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At This Hour

U.S. Bombs ISIS Fighters in Iraq; Protecting the Peshmerga and Kurdistan; Cease-fire Ends, Hostilities Resume in Middle East

Aired August 08, 2014 - 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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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When the lives of American citizens are at risk, we will take action. It's my responsibility.

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN CO-ANCHOR: And so it begins, the United States launches air strikes on an Islamic militant targets in northern Iraq more than two years after American forces pulled out of Iraq.

The president says he's trying to stop a potential genocide, to protect Americans in the war zone.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN CO-ANCHOR: No extension, no peace, the cease- fire window slams shut in the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Both sides continue to attack. Are they back at square one?

Good morning, and we begin with breaking news right now @THISHOUR, I'm Michaela Pereira. John Berman is on assignment.

BLITZER: And I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington.

Michaela, stand by for a moment. I want to get straight to the escalation in Iraq, a dramatic military escalation. U.S. war planes have dropped two, 500-pound, laser-guided bombs in northern Iraq. They did it just a few hours ago.

The president says he authorized the strikes to stop a dire humanitarian crisis and to protect U.S. military and diplomatic personnel still in the northern part of Iraq. The bombs hit artillery targets belonging to the Islamist military group known as ISIS, near the town of Irbil. That's in the northern part of Iraq.

The militants have given thousands of families of religious and ethnic minorities a choice. You can either convert to their brand of Islam or you can die. Members of that group are now trapped in the mountains, trying to flee, and the United Nations says dozens of children already have died of dehydration in the intense summer heat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) OBAMA: When we face the issues we have on that mountain, with innocent people facing the prospect of violence on a horrific scale, when we have a mandate to help, in this case, a request from the Iraqi government, and we have the unique capabilities to help avert a massacre, I believe the United States of America cannot turn a blind eye.

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BLITZER: The group ISIS has taken over several cities in northern Iraq over the past few months, trying to create a Sunni Islamic state, or a caliphate, as they call it. You can see it on the map.

U.S. planes have also dropped food and water and medicine to prevent what the president is calling a potential act of genocide.

The escalation of U.S. military involvement comes two years after President Obama ended the war in Iraq for U.S. military personnel, brought all American troops home.

Let's go to the Pentagon. Our correspondent Barbara Starr is standing by. Barbara, so tell us what the mission here is, what the end game for the U.S. military is.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, the U.S. Navy, back in the skies over Iraq now, two F-18s dropping those weapons on this ISIS artillery piece out of Irbil.

This strike meets the president's first objective, they tell us, protecting American personnel in Irbil from the ISIS advance, U.S. military, U.S. diplomatic personnel in Irbil.

There is a second category of potential air strikes out there. Air strikes to protect those people trapped in the mountains from an ISIS advance on them. We have not seen those air strikes yet, only the first category, Irbil.

But there is every indication that we are getting from our sources there certainly will be more to come. Nobody believes ISIS is about to turn around and go away, so as they advance, the U.S. now has war planes in the skies over Iraq, combat air patrols, fully armed, looking at targets.

If they threaten Irbil, if they threaten the U.S. positions in Irbil, they will be struck. If they advance on those people in the mountains, they will be struck.

The White House is making the case, the Pentagon is making the case that this is a very limited military action, no boots on the ground. This is solely air strikes, but any use of military force, of course, in a place like Iraq, any use of U.S. military force, has massive repercussions. The Pentagon, of course, trying to put this all in a box, again saying it is limited action.

Hard to see where it all ends at this point, Wolf. BLITZER: All right. Barbara, stand by. I'm going to come back to you

shortly. But I know a lot of Americans are asking serious questions right now. What is going on? Why is the U.S. taking military action, precision air strikes, as they're called right now?

After all, Sunni extremists have been operating for months now in the region, it could be argued. No one anticipated how rapidly, though, this situation would escalate. Now U.S. interests in Iraq are said to be, by the White House and Pentagon, directly in the path, and that's why the U.S. is involved.

All this coming with what the U.S. now fears is the potential for genocide against Christians, Yazidis, other minorities inside northern Iraq, and that's why the U.S. is now acting.

Joining us now is Suzan Johnson Cook. She was formerly U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. Ambassador, thanks very much for joining us.

Are you afraid that Iraqi Christians, Iraqi Yazidis, Iraqi Kurds, other religious and ethnic minorities in Iraq are now in danger of genocide?

AMBASSADOR SUZAN JOHNSON COOK, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE FOR INTERNATIONAL RELIGIOUS FREEDOM: I'm very much concerned. It's not just an immediate reaction, actually. This has been going on for quite some time.

It's escalated recently in these recent weeks, but, yes, I'm very much afraid and I applauding the president for taking a risky but very much needed move.

BLITZER: What do you think the United States can do about this? As you know, there are people being endangered -- and you know this better than anyone because you worked on these issues -- all over the world.

Why is the U.S. all of a sudden come to the aid of these people in Iraq?

JOHNSON COOK: It's at a point of genocide. For one reason, the president has been on top of this issue for quite a while. It's escalated to such a point that the Americans have to get involved.

I mean, the U.S. set the model and the standard in terms of religious freedom. We have it in our Constitution. Other countries don't have that, and so unless America steps in, many times other countries don't have the benefit of it.

When it's at the point of young people, old people dying, and only having a choice of either converting or dying, then that's not much of a choice. So they now flee, they are in the mountains, they are really at risk, and it's at a point that the Americans have to step in.

We're the model. We hope that there will be other international partners that will jump in, but as we know there's problems all over the world. But it's escalating in Iraq. BLITZER: There is a country called Iraq. The U.S. spent hundreds of

billions of dollars training the Iraqi military. The U.S. withdrew all its forces a couple of years ago.

Isn't this the responsibility of the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to protect their people? Why aren't they doing anything?

JOHNSON COOK: We can't answer that. They do need to protect all of their religious minorities. This is a very much religious freedom issue. We can't answer why they are not. When they do not protect then we have to step in.

It is our hope that there will be a humanitarian approach and that they would protect all of its citizens. That is not the case and so the U.S. has to step in.

It's been an ongoing problem. It hasn't just really started. I mean, Congress as well as the administration have been very concerned.

You know, in the last three, what we call, Annual Reports for International Religious Freedom, Iraq was really at the top of the list in terms of how absent the religious freedom issue was.

We were able to meet with the Diaspora, many who -- because we could not go to Iraq, we were able to meet with the Christian Diaspora and now the Yazidi Diaspora who are in the United States.

They're still a minority, but you know, they date back prior to Islam, to Christianity, to Judaism, so they've been there for a while, but they have been disappearing for over the hundreds of thousands. It was over a million about five years. Now they are at less than half a million. So we really have to be very, very concerned.

BLITZER: It's an awful, awful situation, and the pope tweeted today, "I ask all men and women of goodwill to join me for praying for Iraqi Christians and all vulnerable populations." Let's see if the international community mobilizes and does something about this.

Ambassador Suzan Johnson Cook, thanks very much for joining me.

We're going to continue our coverage. We're looking at all angles as the U.S. launches air strikes against ISIS terrorists.

Is getting involved in Iraq, militarily, right now the right move for the United States? We'll explore when we come back.

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BLITZER: Let's get back to our breaking news coverage of the crisis in Iraq. U.S. fighter jets today dropped 500-pound, laser-guided bombs on artillery belonging to ISIS militants advancing on the city of Irbil in northern Iraq.

President Obama authorized what he described targeted air strikes, if needed to protect U.S. diplomatic and military personnel from the fighters and to prevent what officials are warning could be genocide of minority groups, including Iraqi Christians, Yazidis, and others.

Let's bring in former U.S. Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton. He's got a long history of fighting against terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere.

So what do you make of this current U.S. military move, because a lot of Americans hear the terms air strikes, that the U.S. is about to be sucked into another war in Iraq? What's your analysis?

CEDRIC LEIGHTON, FORMER AIR FORCE COLONEL: Wolf, I think that that's certainly a possibility, so we have to be very careful with what the next steps are.

From a strategic standpoint, I think it's very important to note that we don't really have a strategic vision as far as what we want to do with ISIS, what do we want to do with Kurdistan, what do we want to do with Iraq, as a whole.

So all those questions really need to be answered before we really formulate out a good strategy and then figure out what we're going to do.

But in the absence of the strategy, it becomes very important to have that humanitarian imperative, so when you talk about protecting the Yazidis and the Christian minorities in Iraq, it becomes very important from a genocide standpoint to make sure that that does not that happen, that we don't have a massacre of people because of their religious beliefs or their ethnic background.

So there's that imperative in there that is part of our national psyche and our national mission, but on the other hand, from a military perspective, we really need to have an idea of what the plan is to deal with ISIS.

And the fact that we have not involved ourselves in Syria, the fact that we have not involved ourselves in Iraq up until this point is really an area where we have to beg the question, what is going on here, and why are we doing this in this way?

I do believe it is important to do this, but I think we should have had that conversation before we got involved.

BLITZER: As you know, and you serve in the Air Force, air power can do devastating damage, it can do a lot. But if you really -- I don't know any military analyst who believes that air power alone will destroy these ISIS forces on the ground. If you want to do that, you got to use ground, you got to use boots on the ground, as they say. The Iraqi military is MIA right now. They are missing. The Peshmerga, they are brilliant. They are great warriors. They are Kurdish fighters, but they are not well armed, they have basic light arms, if you will.

So is this going to lead -- if you want to really destroy ISIS in Iraq will only the United States be able to do so by sending in ground forces?

LEIGHTON: Well I think that is the danger we face. It is possible to bring in the, let's say for example, the Turkish military which is very effective. However, they too would have their difficulties against ISIS and that risks a wider regional conflagration. So the big issue here is we definitely have to protect Kurdistan, we definitely have to protect the Peshmerga, and we have to arm the Peshmerga.

So from a more tactical standpoint, it becomes very important to do that because the Peshmerga will, as you noted, stand up and fight. They are very good fighters, but they need the weaponry to do that. The other thing that's interesting about this, we used those 500 pound laser guided bombs to go after artillery emplacements.

Well ISIS is more than just artillery emplacements, it is a whole philosophy, it is a whole ideology and there is no combat to combat an ideology solely from the air. Air power is great, extremely effective, can be an enhancement to any strategic move that we make, but it has to be coupled with a strategy that includes all elements of military and diplomatic power and we haven't seen that come together at this juncture.

BLITZER: Very quickly, Colonel, before I let you go. As you know, these air strikes can be devastating. Israelis have been widely criticized. They use what they call their precision guided bombs to go after Hamas targets in Gaza, but a lot of civilians are killed in the process. Is the U.S. now, by doing the same thing, basically, against these ISIS targets in and around Irbil, a relatively heavily populated area, could the U.S. be killing innocent civilians as well in the process of trying to destroy artillery and other equipment belonging to these ISIS terrorists?

LEIGHTON: It's certainly possible, and even with the best intelligence, the best precision guided munitions, it is absolutely possible to make a mistake. All you have do is put in the wrong coordinates in a targeting solution and that mistake can happen. So the United States has to be very careful. In many ways, if you have a ground presence, even a small ground presence, it can help mitigate the damage that is done by what is known euphemistically as, collateral damage, which means, of course, civilian casualties.

So if you do that, if you protect everything from that standpoint and you make sure that you have a real strategy to go in and, you know, protect the civilian areas and also fight ISIS, if it decides to go into populated areas, such as Irbil, then you have the capability of perhaps mitigating some of that damage. But if you do something like the Israelis did in Gaza, you risk not only enraging to local population, but you risk engaging the wrath of the world, even thought, right now, they are on our side.

BLITZER: Irbil is a major city, a lot of people there, obviously, potentially endangered. If you launch too many of those air strike. Colonel, thank very much for joining us.

Just ahead, the other major story we're watching here in CNN. The truce ends. Hostilities resume in the Middle East. Egypt urging both sides to return to the negotiating table. What will it take to iron out the issues between Israel and Hamas? Much more on this story when we come back.

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PEREIRA: Welcome back to @THISHOUR, Michaela Pereira in New York. @THISHOUR, weapons not words in the Middle East. The Israeli military striking targets in Gaza. Militants launching rockets back into Israel as the cease-fire window slammed shut without an extension of the 72- hour cease-fire. The Israeli delegation is already back from Egypt, but the Palestinian delegation says the peace talks in Cairo will keep going. Egyptian mediators, meanwhile, say there are only a few issues left to iron out.

Former Senator and special envoy to the Middle-East, George Mitchell joins me on the phone. Good morning, Senator Mitchell, how are you?

FMR. SEN. GEORGE MITCHELL(D), MAINE: I'm fine. Thank you.

PEREIRA: So pleased that you could join us. I want you to give a little clarity if you can at all. We see the cease-fire ending. Hamas launching rockets into Israel. Israel responding. The foreign minister from Israel sending out a tweet today saying quote, Israel will not conduct negotiations under fire. Yet, if you listen to the Egyptians who are brokering these deals, they say they have got major issues work out and a deal is close. What is the disconnect?

MITCHELL: Well there are potentially several disconnects, but I think it likely that this outbreak will not lead to a long continuation of the conflict. And, obviously, I hope very much that the parties will be able to resume a cease-fire.

There are many issues, obviously, not least of which is difficulties internally. Hamas is divided, as you know, between an political wing and a military wing. And in addition their principle leadership is not based in Gaza, but rather in Qatar. Communication among these groups is very difficult, they know that the Israelis monitor their electronic communications, so it's difficult to get a decision out of them in the best of times and these are obviously not the best of times.

On the Israeli side, they have had a long series of negotiations indirectly with Hamas over many years, over the release of an Israeli soldier. So negotiations can continue even though there may not be a physical presence face-to-face. In fact, even when they were in Cairo, they were not meeting face-to-face but through the Egyptian mediators. That, think, can continue. I don't regard that as a major obstacle at this time.

PEREIRA: Really interesting to get your perspective, Senator, I'm curious why you don't think this will turn into further action on both sides.

MITCHELL: Well, I think both sides have got about as much as they are going to get. Israel would like to see, of course, the complete disarmament and destruction of Hamas, but that would initiate actions that would result in far more deaths and destruction than has occurred. I think it is politically not possible for them to do that, although they certainly have the military capability to do that because they have an overwhelming military superiority. From Hamas's side, they get some credit among Palestinians and Arabs for standing up to the Israelis. But also there's recognition that these tremendous number of deaths and destruction are essentially caused by this conflict.

What's happened in the past, and remember this is the third time in the last decade this has occur, they get a boost politically, but it tends to fizzle out or wear out after a short period of time. Then they get back to down low on the polls. I think one of the real problems here, long term, is that politically Hamas is being helped while the principal Palestinian leadership, the Fatah party, Hamas's opponents internally among Palestinians, have been hurt because they are seen as ineffective. President Abbas has been preaching for 20 years nonviolence. Peaceful negotiation. He hasn't gotten anywhere and so that tends to cause a loss of support for his party and his approach, which I think is a problem because they are the only ones who can really make a deal with the Israelis.

PEREIRA: Senator George -- former Senator George Mitchell, special envoy to the Middle-East. Thank you so much for joining us today. We'll be watching the situation right here.

Also ahead, President Obama approves limited air strikes on an Islamist military target in Iraq. As he tries to prevent what he calls a potential genocide. We'll bring you the very latest next.

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