Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Who Dropped the Ball on ISIS?; Kean: "Appalled" at Lack of ISIS Knowledge; U.S. Official Obama OKs Syria Spy Flights

Aired August 26, 2014 - 15:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: The shocking advance of the terrorist group ISIS, which has declared itself a state after seizing large parts of both Syria and Iraq, has a lot of Americans asking, who is ISIS.

If you are one of those people, it appears you have company at the CIA. We are only now scratching the surface of what might have been another potential intelligence failure, the failure to recognize that ISIS is not your average terrorist group.

Former New Jersey governor, Thomas Kean, the co-chair of the 9/11 commission, which investigated the failures connected to that attach. Governor Kean, thanks for joining me. Do you believe that is what we are seeing here? That this is an intel failure on 9/11?

GOVERNOR THOMAS KEAN, CO-CHAIRMAN, 9/11 COMMISSION: You can't tell that because intel may have been there and maybe the administration failed to act. We don't know that. We've had very good people in intelligence and some of them didn't prepare for ISIS.

But this is -- this is a major, major development. This is the first time that there's a state out there since 9/11 where terrorists could train for an event like 9/11.

CABRERA: Now they do. We just showed a map of how much territory they have gobbled up.

KEAN: It took three or four years after 9/11. They had to bring the people in. They had to train them. They had to do the plans. It took about three or four years. And now they haven't had the money or the place in order to train for big attacks. We've had small attacks, the Boston marathon.

Smaller attacks by individuals because there has been no place to train. This potentially will be enemies who have terrorist intentions some place to train and prepare that larger attack that we should be very worried about.

CABRERA: And that might explain the alarming words that came out of the secretary of defense's mouth, Chuck Hagel, earlier this past week. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CHUCK HAGEL, DEFENSE SECRETARY: ISIL is as sophisticated and well- funded as any group that we've seen. They are beyond just a terrorist group. They marry ideology, a sophistication of strategic and tactical military prowess. They are tremendously well-funded. This is beyond anything that we've seen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: So, of course, in January, President Obama, he appeared to suggest that ISIS was more of a JV team. Those are his words, but now we're hearing the administration characterizing ISIS as a group like something we've never seen before. It's that bad. Does the truth lies somewhere in the middle or are we just seeing ISIS grow and become that much more threatening?

KEAN: We're not sure what they are going to become yet because they have not made their intentions clear yet. Their leadership is somewhat shadowy. They haven't said they wanted to make a terrorist based to attack the United States.

They have accused us of being a great Satan the way al Qaeda always did. So we don't know yet, but we know they have the potential. They are the most dangerous enemy we've had since 9/11.

CABRERA: If we don't know, what can we do to protect ourselves?

KEAN: Well, we can do a number of things. First of all, we have to use all our best intelligence to find out who is over there. There are American citizens. There are European citizens. They need no passport coming to the United States.

CABRERA: Right. We discussed that with our earlier guest.

KEAN: Right. And Americans can, of course, walk back in again. If they are trained over there to do terrorist actions and they are in view with the Jihadist feelings, they can do us damage. We've got to find out who those people are and make sure when they come back to the United States. They don't mean to do us harm. That's step number one.

CABRERA: All right. We'll have to end it there. Thank you so much, Thomas Kean. Thank you for joining me today.

Up next, a major report about wait times at our nation's VA hospital that was just released. At least 19 vets have died because of a delay in medical screening but today's report disputes that. We'll explain what is in this 150-page document when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: In an inspector general's report just released by the Department of Veterans Affairs, patient deaths could not be directly attributed to long wait times at the Phoenix VA hospital saying, quote, "While the case reviews the poor quality of care, we are unable to assert that the absence of timely quality care caused the deaths of these veterans." Now President Obama addressed the problem at the Phoenix VA just a short time ago at the American Legion National Convention in Charlotte.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Despite all of the progress that we've made over the last several years, we are very clear eyed about the there are problems still there and those problems require us to regain the trust of our veterans and live up to our vision of a V.A. that is more effective and more efficient and that truly puts veterans first. And I will not be satisfied until that happens.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: CNN has long been reporting about delays in care at VA facilities nationwide. Last November, a CNN investigation showed that veterans were dying while they were waiting. Long wait times and delays were a big issue. This also included a secret list of patient appointments that was intended to hide that patients were waiting months to be treated.

CNN investigative correspondent, Drew Griffin has followed this story. You broke this story, Drew. I know you have interest in what the president is saying in this new report. What do you make about the new findings?

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's a scathing report that basically verifies everything we've been reporting. The "Arizona Republic" is reporting and the Congressional Oversight Committee has been reporting, thousands of sick patients were on waiting lists, secret and otherwise at the Phoenix, VA.

They reviewed a significant number of these cases, Ana, and found in 28 cases there were significant delays in care and of those people, six are dead. What they have not been able to conclude or draw a link to is whether or not the delays in care conclusively caused anybody's death.

Not ruling it out, not ruling it in. They are just saying they can't conclude that that's the case. But the rest of this report really, really is damning against the management of the Phoenix, VA. Let me go through just a couple of numbers.

We talked about cooking the books and hiding wait times. Thirty staff members using wrong dates to input appointments so they can hide wait times and other 11 staff members were told to fix wait times and 28 staff members who, Ana, would printout requests for care, requests for appointments.

And stick them in desk drawers instead of putting them on any wait list, virtually hiding them on secret lists. This report comes out, we heard from the president today from Secretary Bob McDonnell, the VA secretary who is vowing to hold those accountable.

It's just about as bad as we have been reporting and we'll see what happens with the V.A. from here on out.

CABRERA: As a result of the report, does the report give any guidance, suggestions for improvements?

GRIFFIN: Well, there's already been a lot of these improvements made. A lot of these people who have been waiting and waiting to get an appointments have been brought in for an initial appointment. It's a $16 billion bill pass to speed up the process for health care.

But what we're not seeing yet and veterans across this country are waiting for is the actual accountability, who's getting fired, who's getting kicked out, all this bad stuff is outlined in this report. I don't see at the end an itemized list of who got canned in all of this.

So we'll have to wait and see what the new acting -- the new secretary, Bob McDonough is going to do as far as rearranging the entire management of the VA health system to make it much more accountable, much more transparent and honest with its veterans.

CABRERA: Hopefully this is just a stepping stone. Drew Griffin, thank you so much.

A U.S. official has confirmed President Obama ordered spy flights over Syria. It is an effort to get information on the terror group ISIS in that country. Should the White House coordinate attacks with Syria's leader, Bashar al-Assad?

This is the same man President Obama said should step down. We'll ask a military colonel who helped with the troop surge in Iraq, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: If the U.S. does carry out air strikes against ISIS in Syria, we now know Syria won't get much notice beforehand. Now the White House says it has no plans to coordinate attacks with the government of President Bashar al Assad.

It has been three years since President Obama first called on Assad to step down and hopefully end the bloody Syrian civil war that has claimed the lives now of more than 191,000 people. The White House says it has no plans to coordinate attacks with the government of President Bashar Al-Assad.

It has been three years since President Obama first called on Assad to step down and hopefully end the bloody Syrian civil war. This claimed the lives now of more than 191,000 people.

Now the White House apparently will not be working with Assad even against ISIS. Deputy National Security Adviser, Benjamin Rhoades, said it is not the case that enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Now Colonel Peter Mansoor is a CNN military analyst and was an aide to General David Petraeus during the U.S. troop surge in Iraq. Colonel, good to have you with us.

COL. PETER MANSOOR, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Thank you.

CABRERA: In the Iran, Iraq war, the U.S. aided Iraq and worked with Saddam Hussein at one point. If ISIS is that big of a threat, why not work with Assad?

MANSOOR: Because Assad is also a threat and probably a war criminal, as well, and we don't need to work with him to destroy ISIS within the borders of Syria because the Syrian government doesn't control the territory that we would be attacking.

And if they tried to intervene with air defense weapons, we could simply send a message to Assad that if you try it, we'll bomb you next. I think he would gladly step aside and let us pummel is, his enemy, as well.

CABRERA: Let's talk about these reconnaissance flights that the Obama administration says are a go. Are they proof that the president is actually going to carry out air strikes and if not, what other reason for doing them?

MANSOOR: The reconnaissance flights give the president options. Without them we won't have any sort of intelligence or targeting information if the president decides to strike, and so they're a prudent measure at this point to give the president the future option to employ air power should he choose to do so. At that point, we'll be prepared to actually strike targets on the ground.

CABRERA: We've talked to many other guests today, in fact, who have said air strikes probably won't beat ISIS. What would air strikes accomplish?

MANSOOR: Well, air strikes can reduce the power of ISIS. They can destroy equipment especially, vehicles, artillery, mortar tubes and so forth. But air strikes alone will not defeat ISIS. Air strikes can blunt its offensive capability.

But to eject them and destroy them on the ground will require some sort of ground force. That could be the Iraqi army and the Kurdish Peshmerga within the borders of Iraq.

Within the borders of Syria, however, we'd have to rely on the Free Syrian Army, which doesn't have much power at present and perhaps the Sunni tribes, as well, but this would be a very long-term proposition.

CABRERA: You know, even though we weren't, quote/unquote, "putting boots on the ground" at least at this point, the president reiterated today, any threat to our U.S. forces that are there? We've sent over 500 military advisors and people who are working at in our compound in Baghdad.

MANSOOR: There's very little threat to our forces from ISIS. They're not up on our forces are not up on the front lines. They are not combating ISIS. They're not even calling in air strikes. They're in fairly well protected joint operation centers and intelligence centers and embassy compounds and so. Some of them are embedded with Iraqi forces, but those forces aren't the ones up on the frontlines. So at present, not much threat to U.S. forces. That could change in the future should the president actually decide to employ, say, forward air controllers or Special Forces up near the frontlines.

CABRERA: Last question, do we have time to wait?

MANSOOR: I think we do although ISIS is a very well-funded group and has hundreds of fighters within its ranks that have western passports. I don't think it's the case that we have to destroy them like tomorrow to prevent a serious attack on the United States.

But the time is getting shorter and the president will have to make a decision soon whether ISIS is a serious threat to U.S. national security and then what he's going to do about it.

CABRERA: Colonel Peter Mansour, thank you for joining us.

MANSOOR: Thank you.

CABRERA: Up next the glitz, the glamour of Hollywood was, of course, on display at the Emmy Awards last night. But it was really a special moment, a heartfelt moment to the honor Robin Williams that had a lot of people talking.

His long-time friend, Billy Crystal took to the stage and explain why he considered Williams such a special friend. We'll bring his tribute next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: The 66th Annual Emmy Awards are now part of Hollywood history. Did you catch them last night? If you were in the audience you might have felt like you had a ringside seat of a rock 'em sock 'em match between network and cable television.

The top awards split between the two, but really the big moment of the night, the highlight you might consider was a touching tribute to the late Robin Williams given by his good very friend, fellow comedian, Billy Crystal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILLY CRYSTAL, ACTOR: As genius he was on stage, he was the greatest friend you could ever imagine, supportive, protective, loving. It's very hard to talk about him in the past because he was so present in all of our lives. For almost 40 years, he was the brightest star in the comedy galaxy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Thank you for joining me. I'm Ana Cabrera. It's been great to have you. In the last couple of days Brooke Baldwin will return and right now "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper is next.