The significance of this, trying to try someone like this, evidence that's 70-plus years old. Not only that, but the notion that this isn't the first time there's been an effort to bring this man to justice.

CASAREZ (on camera): That's right.

BANFIELD: What does it all mean? CASAREZ: This is the complaint right here, but it's a complaint on

the matter of extradition, because these are German charges. But it cites in the complaint that they have a lot of records. They have records of him being that armed guard, and they have his own statements through the years. And I think that's going to be critically important.

BANFIELD: Yes, but you're an attorney; you know as a defense attorney, they're just going to rip that apart, saying that could be fabricated. Who wrote those? They're done in pen. They can be -- anything could have happened after the war, right?

CASAREZ: There are statements because the United States came at him to not allow him to be a U.S. citizen because of his alleged Nazi cooperation and efforts. But his mother was born in Pennsylvania. And so he made statements to authorities during those times of legal significance, and they're going to use those against him.

But here's what's interesting. He's 89 years old. His grandson is saying he's had several strokes. He has had heart attacks and he has heart issues - and he has dementia now.

BANFIELD: But he's competent, which is awesome. This is something that was so fascinating. The judge said do you know who's standing beside you? He said my lawyer. And do you know what's going on? And he said yes. And that's all you need. To be competent, you don't need a lot more than that.

CASAREZ: Extradition hearing August 21st. And he may fight it. So that will be interesting.

BANFIELD: And at 89, I can only say this. He was so young at the time, going into the forces at 17. There can't be any -- look, I'll say many, but definitely any corroborating witnesses at this point as to his level of involvement. He says yes, I was there, but I didn't want to be. I was there under duress. You've got to have --

CASAREZ: 17 years old. 17.

BANFIELD: At 17.

CASAREZ: Yes. The complaint cites the importance of the armed guards, though. I mean, as the detainees were coming off the train, he would escort them, allegedly, to the gas chamber. So the participation was really immense in all of this.

BANFIELD: Does it say in the complaint that there is someone who is alive to this day that served alongside him that can actually corroborate any of this?

CASAREZ: They talk about the amount of records they have from that time.

BANFIELD: Records, I know, but you know how faulty they can be.

CASAREZ: But records show that he was there in 1944 and 1945, and he asked for a leave of absence in 1944 and that is documented right there, because his family had a farm in Germany. But it shows he was there.

BANFIELD: It's amazing.

CASAREZ: The complaint says when you're allowed that leave of absence, it's because you've done such a stellar job.

BANFIELD: That's an amazing fact as well. Jean Casarez, thank you for that. Keep us posted on the machinations of that case.

And I just to remind our viewers as well, we are still watching for the president as he is about to emerge to give some kind of an announcement regarding action in Iraq, whether it is regarding the Pentagon's plan that Pentagon submitted that became public knowledge this morning of 100 special forces, special operations members that are at least ready to go, whether he puts a signature on it or not or whether this is a far bigger, more significant announcement about what's going on there, we have yet to see.

But our Jake Tapper is going to helm a special report starting at the top of the hour, and he'll join you right after this quick break.

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