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At This Hour

U.S. Weighs Options to Rescue Yazidis Trapped by ISIS; Yazidi Refugees Plead for Help; More Questions Than Answers Fuel Frustrations in Ferguson

Aired August 13, 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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JOHN BERMAN, CNN CO-ANCHOR: Still more U.S. troops now in Iraq, this as the Pentagon considers an air mission, even ground troops, to rescue Iraqis trapped by ISIS. So is this mission creep?

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN CO-ANCHOR: Police in Missouri will not release the name of the officer who gunned down an unarmed teenager or details of the investigation. Protesters push, his parents plead, still no answers, why?

BERMAN: Painful new details this morning about the circumstances surrounding Robin Williams' suicide and the recent battle with severe depression that he fought and lost.

Good morning, everyone, I'm John Berman.

PEREIRA: We're midway through the week. I'm Michaela Pereira. Those stories and much more ahead @THISHOUR.

BERMAN: We're going to begin with more U.S. troops arriving in Iraq as the humanitarian and political turmoil in that country really continues to fester.

PEREIRA: U.S. officials say that 130 more U.S. Marines and special operations forces will bolster the already hundreds there, advising Iraqi troops in their fight against ISIS militants.

We're also learning this morning those new troops could assist from the ground in an air evacuation of the thousands of Iraqi minorities trapped on Mount Sinjar, though officials insist that any ground support would have a humanitarian focus not a combat focus.

BERMAN: The latest development comes as U.S. military planes again dropped food and water to displaced Yazidis. So far, U.S. air drops have delivered more than 100,000 meals, more than 27,000 gallons of drinking water.

PEREIRA: Meanwhile a series of deadly bombings has torn through Baghdad, killing at least 27 people, all of this as Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki digs in and lashes out as what he's calling a conspiracy to replace him with a successor backed by the U.S.

We have Iraq covered from all the angles, our military analyst, retired Lieutenant Colonel Francona, here with us in New York, and David Tafuri, former U.N. and State Department official, joining us from Erbil, Iraq.

BERMAN: Also, Barbara Starr, reporting from the Pentagon, plus Anna Coren, who is also in Iraq, she'll be joining us, momentarily. She is at a giant refugee camp where thousands and thousands of people are now looking for safety.

Now the most urgent bit of news we have coming from Iraq is the word from the Pentagon that it is considering an air evacuation of the Yazidis from that mountaintop where they have been sheltering.

It's an operation that seems that could involve a ground component as well and put U.S. troops face-to-face with ISIS.

PEREIRA: We'll turn to our Barbara Starr at the Pentagon. Barbara, obviously, this would be quite a mission. What all would it entail?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Michaela and John. A lot of moving parts here, let's try and sort things out a bit.

What the Pentagon is doing is sending these 130 additional forces to Erbil in northern Iraq to look at the options, to assess what are the evacuation options, ground or air. They could transport these thousands of people out over ground or take them out by air.

It is looking at the moment like there's a bit of focus on the air option right now. They could land aircraft on top of that mountain, helicopters, B-22s, get a lot of people moving out if they could establish an around-the-clock air bridge, if you will, but this is just an idea at the moment.

What these 130 troops are doing is looking at all of this and saying, What works? What would work? What would we need to do? What forces would we need? What aircraft would we need? Where would at the take these people? They've got to have a U.N. camp or somewhere for these people to go.

So this would be, whichever way you cut it, this would be a massive undertaking, and it looks like, no matter which way you cut it, it would involve sending additional U.S. forces to Iraq.

If you are going to send aircraft, you send crews, you send the security personnel to protect the aircraft. If you are going to do it by ground, you have to have people to protect the ground convoys. You are going to have to put troops, they say, on that mountaintop for security when they begin to either load people onto aircraft or get them off the mountain.

Any way you look at it, this is not going to end anytime soon.

I want to add very quickly, officials telling us they have no timeline to deliver an option to the Pentagon or the White House for this, but these people on that mountain certainly getting desperate.

BERMAN: No timeline yet, obviously, Barbara, there has to be some sense of urgency because you get the sense that time is running out for many of them on that mountaintop.

STARR: You bet. That's -- you know, the no-timeline is of course the official answer. Behind the scenes, they are working pretty frantically to figure out what they can do, what is reasonable.

And they know that there is a huge political sensitivity in the United States to all of this, because these troops that are going or that would go in addition to who is already there certainly are boots on the ground.

The U.S. has ruled out combat operations, but make no mistake. There will be U.S. boots on the ground. There already are.

BERMAN: And very much in harm's way.

Barbara, you also point out the president will also have to approve whatever they decide to do here, but that could be coming within days.

Barbara Starr at the Pentagon, thanks so much.

I want to bring in David Tafuri, a former U.N. and State Department official, also with us, retired Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona, CNN military analyst and a former U.S. military attache in (inaudible). You also spent a lot of time, right in that region.

PEREIRA: Right, and, Rick, because of that, Colonel, let's start with you.

So you hear the operations laid out from what we know by Barbara. We talk about the fact that this is a massive undertaking.

But there is this issue of it very well is going to put U.S. forces potentially face-to-face with ISIS forces. Is this going to work? How would it look? You know this better than anyone.

LT. COL. RICK FRANCONA (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: No matter how you do it, ground or air, you are going to have to put a U.S. presence on top of that mountain, to just marshal the people into whatever convoy or put them on the helicopters.

If you are going to bring in massive amounts of helicopters, and we're talking thousands of people, if you use like, let's say, the big Army Chinook helicopter that carries 55, 60 people, how many sorties are you going to have to make?

So you are going to have secure a point up on that mountain. You are going to put people up there so the people don't rush those helicopters. You saw what happened to the Iraqi helicopter; people were jumping on. So you need to keep them back for their own safety, for the safety of the crew, safety of the aircraft.

And then, once you're up there, you've got all these people there, you have to secure them. And then as you're going to use that air bridge, where are these helicopters going to fly? They are going to fly in the threat envelope of the surface-to-air missiles that we know ISIS has. So this is going to be a very difficult, very massive, and a very dangerous operation, and this fiction that American troops are not going to be in a combat role is just that.

BERMAN: And by the way, there are some thousand troops now in that country, so this is definitely, I think, the classic definition of mission creep in many ways.

And David Tafuri, I want to bring you in here. Speaking of classic, this is an age-old conundrum facing, I think, diplomats and defense officials and the administration right now.

When do you stage a military intervention in order to stop a humanitarian crisis? What are the considerations they are facing right now, and what should the timeline be?

DAVID TAFURI, FORMER U.N. AND STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Well, let's keep in mind the Kurdistan region is really facing two crises right now. One is the humanitarian crisis caused by the genocide campaign of ISIS. ISIS hasn't been shy about that.

They want to wipe out this religious minority, the Yazidis, from Iraq, and that's why they have fled to this mountain. That needs to be addressed. The U.S. Is beginning to address that.

The second crisis, of course, is that ISIS is attacking the Kurdistan region and the Kurdish Peshmerga forces' positions. The U.S. has helped a little bit by protecting Erbil and doing air strikes, and those have made a significant difference, but probably more is needed there to make sure ISIS eases up.

Both are tough questions. We see the U.S. is starting to get more involved. It's really a welcome development here in the Kurdistan region. People of Kurdistan are really looking for help from the U.S., pleading for help from the U.S., and the U.S. is beginning to provide it.

PEREIRA: So, Colonel, I'll turn to you, and pick up from his point. It's not just a ragtag bunch of militants.

This is a group that has strategy. They're changing their strategy. They're organized, and they're brutal.

How do our forces come up against that, and how do they attack?

FRANCONA: The issue is what are we doing? We're supporting this humanitarian mission as Dave said, but we're also trying to defend Erbil by hitting that frontline of ISIS as they move closer and closer to the city, so we're trying to push them back.

The problem is we're not striking at the heart of ISIS. We're not -- we're treating the symptoms which are the frontline there and the humanitarian effort, but we're not going after the disease itself, ISIS.

At some point, we're going to have to address ISIS. If we just let them have free reign in the north, which is what's happening right now, they will continue to grow in strength, and they will present a bigger problem later on.

BERMAN: David Tafuri, what I feel I'm hearing from you both and the colonel is that more, more is needed. Then the question is, is it simply at this point inevitable?

TAFURI: Well, what the colonel points out is that ISIS goes after the most vulnerable areas that it can find. First, it attacked south. It found Baghdad probably impossible to get. It's now gone back north to attacking the Peshmerga forces.

It's not going to go away. So more is needed, and I think one of the key points is that we can either fight ISIS now or fight them later, and they're going to only get stronger by taking more territory, having control of more cities, using that to gain revenue and to recruit military-age males.

So it's fight them now or fight them later. We might as well fight them before they're strong.

PEREIRA: You make a good point there. It is a tough conversation to be having when you see the humanitarian aid that is required, the desperation on the hillside there in Sinjar.

David Tafuri, thank you so much. Colonel Francona, always a pleasure.

BERMAN: Both these guys seem to say this is going to happen, sooner or later.

PEREIRA: It sounds like you just said it --

BERMAN: We're on the verge of it happening.

PEREIRA: More is what I came away with in that conversation, absolutely.

BERMAN: Ahead now @THISHOUR, desperate Iraqis, they are running for their lives. We've seen the pictures, streaming across the border, running for safety.

You are looking at live pictures now at one of the places they are going to seek shelter, to seek safety. We'll take you to the ground there and talk to some of these people running for their lives.

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PEREIRA: Turn back to the aid mission in Iraq to rescue those fleeing is. There's estimated 10,000 to 20,000 people on that hillside, Mount Sinjar. That mission is not without peril.

BERMAN: Yes, we just got that number in -- 10,000 to 20,000 people still on that mountain. Rescuing them not easy. Yesterday, an Iraqi helicopter crashed while trying to save some of the people there. The pilot seen here in file video was killed. Among the survivors, "The New York Times" journalist Alissa Rubin, the only Yazidi member of the Iraqi parliament. Right now, they're saying that pilot error of some kind, a malfunction was cause the crash of that crash. But it's risky, it is risky to go in and save these people, and there are 10,000 to 20,000 of them on top of that mountain right now.

PEREIRA: But where do they go after that? That's the question. Where are the people fleeing that threat of ISIS headed to?

Our Anna Coren is at a United Nations camp where an estimated 70,000 refugees have sought safe haven in just the past four days. She joins us now. Anna, I'm curious what you are seeing, what you are hearing. What is it like with those people where you are?

ANNA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Michaela, we've been on the ground with these refugees for the last few hours. And I can tell you they are absolutely desperate. They have been to hell and back and many of them have loved ones -- either they've perished on Mount Sinjar or they have seen them be massacred by the ISIS militants.

I now want to show you around this camp if I may. As you can see, behind me is where these tents, UNHCR tents, are being erected. A couple of hours ago, there was just a handful; now there are over 100 and the bulldozers and the graders are making more space for the hundreds of more tents that will be erected over the coming days. 70,000 refugees have come here in the past few days. That's according to the governor who is overseeing this operation.

There are refugee camps scattered around and this is one of them, but as he says, you know, we weren't expecting this. We are not prepared. Where is the international community to help? He really singled out the United Nations, in fact, saying that the U.N. was failing the Yazidis because, you know, they are a persecuted religious ethnic minority who have been going through this humanitarian crisis now for days and it's only now that we're seeing signs of the international community coming to help.

But certainly for the people here, they held a protest a few hours ago, holding up signs and saying, "Save us from extermination from ISIS." "Give us asylum in the U.S., in Europe." They don't feel safe here in Iraq anymore and they are appealing to the international community to help.

BERMAN: Anna, it's been called a biblical-scale migration, this huge migration of people. Thousands and thousands going to safety. I'm curious, what's next for them? Do they anticipate being able to go home into this area right now that's controlled by ISIS? And what's their reaction to the arrival of U.S. troops?

COREN: Well, as far as going home to Sinjar, most of these people say that is never going to happen many. They are convinced that ISIS will stay there unless the U.S. intervenes and saves them. That is really the feeling. They don't believe that the Peshmerga can do the job of fighting the ISIS militants.

Yes, the Kurdish forces are holding them, keeping them at bay, if you like, at the moment, but as we know, they are well resourced. They have the U.S. weapons. They are adaptable. These are militants who will do whatever it takes. We've seen the atrocities that they have committed. And these people believe that if they return to their homes in Sinjar, that they will face genocide.

As for the U.S. coming to assist, they welcome that, but you know what, John? They don't want to stay here anymore. They don't feel safe. They are part of a sect that belongs to some 500,000 people around the world. I mean, that is how small. They feel they are ostracized, they're alienated, and that they don't belong in Iraq anymore. So they are asking for asylum elsewhere in safe havens around the world.

PEREIRA: Hoping the U.N. will address this growing humanitarian situation. When you talk about the fact that people need to be evacuated from Mount Sinjar, where are these people going to go? What is the next step for the refugees at the U.N. camp there?

Anna Coren, thank you so much for giving us a look at that. I know a lot of people at home are moved by what they are seeing and are wondering how they can maybe help, if there's a way to reach out and have an impact. You can visit CNN.com/impact; there will be ways there for you to have some help, or at least make an effort to find out more.

BERMAN: 19 minutes after the hour right now. Ahead for us, protesters demanding to know the name of the officer who shot and killed an unarmed teenager in Missouri, Michael Brown, but police say they're not going to reveal it, not now, because of death threats. We're going to take you live to the St. Louis suburb where these tensions are escalating.

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BERMAN: More questions than answers fueling more anger and violence in a St. Louis suburb where an unarmed teenager was gunned down by police. It has now been four days, four days since Michael Brown was killed and four nights of protests that have spiraled into clashes with police.

PEREIRA: Outraged protesters accuse the Ferguson, Missouri, police department of not being transparent. Police are refusing to release the name of the officer who shot Brown. They won't say how many times the 18-year-old was shot. And police have not yet interviewed the friend who was walking with Brown when he was killed, an eyewitness to that shooting.

Ana Cabrera is in Ferguson, Missouri. Good to have you with us, Ana, and I think you have some news for us well, that we are learning that the police chief is revealing some details about the officer involved in this shooting. What is he saying?

ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. We don't know who this officer is who was involved in this shooting, but in a phone call with one of our affiliates here, KMOV TV, Police Chief Tom Jackson of the Ferguson Police Department told this reporter apparently that the officer involved in this shooting does have signs of a physical altercation, that he reportedly had been hit in the face and that there was some evidence of swollenness on his face.

We don't know any more detail than that. This was a phone call that, we're told, that was not recorded, but again was between the police chief on record with this other reporter.

Now, the police chief, I had a chance to speak to him last night, has said that the officer involved has been interviewed now by investigators and that he is horrified by what happened and what has happened since the incident in terms of the community outrage that we're seeing. The police chief telling me nobody goes to work and wants to kill somebody, and nobody wants to come home at the end of day knowing they have kill someone.

There's still a strong call here for action, for police to be more transparent in their investigation, and for them to release the name.

Now, one reason they haven't released the name is not only for fear of the officer's safety, we're told, but the prosecutor says because they don't release the name until somebody is formally charged. They want to make sure she do this investigation right. They want to dot those "i"s, cross those "t"s. There are multiple agencies investigating. And the police chief says we don't want to get out information that we think we know; we want to be certain we only tell people what we do know.

We know they are investigating witnesses from this scene. They are still trying to find witnesses from the scene. They tell us they are still reviewing video that people may have taken at the scene, and they are still waiting for those toxicology results. So there are a lot of things in play as this investigation continues, Michaela and John.

BERMAN: A lot of things in play. People do point to this lack of transparency, however they may justify it, as increasing the frustration there on the ground. And I should ask quickly, I understand the FAA has banned flights below 3,000 feet. What's going on with that?

CABRERA: Well, it all has to do with the violence we've seen over the past four days, the protests getting unruly here in Ferguson. We know there were at least two shootings last night not directly related to the protests but within the community.

The protests last night were broken up by tear gas. Police had to come in and disperse the crowd they say after somebody threw bottles at the police. So there is a sense the situation is not under control and we have heard reports that people in days past protesting had fired shots in the air. So the FAA came out, they banned flights over Ferguson until Monday. John and Michaela?

PEREIRA: Chief of police needs to address -- if you ask community members, he needs to address some of the questions they have. The investigation needs to continue, but the parents of Michael Brown have urged calm as many voices, saying that is the thing that needs to prevail right now.

Ana Cabrera, thank you so much for bringing us up to date on all of that.

The death of Michael Brown certainly raising questions about young black men being targeted by police. We want to have that discussion; we'll do it ahead.

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