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Who Was Douglas McAuthur McCain?; Pentagon Warns of U.S. Jihadi in Syria; Interview with Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen; Interview with Richard Murphy, Former U.S. Amb. to Syria; American Student Missing in Israel

Aired August 27, 2014 - 09:00   ET

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


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you, have a great day.

NEWSROOM starts now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Happening now in the NEWSROOM, American jihadi.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: This 33-year- old man from San Diego went to fight and die in Syria for ISIS.

COSTELLO: Douglas McAuthur McCain.

REAR ADM. JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: You have citizens that are getting radicalized.

COSTELLO: Grew up in Minnesota.

KENYATA MCCAIN, DOUGLAS MCCAIN'S COUSIN: That's not -- that's not who he is.

COSTELLO: Loved basketball.

MCCAIN: He's not ISIS.

COSTELLO: Breaking new details this morning as mission creep spreads in Syria and Congress is nowhere to be found.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need to look under every bush. We need to look under every rock.

COSTELLO: And 23-year-old American student Aaron Sofer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just have one message, please bring back my brother.

COSTELLO: Missing in Jerusalem. His father combing the forest for his son, speaking to CNN this morning.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We never give up hope. We're always hopeful.

COSTELLO: Also close call. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, we're putting the nose down. And yes, he was

real close.

COSTELLO: Near-collision. A CNN investigation showing they doubled last year.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: United 601, stop your turn.

COSTELLO: On the ground.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Stop your turn. Stop your climb. Stop your turn.

COSTELLO: And in the air.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: United 601.

COSTELLO: How safe are you?

Let's talk, live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: And good morning to you. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

A militant fighter dies on a distant battlefield, giving his life for a group that's both savage and devoted to the destruction of America, yet he is an American, and the embodiment of fear voiced at the Pentagon just moments ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KIRBY: I will say it's a stark reminder and a healthy reminder of the concern that governments all over the world have about foreign fighters getting radicalized, joining a group like ISIL, and then potentially coming back to their homelands and conducting terrorist attacks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: This radicalized American converted to Islam only within the last few years after a series of minor scrapes with the law. And while bewildered relatives noticed his Facebook posts sympathetic to ISIS, they scoff at the notion that he fought and died for that cause.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MCCAIN: I feel like maybe it was some people he was hanging out with, because that's not -- that's not who he is. He's not ISIS. He's not a terrorist, you know? So that's my first response to what I heard.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: But it is that concern, homegrown terrorists, secretly living among us, that's triggering alarms this morning.

So let's take a closer look at McCain and his steady slide into radical Islam.

CNN's Dan Simon is in San Diego, where McCain had lived most recently. Tell us more, Dan.

DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Morning, Carol. Well, we've been trying to piece together as much as we can about Douglas McCain. As you said, he had lived here in San Diego, actually attended this community college where I am, seemingly trying to make something of his life.

We know that he attended a mosque in the area regularly, but how and why he became radicalized at this point we don't know.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SIMON (voice-over): Douglas McAuthur McCain's family says they're devastated to learn the 33-year-old father was fighting with the terrorist group ISIS.

MCCAIN: It's crazy. I don't understand it. I don't even believe this. I'm in shock. Like, I don't even know how to feel. My cousin was not a terrorist. He is not a terrorist.

SIMON: McCain had been living in San Diego but grew up in New Hope, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. They describe him as a good person with a big heart.

MCCAIN: He would have you laughing to tears. He was happy. He was smart, you know? He wasn't a radical, no. He wasn't hate-filled. He loved, loved, loved, like even if you don't love him back, he still love you, that's how he is.

SIMON: Raised a Christian, McCain converted to Islam several years ago. His conversion did not alarm his family. Rather, it was posts on social media, increasingly sympathetic to ISIS and other radical Islamist groups, that got their attention. On a Twitter account reported to be McCain's the bio reads, "It's Islam over everything." He writes messages like, "I will be joining you guys soon," and "I'm with the brothers now," and re-tweets posts like, "It takes a warrior to understand a warrior. Pray for ISIS."

U.S. counterterrorism investigators had been looking into McCain's activities for some time. He was on a terror watch list of Americans believed to have joined militant groups and would be stopped and questioned if he traveled.

McCain had some past run-ins with the law. Between 2000 and 2008 he was arrested at least six times, all for minor offenses.

Isaac Chase, who grew up with McCain, says he was a nice, quiet kid who loved playing basketball. He says McCain was impressed that Chase was serving with the Air Force in Iraq and making something of his life and wanted to do the same.

ISAAC CHASE, FRIEND OF DOUGLAS MCCAIN: It don't make no sense. The Doug I know is a good person and I wouldn't even think that he would ever do anything like that.

SIMON: Several months ago McCain told family members he was traveling to Turkey. What they did not know is that from there he made his way into Syria to ISIS strongholds to fight and die for their cause.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIMON: And you can bet that American intelligence authorities are looking into every aspect of McCain's past, which could hopefully lead them to other Americans serving in ISIS for those sympathetic to its cause -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Dan Simon reporting live for us this morning, thanks so much.

In the meantime, the United States is edging toward military action in Syria. A State Department spokeswoman says President Obama has been given a range of planning options on how to take on ISIS. Mr. Obama has already authorized reconnaissance flights over Syria, a spy mission that could begin at any time.

The big question now, will he go one step farther and give the OK to conduct airstrikes in Syria to target ISIS fighters on the ground. A growing number of lawmakers say the president needs congressional approval before he can take that military action. If he does get congressional approval, let's just say Mr. Obama cannot ask for the OK in the hallowed halls of Congress because they are empty. Lawmakers remain on summer recess.

Let's bring in Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. She joins us now from Miami.

Welcome, Congresswoman.

REP. ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN (R), FLORIDA: Thank you, Carol.

COSTELLO: You --

ROS-LEHTINEN: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Thank you for being here. I really appreciate it. You've said that the United States is getting back to a pre-9/11 mentality when it comes to the threat against ISIS. If that's the case, why isn't Congress calling in emergency session?

ROS-LEHTINEN: Well, we'll be glad to go back to Congress but the first thing that the president as commander in chief and as the head of our U.S. government needs to do is to lay out a vision, Carol, of what we're about to accomplish. If we go back to session tomorrow what is it that we're going to be debating? Is it going to be authorization for airstrikes? Is it going to be more military involvement in Iraq and Syria?

What is the president's grand scheme for what our U.S. objectives are. So I think that's the first part of what is missing in this. We could go into session this afternoon. What is it that we hope to accomplish? That's the mission of the president as commander in chief, what are his goals. Is it to defeat ISIL in Iraq, defeat ISIL in Syria?

I think he would find a lot of support in Congress for such an objective. He needs to lay out what our U.S. national interests are and I would be there to support him in that.

COSTELLO: All right, well, I do want to read you something that the Democratic congressman, John Larson from Connecticut, posted on his Web site yesterday. He said this, "As President Obama's administration weighs several options, Congress should be fully engaged. Rather than remaining at home second-guessing and criticizing the president's every move, Congress should be back in Washington and fully briefed. It remains unclear with regard to strikes in Syria whether the president needs congressional authority. It is congress's duty to weigh in and clarify as this serious situation continues to evolve."

So again, I ask you if --

ROS-LEHTINEN: Well --

COSTELLO: Go ahead.

ROS-LEHTINEN: Well, first I would say, yes, the president needs to lay out the strategy, the objective. This has been a bloody battle. ISIL is not going to be contained. They need to be defeated. Who is going to be in there with us? Now we've got the Kurds. Natural allies, who would be very helpful in stamping out this cancer, but what is our objective? Is it to just contain them? Is it to defeat them?

And I think once the president lays out his case, and he's weighing options, but first comes the strategy, what is the objective.

COSTELLO: Well, Congresswoman, in your mind --

ROS-LEHTINEN: And I think we can do this in a bipartisan way.

COSTELLO: In your mind, what specifically should the president suggest? What should we do to defeat ISIS?

ROS-LEHTINEN: Well, I think that the president needs to lay out our goals. Why is it in our U.S. national security interest to defeat this cancer? I believe it is. I believe that if we want to ignore the problem and get back to this 9/10 mentality and to think that the threat is no longer there, it will be a horrible future for the United States and all of our interests throughout that region.

COSTELLO: But I do think -- I do think --

ROS-LEHTINEN: We've got to defeat ISIL and I think that we've got allies helping us to do it.

COSTELLO: I understand. And I think everyone agrees with that but I think that people also want ideas from lawmakers about what specifically the United States should do.

So what specifically should it do right now besides fly spy missions other Syria?

ROS-LEHTINEN: Well, I think that we should have these spy missions over Syria. We've got the technology to know where we're supposed to strike. Now Iraq is a far clearer goal than Syria is. Why? Because actually doing these airstrikes may end up helping the person who just a few years ago and as of yesterday we said Assad must go, the supposed leader of Syria, who has used chemical weapons on his people, who has murdered thousands of individuals, who have forced his own countrymen to flee the country.

Now if we do airstrikes, and we can do them, and I hope that the president gets to that point, we've got to make sure that we don't miss an opportunity again, like he did in the past, where he didn't work with the Free Syrian Army, natural allies that we could have had, so many missed opportunities. Let's not miss them again.

COSTELLO: So who should the United States work with now?

ROS-LEHTINEN: We do have the Free Syrian Army that is still ready to work with us. Now, every foreign fighter, just like this McCain individual, is now flocking to Syria and Iraq to make the situation even worse. We've got to defeat ISIL not only on the battlefield, we've got to defeat the allure of fighting for this terrorist regime.

COSTELLO: But, Congresswoman, Congresswoman, I do understand that. I'm just trying to get from you how you think we should do that?

ROS-LEHTINEN: Airstrikes, working with our allies.

COSTELLO: Well, which allies?

ROS-LEHTINEN: For example in Iraq, with our allies that we've had -- look what Egypt and the UAE did just a few days ago without even consulting with the U.S., took strikes right to Libya to try to defeat the terrorists there. We've got the UK. We've got Canada. We've got France. We've got lots of folks who say they want to help us in defeating this cancer.

I say we do those airstrikes in Iraq, continue that, help arm the Kurds so that they can defeat ISIL, work with the Free Syrian Army, get air strikes going in Syria, but we need to make sure that we've got the intelligence to strike at the very heart of this cancer before it spreads everywhere.

COSTELLO: All right. All right. Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, thank you so much for being with me this morning. I appreciate it.

ROS-LEHTINEN: Thank you, Carol.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, as the United States prepares to ramp up its fight against ISIS, officials say negotiating with the Assad regime is off the table. So is a diplomatic solution possible or will the White House be forced to take military action? Up next, I'll talk to a former U.S. ambassador to Syria, Richard

Murphy, about why the conflict may be different from anything the United States has ever seen.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: ISIS is brutal. We know that. It is killing Americans and vows to kill more. We know that, too.

And it is successfully recruiting Americans. So, what to do? Bomb Syria where ISIS largely lives? Hawks might say yes but it's certainly not that easy.

I want to talk about that with Richard Murphy, former U.S. ambassador to Syria. Welcome, sir.

RICHARD MURPHY, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO SYRIA: Thank you.

COSTELLO: I'm glad you're here.

So, I want to talk about Bashar al Assad, Syria's president you know him. Mr. Obama said he won't sit down and negotiate with Assad, basically because Assad is brutal himself, right? He was accused of using chemical weapons on his own people.

But just because the president won't do business with him, does that mean the United States can't do business with him in another way?

MURPHY: I think there's a way to try to work on the problem in Syria without working directly with President Bashar. He is the president of the country. He managed to get elected by a massive margin, just last spring for his third term.

But the brutality that he has carried out and he has authorized against his own people has been enormous, and I don't see that there's any way we can have any open cooperation with him, without losing the support of those that we will need to do the direct confrontations with ISIS.

COSTELLO: So I just spoke to a congresswoman who said the United States should reach out to other countries to help combat is. Which other countries should the United States be talking to?

MUPRHY: I think the main people we should be reaching out to are in Syria and in Iraq where the problem is located at this point, and I think that's the reason I think it's going to be very hard for the United States to find a way to thread the needle. We don't want to alienate the Sunnis of Iraq. We're trying to get them to deal with ISIS in their territory.

In Syria, some of the Sunnis are loyal to President Bashar, but they are equally strongly against ISIS. So, you'd have to find a way to do something that will hurt is, will restrict ISIS in some way.

COSTELLO: So, knowing this is a delicate operation, right, what should President Obama do besides -- I mean he's ordered these spy missions over Syria try to find appropriate targets to hit from the air. But what else should he be doing right now or saying to the American people?

MURPHY: Well, there isn't a problem that America can handle by itself. That's number one, and there are steps that have to be taken quietly and they will be in disregard of our usual notions of sovereignty, such as Syria sending our aircraft over Syria without coordinating with the Syrians.

The problem at the end of the day is, what targets can they find? This is an elusive target, a guerrilla operation. You've shown many films over the last few weeks showing them scooting around in their small vehicles and firing wildly. Well, they're formidable but not a good target for an air attack or any other attack we're likely to engage in.

COSTELLO: So, there will be no quick fix, that's safe to say. Mr. Ambassador thank you for being with me today. I appreciate it.

MURPHY: My pleasure.

COSTELLO: Still to come in THE NEWSROOM, the latest on efforts to find an American student who went missing while hiking in Israel. We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: In Israel, the search is intensifying for an American student who went missing while hiking near Jerusalem. Twenty-three- year-old Aaron Sofer disappeared on Friday. At this point, four days later, there is no trace of him.

Israeli authorities are searching the area known as Jerusalem forest and have questioned a friend who was walking with Sofer. The missing man's parents flew to Israel to be near the search.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Helping you in the search.

RABBI MOSHE TZVI SOFER, FATHER OF MISSING MAN: It means a lot to us that everyone's doing their share, whatever they could to help find my son and it's a very meaningful thing for us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Joining me now is Avital Leibovich. She's the director of the American-Jewish Community in Israel.

Welcome. I'm glad you're here in the United States to talk with me.

Do you know where the investigation stands as to this missing teenager or young man, I should say?

AVITAL LEIBOVICH, DIR., AMERICAN JEWISH CMTE. IN ISRAEL: As far as I know the police intensified their searches. I can tell you that also many Israelis are assisting in these searches but there are no progress as of now.

COSTELLO: The area where this young man was hiking, this is the same area where other young men have come under attack. Can you tell us about that?

LEIBOVICH: It's a remote area. It's a secluded area. It's really forest, not close to any community or any city. It's a huge area, very dense with trees and greenery.

There were a few attacks in the past in those areas. Hopefully, this is not the situation, and he will be found soon.

COSTELLO: I hope so. Congressman Chris Smith, a Republican, has written to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, asking for the United States to get involved in the search. Should the United States get involved? And if it does, what could it do?

LEIBOVICH: I don't think it's necessary at this point because Israel has unfortunately a lot of experience in these kinds of matters and it is conducting a very extensive search. And one of the nice things about the Israeli society, everybody's gathered up and in this effort trying to look for this boy.

COSTELLO: What do police or investigators suspect what happened? Was this possibly a kidnapping or did he just go missing? Was it something personal?

LEIBOVICH: It could be anywhere from the range of not knowing his way, not finding his way back since he was a tourist, and these are not known area for tourists, and of course, to physical assault by some terror extremist.

COSTELLO: I just wanted to touch a little bit on the cease-fire agreement between Israel and Gaza. People are hopeful that it will last, it will hold.

LEIBOVICH: I want to say people are hopeful. In general people are hopeful but this is the 12th cease-fire. So, I think people are more realistic than hopeful in these days, and are not trusting 100 percent in this situation. We have to see.

I mean, it's still young. It's still fresh. It only started a few hours ago. Who knows, maybe in half an hour, there will be another mortar fire from Gaza?

COSTELLO: I see your daughter over there, hi.

Do you feel comfortable in sending her back to school when you get back to your country?

LEIBOVICH: This is a major issue, because September 1st, we have hundreds of thousands of young Israelis, young kids returning to schools, and the classrooms are not protected. They're not sheltered, and there's also the way to the classroom, to the school itself. So, I have more than one minute to find shelter but it doesn't take me one minute to get to school. I really honestly don't know what to do with my three kids next week, whether to send them or not to send them.

It's really a matter of life and death situation. Only two days ago a 4-year-old kid was killed by a mortar. So, as a parent, of course, it's a huge dilemma.

COSTELLO: Thank you so much for talking with us today. We appreciate it.

Still to come in THE NEWSROOM, eyes in the skies but no boots on the ground. The United States launches drone flights to gather intel on ISIS fighters in Syria.

Barbara Starr live at the Pentagon this morning. Hi, Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. If President Obama were to order airstrikes into Syria? What would it look like?

Stay with us. We'll have more after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)