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U.S. Rescue Mission In Iraq Unlikely; ISIS Advancing To South And West Of Kirkuk; Police Clash With Protesters Again

Aired August 14, 2014 - 10:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Happening now in the NEWSROOM:

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There it goes, they're firing onto the ground.

COSTELLO: Tear gas, smoke bombs, tense standoffs.

POLICE: Return to your vehicles. Return to your homes.

COSTELLO: Ferguson, Missouri, a battleground over the shooting death of unarmed teenager.

UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: Hands up don't shoot. Hands up don't shoot. Hands up don't shoot.

COSTELLO: A rally cry as a witness tells CNN about Mike Brown's last moments.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He puts his hands up like this and the cop continued to fire until he just dropped down to the ground.

COSTELLO: Then -- American troops have made it off Mount Sinjar. They say thousands of Iraqis trapped there have now been saved.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Is the siege of Mount Sinjar by ISIS really over?

COSTELLO: The U.S. now backing off a military operation to save the rest.

UNIDENTIFIED CORRESPONDENT: As you can see on the other side of the road, hundreds of tents are being erected.

COSTELLO: So what's next for the thousands of refugees?

Plus, speaking from quarantine, an American aid worker whose wife is infected with Ebola talks about his first contact with her.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I patted her just to let her know that I was there, that I loved her.

COSTELLO: We've got the latest on her condition. Let's talk live in the CNN NEWSROOM. (END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO (on camera): And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. We start this hour in Iraq and maybe a glimmer of good news. A possible U.S. evacuation of thousands of refugees stranded by ISIS militants may not be necessary after all.

That's because the Pentagon says the air strikes have worked and the terror siege on Mount Sinjar is over. On top of that, an assessment by U.S. troops found far fewer Yazidis stranded on Mount Sinjar than previously thought.

Still, the humanitarian crisis is far from over. The United Nations estimates more than 400,000 people have been driven from their homes since June. The U.N. is declaring its highest level of emergency in Northern Iraq on par with Syria and Sudan.

We're also getting word that last night's air drop of food and water on the mountaintop could likely be the last one dropped by the United States. CNN Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr, shows us just how much has changed in the last 24 hours.

STARR: Carol, as a Pentagon official said to me a short time ago, if you're going to be wrong about the intelligence, at least this time it was good to be wrong.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STARR (voice-over): This morning, over a dozen U.S. air strikes protecting Yazidi civilians fleeing a murderous rampage by ISIS proving effective. On Wednesday, U.S. Special Forces were deployed atop Mount Sinjar to assess the severity of the situation facing the religious minority.

CNN knew about this special operation on Tuesday, but agreed to withhold the information until the troops left the mountain as officials feared for their safety.

In less than 24 hours, the group discovered most of the Yazidis were able to evacuate. American air strikes destroying key ISIS checkpoints, opening up an escape corridor according to U.S. officials.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So I don't want to characterize it as a siege broken but we don't believe the humanitarian crisis up there is near as bad as what we feared it would be and we don't believe we need at least for the time being, to mount any kind of evacuation mission.

STARR: The few thousand Yazidis left, receiving the seventh humanitarian air drop overnight. The total aid delivered now topping 114,000 meals and 35,000 gallons of water.

U.S. officials say a major mission to evacuate the remaining people is far less likely, as they believe Peshmerga forces, supported by U.S. air strikes, can help the people escape. But the brutal campaign by ISIS is far from over. The United Nations announced its highest level of emergency for humanitarian crisis Wednesday, estimating more than 400,000 people have now fled their homes in fear of the tyrannical militant group.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STARR (voice-over): Is the siege of Mount Sinjar really broken? The military says it will continue with air strikes to push ISIS back if that is what is need -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. The news isn't all good coming out of Iraq because we do have breaking news. ISIS is now advancing south and west of Kirkuk.

Let's head to Baghdad and Nick Paton Walsh, tell us more.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, as far as we know, according to one expert on ISIS maneuvers, they have decided to move to three key cities to the south and west of Kirkuk as you mentioned, and also Divis, being their goal is to move north, potentially towards key refinery towns up there.

But where I'm standing in Baghdad, Carol, it's a city still tense, still anxious to see the political deadlock here in which Nuri al- Maliki the prime minister has yet to refuse to step back from power to see that deadlock resolved.

COSTELLO: I don't think we --

WALSH: So Carol here --

COSTELLO: Nick, I don't think we have your piece ready to go, but just explain a little more about what's happening within Baghdad and why people are so afraid.

WALSH: Well, it's a city really, which is for months endured a mess in Iraqi politics, but has seen that just intensify in the last week. Nuri al-Maliki was prime minister here, accused by Washington of sectarian division, fermenting divides in Iraqi society that gave all the space to ISIS to move into the north where Sunni societies actually found relatively welcoming to their advance.

He's now facing an issue where the new president here has anointed Prime Minister Designate Alabadi and yet Nuri al-Maliki has yet to step back. His Iranian backers even Saudi Arabia, everybody really saying the page has turned and it's time for Nuri al-Maliki to move on.

He's yet to accept that publicly. Yesterday making a defiant speech in which he called on the courts to decide on the constitutionality of what's happening. That's left people in Baghdad extraordinarily confused about what comes next. We've seen that on the streets yesterday.

COSTELLO: All right, we have your story ready to go. Nick, here it is. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALSH: Normal has been awful here so long. When they say it's worse than ever, pay attention. We heard the bomb that went off here on Tuesday, a survivor filming the immediate panic afterwards.

Just down the road is the family home of Prime Minister Designate Haider al-Ibadi. Whether he was the target mattered little to these people. Hours later, furiously demolishing the checkpoint of the police who did not protect them. Shots fired in the air to scatter them.

The next day, police there enforce, refusing to let us film them. Making life even tougher to live or for Ahmad to remember any other way of life. No, he says, I don't remember a time when there were no bombs. I don't go out on the streets because I'm afraid. Business as unusual for Baghdad, shops closed, traffic jams missing.

(on camera): This should be rush hour traffic and cars should find it almost impossible to move at this time of day around this key round about, but in some areas of Baghdad there's a sense of a city unwilling to venture out on to the streets, embraced for the worst.

(voice-over): Shattered, locked, amid a paralyzed government and advancing extremists saying it has never been so bad. Right now, 2014 is the worst year yet for Baghdad, he says. The street is literally empty. Where are the army and police?

Down the road, water pipes, things ISIS militants would immediately punish brutally and the revolution for the political elites' failure to organize itself is playing into ISIS hands. When the old prime minister won't hand over power to the new, he says, ISIS can exploit that and enter Baghdad.

WALSH: ISIS won't get into Baghdad, this man proclaims, but he's increasingly alone in what was once a crowded street.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: All right. Nick Paton Walsh, thanks for that report, we really appreciate it.

Still to come in the CNN NEWSROOM, police in riot gear, tear gas erupting into the crowds and journalists under arrest. Ana Cabrera live in Ferguson, Missouri, for us this morning. Hi, Ana.

ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. The voice is calling for action are growing louder not just here in Ferguson, but all around the country. We'll have an update about the conversation about why this issue continues to hit such a boiling point when we come back.

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COSTELLO: Wednesday marked a fifth night of violence in Ferguson, Missouri. Overnight protesters clashed once again with police, objecting to what they call the unprovoked shooting of 18-year-old, Michael Brown.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There it comes. They're firing on to the crowd.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Stunning video from last flight showing officers firing tear gas canisters and possibly rubber bullets trying to disperse the crowd.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's go.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm working on it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stop videotaping and grab your stuff and go.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hurry up, let's go.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please don't.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You see me working on it. Please do not tell me not to use --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's go.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're down to about 45 seconds.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right. We also saw scenes like this one. Two journalists were arrested after they were told by police that they were trespassing inside a local McDonald's. I'll talk to one of those journalists just ahead.

In the meantime the internet activist group Anonymous is naming the officer it claims shot Michael Brown and it's threatening to release more information about him.

CNN is not naming the officer until it's able to independently confirm his identity. CNN's Ana Cabrera is live in Ferguson, Missouri this morning. Ana, you know, you just talked to an alderman who was detained by police. What did he tell you?

CABRERA: You know, so much has happened in just the last few hours, Carol, as you mentioned. We're hearing a possible officer's name involved in this shooting, which we're working to confirm. You can see it is calm here now, but we're learning of protests that are being planned for today, not just here in Ferguson but all over the country.

The Missouri governor is on his way here to visit Ferguson today and the president, we know, is monitoring the situation and has been briefed from Martha's Vineyard where he's vacationing with his family. Now one of the reasons the situation is still escalating, we're hearing on the ground here, is that police they say are still trying to oppress protesters' voices and that's exactly the message that we got from alderman, Antonio French.

He's a St. Louis City alderman and he was among those arrested last night for what he says not listening to police. Listen to what he told us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANTONIO FRENCH, ST. LOUIS ALDERMAN: I was out there with the protesters. I had been out there about two hours and while I was out there, a guy who lives behind the QT, lives in the neighborhood, told me that police told him that they wanted everybody off that street at 9:00.

That's not some information they had told anybody else. So I actually tweeted that about 25 minutes before 9:00 and sure enough, as 9:00 approached, all of a sudden the police got on the megaphones and said, this is no longer a peaceful demonstration. Everyone should go home or go to their cars.

I didn't know -- I didn't see any provocation for that, but it agitated the crowd. They said they weren't leaving. They knew what was going to happen and they were prepared for it. They said they weren't leaving.

Sure enough, after a couple more warnings, police threw smoke bombs into the crowd and people ran. Probably thinking it was tear gas. When they realized it wasn't tear gas they came back.

Again, started shouting obscenities at the police, telling them this is their home, you go home, we're not going home, this is our home. And then the police said last warning. And then they shot tear gas into the crowd. A lot of people dispersed.

Most of the older folks ran to homes or whatever. The younger people who were ready for a battle, they stayed and they started throwing things and as police moved further, closer, I got into my car once the tear gas started, having gone through this the night before, rolled up my windows, closed my vent and began to record from my parked vehicle.

Police came closer. My vehicle was basically between police, the assault vehicles that were coming, and the crowd of young people behind us.

CABRERA: And about what time was it at this point?

FRENCH: This was right at 9:00. As the police came closer, they flashed a light into my vehicle, told me to raise my hands. I already had one up with my camera so I raised my left hand as well. And I continued to record and post videos with one hand.

And eventually the guy came closer, the officer, with an assault rifle opened my door, pulled me out of the car, and they put me in the zip tie handcuffs. I asked them what am I being arrested for some he told me I was being arrested because I didn't listen.

CABRERA: You didn't listen in leaving? Is that what he was implying?

FRENCH: He said you didn't listen.

CABRERA: What was your reaction or what went through your mind when this happened?

FRENCH: You know, it wasn't unexpected. I mean, you know, this is -- this is kind of the approach the police have taken the last few days. I don't think it's making the situation better. I think it makes it worse. I think you have these large crowds out there and they are peacefully assembling throughout the day.

It is when those assault vehicles show up, when these guys are pointing sniper rifles at the citizens that it angers them and it just agitates the situation and makes it worse.

I think this heavy-handed approach is not helping the situation, not helping our community and I think we really need to think about the long term and we should not be -- we'll get through this period, all right. The violence will eventually end.

But we want to get through it in a way that doesn't have a long- lasting wounds that make the real healing even harder.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CABRERA: And I asked that alderman, you know, where is there going to be a turning point. What needs to happen? He said I don't know right now, but we know voices need to be heard, not oppressed.

I want to mention, too, that at the scene of these protests are multiple law enforcement agencies. It's not just the Ferguson Police Department, which we've talked so much about that were involved with the shooting of Michael Brown, but we were talking about the St. Louis County police who have been called in to help as well as the Missouri Highway Patrol.

There are some communication breakdowns even between the departments in terms of maybe how they proceed in addressing these protesters. We know the city did ask those protesters just put out a broad call to say let's end these protests at 9:00 or at nightfall because it seems in the last several days that's when things are getting violent.

People are protesting peacefully during the day. You heard him mention protesters say they were still peacefully protesting when police used force taking that initial action. So unfortunately, it's a cyclical thing at this point -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Ana Cabrera, reporting live from Ferguson, Missouri. I want to talk more about this. Let me bring in CNN commentator, L.Z. Granderson, HLN legal analyst, Joey Jackson and "St. Louis Dispatch" syndicated columnist, Aisha Sultan. Welcome to all of you.

JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: Thank you, Carol. Good morning.

COSTELLO: Good morning. Aisha, I want to start with you. Aisha is not here? OK. So I'll start with L.Z. Aisha will join us shortly. L.Z., this massive show of force, the tear gas, the rubber bullets, the riot gear, was it too much?

L.Z. GRANDERSON, CNN COMMENTATOR: Well, we've been seeing over the past five to ten years a slow growing militarization of local authorities to begin with that has been, you know, slowly raising the concerns of some people who have been paying attention.

And now we have all these videos and images to see much larger portion of the country has become alarmed by this. When you start giving police officers the type of military equipment they have, without the proper training, without proper racial training, it's a recipe for disaster.

Yes, that's too much, but this isn't just the only town that's suffering from this sort of over abuse of police authority.

COSTELLO: All right. We'll get into that in just a minute. I want to ask a question of Aisha, since you're a resident of that community. From your perspective, who's at fault here? Is it the police or is it these protesters who are exhibiting violent behavior and the police have no choice but to react in this way?

AISHA SULTAN, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST, ST. LOUIS DISPATCH: I'm a resident of the area, not of Ferguson, and I'm a writer for the "St. Louis Post Dispatch" we've been covering this story. What's interesting about this is that St. Louis has unique -- our area has a unique history as to the migration patterns and, you know, when people arrived here and when people left.

It has a unique governance structure. The people of this region are not any different than anyone else in America. It's the way the system and the structures have been set up, that have exacerbated the response that you're seeing here and why you're seeing the conflict come to a head the way it has.

COSTELLO: What do you mean? I don't understand. What do you mean?

SULTAN: Let me explain to you. This is like a brief, very quick history of this area, but when there was a large migration of African- Americans into the city of St. Louis in the 1950s, you saw a large number of whites, a huge movement into the county.

Now our region is divided into a city and county. And even within the county, there are like more than 90 municipalities, Ferguson is one of them. So after that point, you saw decades later in the past few decades a great number of whites leave -- white residents leave Ferguson and the north county area, which -- where a lot of African- Americans had also moved.

For other -- farther west areas, and so what's happened because of that, there is a long history of sort of mistrust and the power structures that remain in these municipalities tend to be largely white. The police officers, the police chief, the mayor, and that creates a more uncomfortable and difficult dynamic to work with.

When you talk about something as difficult as race and race relations, that trust hasn't really been built up over decades and generationally here yet.

COSTELLO: I guess, Joey, the question now is, why hasn't it been built up? Why hasn't there been special training? Because surely this isn't the first time that there's been racial tensions between these two factions, right?

JACKSON: It's a wonderful point, Carol, and I think it gets to this. Now is the time for constructive dialog between the community and the police and how is that constructive dialog helped in any way that the police do something just because I can?

I'm going to fire tear gas because I can. I'll fire rubber bullets because I'm in a position authority. If people are engaged in peaceful protests they should be allowed to express their views. I think that the community now that the media is watching can use the media as a force for good.

How about getting front of the cameras and saying we understand your frustrations. We're getting to the facts. We know there's a disconnect between the police and community and we're going to get answers to you. We're doing all we can. We're working with other communities.

We're working with the federal government and we'll get answers to you and we believe, through this, we can establish a dialog that will be constructive moving forward.

And I think, Carol, that potentially would be a better way to go than to just elevate the level and escalate it even further than just firing tear gas and engaging in more violence. Hopefully that would bridge a divide or begin to bridge a divide if you communicate with the people as opposed to just policing them overseeing them.

COSTELLO: Joey, I could not agree with you more, and L.Z., this question to you, if I were in charge of the PR for the police departments in this community, I would be holding press conferences every few hours just to tell people like we're on it. That we care, et cetera, right?

GRANDERSON: You know, I knew this situation was going to be in trouble when Chris Cuomo on "NEW DAY" interviewed the mayor of Ferguson and he said on Monday, he said he had not yet met with the parents of the victim and he was planning to do so either that day or the next day.

I sat there and thought, he has no idea how volcanic the situation is. If that white mayor had not met with those parents on Monday and hadn't planned to fully that day or the next day, that tells me the leadership from the mayor to the police to city council, has no idea how to navigate through these choppy waters they're dealing with right now. It's rudderless. If I can add one more thing, Carol, we've seen all these libertarians rush to the aid of American citizens who seem to be under siege by the government and here we have these citizens in Ferguson and I don't see a Rand Paul.

I don't see a Priebus, I don't see anybody from the libertarian or Republican movement who talk about small government and overstepping American citizens' rights coming either on camera or social media to talk about this situation.

You want an appeal to minority voters this is how you do it. You don't just come to the aid of white people being under siege by the government. You come to the aid of Americans who were under siege by the government.

COSTELLO: Interesting. Would that help, Aisha?

SULTAN: Definitely, we need leaders to be down here, the governor is on his way. We need people to hear the concerns that are being expressed not just now, but for many, many years. You know, I agree, dialog is important, but this is not going to -- the long history of wounds in communities like this and areas like this are not going to heal overnight.

It's going to take time and it's going to take investment and it's going to take the county and city working together. So I mean, right now, an immediate solution is to be had to the violence unrest that's happening here and sort of stop the bleeding but you can't just abandon this and say OK, now we're pushing this back under the rug.

COSTELLO: So Joey, I think it's safe to say this has become bigger than Michael Brown?

JACKSON: I certainly think it has. It really focuses on the police's actions and their attitude and not to indict police in general. We trust and respect the police and the larger community. However, when there are instances of conduct that we believe that police overstep, they need to be called out.

When you have Michael Browns of the world it becomes a problem. When you have the Trayvon Martins of the world, it becomes a problem. When you have other instances where people are gunned down for reasons that just boggle the mind we can't understand, then you know what, we have to examine it.

And we have to begin to talk so that we can heal and engage in trust and respect as opposed to just police, you know, engaging in this kind of behavior that we see on the screen right there.

COSTELLO: L.Z. Granderson, Aisha Sultan, Joey Jackson, thanks to all of you. I appreciate it.

JACKSON: Pleasure and a privilege.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, journalists covering the protest in Ferguson overnight found themselves right in the middle of the chaos. We'll hear from one reporter who was arrested and then released, but given no explanation as to why.

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