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Interview With Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel

Aired September 03, 2014 - 15:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Hi there. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You're watching CNN's special live coverage of two escalating situations around the world, the first the standoff between Russia and Ukraine, the second and most urgent in Iraq and Syria, where ISIS terrorists are gaining ground and delivering new threats after they beheaded another American.

Today, Vice President Joe Biden says America will follow ISIS, quoting him, to the gates of hell. His boss, President Barack Obama, chose his words a bit more carefully as he is heading to this NATO summit in Britain.

But, right now, you are about to hear from someone inside the president's inner circle. Let me go straight to Jim Sciutto, our chief national security correspondent.

Jim, you have the floor.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Brooke, thanks so much. And thanks to our viewers for joining for this very special live event, a live interview with Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel during what can only be described as an extremely busy and challenging time for the Defense Department, for the administration, for the country. We appreciate the defense secretary taking the time with us.

We also are doing this at a very special venue. We're here today in Newport, Rhode Island at the Naval War College. This is where America's present and future military leaders are trained. There are more than 500 of them joining the audience today. And it's not just American. There are some 63 countries represented here, and many of the countries that are right in the center of the stories that we are covering today: representatives from Estonia, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, Israel. These are the decision-makers that are going to be dealing with these crises, just like the defense secretary, in the coming months and years.

Again, thank you Secretary Hagel for taking the time to speak with us.

ISIS is at the top of the minds of many Americans, and certainly the administration as well. The president traveling to Estonia, you heard his comments earlier today, when he described in more definitive terms than we've heard so far, what the American mission is when it comes to ISIS. And he used the terms "degrade and destroy," that is the goal.

Vice President Joe Biden took it a step forward at least in rhetorical terms, a short time afterwards, saying in his words that, "we will follow them to the gates of hell because hell is where they reside."

Now, soon after the president, moments in fact, after he uttered the terms, the words "degrade and destroy," he went on to say that the goal may be to make ISIS "a more manageable threat," which seems to imply contain rather than destroy. And I want to ask you, which is it? Is the mission goal to contain or destroy, and what mission have you in the Defense Department been tasked with?

HAGEL: Well, first Jim, let me thank you and CNN for an opportunity to bring this group together and focus on the really pretty exceptional leadership and commitment to our country that's represented here today, as well as our foreign partners.

I also want to thank the admiral for hosting us. My old friend and former Senate colleague, Senator Jack Reed is in the audience. He and Governor Linc Chafee gave me a visa to come into the state for --

(LAUGHTER)

-- for a few hours. I shall get out before sundown. As I said.

But thank you for what you do Senator Reed and Admiral, and to all of you. And I want to thank all of our men and women across the globe for their commitment to our country.

I also understand that your father is in the audience, who is a Navy veteran, so to your father, thank you.

To your question, I think the president's statement, which I did read and aware of both he and the vice president's news conference, was pretty clear, to degrade and destroy the capability of ISIL. To come after U.S. interests all over the world and all our allies. However way he addressed that later in the news conference, I wasn't aware of that.

But our mission, as you have asked us what that mission is, based on what the commander in chief has asked of us, is to provide him those options and those plans to accomplish the mission of destroy and degrade the capability of ISIS. We're doing that as the president said, not just militarily, because that is but one component. The president has been very clear on that point.

But it also requires a stable, new, inclusive government in Iraq, which we are hopeful will be in place next week.

It is the people of Iraq, the people of the Middle East, that will make their ultimate decisions and determine their future. We can support them.

It's also bringing a group with us of like-minded countries that appreciate the threat that ISIL represents to all of us. And I think you know many of the countries, France, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, Albania, others, to bring that coalition with us, that's another part.

Authorizations. Air strikes. Budget issues. The president's been very clear he wants the Congress involved with him. We've been consulting with the Congress.

So, it's all of those components, but the mission is, very clearly, and we're providing the president with those options, to degrade and destroy ISIL's capability.

SCIUTTO: That's the end-game? Degrade and destroy? Not contain?

HAGEL: No, it's not contain. It's exactly what the president said. Degrade and destroy.

SCIUTTO: I want to talk about the threat to the U.S. homeland, in particular, from ISIS, because there have been mixed signals from the administration as to how imminent and severe that threat is.

Two weeks ago, you said ISIS is, quote, "an imminent threat to every interest we have," and you went on to say, "It's unlike any threat we've ever seen."

After your comments, the administration seemed to pull back, somewhat. You had the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff describe is as a "regional threat," something the president did later that same week, in fact, last Thursday, saying that ISIS poses an immediate threat to the people of Iraq and the people of the region. He did not say immediate threat to the U.S. homeland.

This is key. We have many folks back home wondering what threat it poses to them and their families.

Is it an imminent threat to the U.S. homeland or to the region?

HAGEL: Well, first of all, I didn't say homeland. I said to U.S. interests.

(CROSSTLAK)

SCIUTTO: But you said an imminent threat to every interest we have.

HAGEL: That's right. I didn't say homeland. I said to all of our interests.

Look at -- look at what just happened 24 hours ago on the latest video of another citizen, as to what ISIL did. It is a threat. ISIL is a threat to this country, to our interests.

Obviously, Prime Minister Cameron of Great Britain made that pretty clear a couple of days ago. The president of the United States has said they are a threat. The attorney general of the United States has said it in similar language. The secretary of homeland security, Director of national intelligence.

So these are very real threats. Or, if they weren't real threats, then the president wouldn't be saying, giving us the mission, to go out and degrade and destroy the capabilities --

SCIUTTO: No question. I'm not denying that officials have said it's a threat. The specific question is, is it a threat to the U.S. homeland at this stage, or is that a distant potential threat, and for now, ISIS is focused largely on gains in Iraq and Syria?

HAGEL: Well, I think, Jim, part of that answer is, as we have acknowledged publicly, we are aware of over 100 U.S. citizens who have U.S. passports who are fighting in the Middle East with ISIL forces. There may be more; we don't know.

We can't take a chance, Jim, on saying, well, let's technically define this, is it a real threat today or tomorrow, or is it going to be in six months? That's the way the threats don't work in little, neat boxes and emanate on our time frame. They emanate on their time frame.

And the president's point being to degrade and destroy their capability, so that it doesn't get to your question.

We know they're a threat. We know they're brutal. We know that they are, as I've said, as others have said, something that we've never seen before. They're better organized. They're better funded. They have more capability. They're better structured. There's a dangerous, dangerous ideology of a brutality, a barbaric nature, that we've not seen before.

So my job as secretary of defense is not to second-guess what may be or what's going to be, but we've got to protect, do everything we can to protect our country, our interests, at this -- at the -- at the command of our commander in chief as to what he needs in order to do his job.

SCIUTTO: So it sounds to me like you're operating, that this, to some degree, is not knowable, that there's a potential threat -- and I've had many intelligence briefings where intelligence officials have told me, that is the concern: Americans or Europeans returning home with those passports possibly carrying out attacks. While they may not have a credible threat, where they know the date and the time and the target, that's a potential threat.

But it sounds to me like you're operating, as defense secretary, that that threat could be immediate. And, therefore, you're reacting so that you could prevent that from happening.

HAGEL: That is part of our mission. And that's, again, not only my mission, my responsibility as secretary of defense, but, as you know, from our other Cabinet members, the attorney general, the secretary of homeland security, the director of national intelligence, all our intelligence agencies, all of us together, working -- law enforcement -- on this. But there are capabilities we have, missions that we can perform just as the president has instructed us to perform those missions, giving him the options, that we have to take seriously.

And I can't second-guess what may come or what may not come. This crowd is as dangerous a group of people beyond just terrorists. They are an army, marrying this with an ideology and capacity to do things. They -- they control half of Iraq today. They control half of Syria today. We better be taking them serious.

SCIUTTO: So, if you are taking them seriously, and I hear urgency in your voice, why isn't there an urgency in articulating and defining to the American people what the strategy is to react to the threat from ISIS, whether in the region or at home?

HAGEL: Well, I think the president has made that very clear. First, as he has said, we need to concentrate on, and we have been -- in Secretary Kerry's area of responsibility, but we all have this, is doing everything we can to support the Iraqi people as they come together, forming a new, inclusive government.

SCIUTTO: But as you know, Iraqi politics move very slowly. And frankly, the terror threat is and is likely to move more quickly than the Iraqi political process.

HAGEL: Jim, if you'll let me finish answering the question, that's but one component, but we're working on that.

What the president has talked about, bringing a group of countries together. Secretary Kerry will be doing this right after the NATO conference. I'll be involved in this, we have been, so has our CENTCOM commander, others, in bringing a group together that together, can help support forces in Iraq and Syria, in the Middle East, who respect freedom and dignity and the choices that people will make. Military is part of that. Planning is part of that. Working with the Congress is part of that. Resources are part of that.

Asking the follow-up questions, if you do this, if you take this action, what will that lead to? Is this the right action to take? So there's a strategy to this. As the president said in his reference last week, putting the cart before the horse, you can't do that. We've gotta bring a coalition together and do the other things that we are building, we are doing, with a sense of urgency.

There's no -- I think there's little question in my mind that there's a sense of urgency. I think the president has been pretty clear about that.

SCIUTTO: Is part of the strategy military strikes inside of Syria?

HAGEL: Well, that's an option. And we are looking at all those options.

SCIUTTO: Have you prepared those options for the president?

HAGEL: The president has asked us for different options, and we have prepared them for him.

SCIUTTO: And Syria airstrikes are among them?

HAGEL: All these things are options that the president wants to see, and we've been working with the White House, not just starting working with the White House. Been working with the White House for weeks. The president talks to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Ambassador Rice, national security advisor, talks to all of us. The president talks to me, talks to Lloyd Austin, the commanding general of CENTCOM. So, this isn't something that just popped up the last week or two. We've been working this for the last few weeks. SCIUTTO: To accomplish that mission, as you described it, degrade and destroy, can you in your view, as defense secretary, accomplish that without military action inside Syria, in light of the fact that ISIS controls territory on both sides of what is effectively a non-existent border?

HAGEL: Well, as I said, it's a number of options. And you plan for all those options, but one thing that we -- I hope we can accomplish with the Congress is the Congress going forward and funding the president's request for $500 million in funds to help support the Syrian moderate opposition. This is a part of the counter-terrorism partnership fund that the president put forward. The Congress has not acted on that yet. I would hope the Congress would.

But we look at all options. You have to look at all the options.

SCIUTTO: There was a moment last week when the White House Spokesman Josh Earnest seemed to imply that the Pentagon had not yet completed the options to present to the president. Have you placed options on his desk already for military action inside Syria?

HAGEL: Jim, options are constantly being defined and refined. This is a dynamic process. It isn't just start with five days ago, the president asked for an option. We're constantly providing different options and contingency plans for different things. So, the missions or whatever the commander in chief requests of a specific mission, wants from us, then we tailor our responses and our options to whatever that mission is, as he had just clearly defined it today, degrade and destroy.

SCIUTTO: So the president has on his desk an option for attacking Syria?

HAGEL: He has options all the time. But we're refining. We in fact -- yesterday, we just -- we were in touch again, and two or three times a day before she left with the president, with Ambassador Rice.

SCIUTTO: Do you think it's a mistake for the president to have ruled out boots on the ground to contribute to this action? Because you talked to generals former and present who will say air power is limited in what it can accomplish.

HAGEL: Well, the president has been very clear about we're not going to go back into Iraq the same way we came out of Iraq a few years ago. That means a combat action, so-called boots on the ground combat action for American troops. We're not going to do that. I support that decision. I think it's the -- the right decision.

Now, to your -- your bigger point about just airstrikes. No, just airstrikes alone won't fulfill -- accomplish, what the -- the mission is. This is why I go back with an earlier answer I gave on this is a larger dimension of many pieces. One is -- is a functioning, credible, trustworthy, inclusive Iraqi government is being formed now. Coalition partners, building coalitions in that area, so everybody has a role. Everybody can participate. And we're making good progress on that. It's what are our military options? It's many of these different dynamics that flood into one. Airstrikes is one. We've seen airstrikes that work pretty well. So far, in the limited missions that the president has given us to use airstrikes, and they have been pretty effective.

SCIUTTO: I'm wondering if I can turn now to one of the other major international crises that is on your plate now, and that's of course the situation in Ukraine. Does Russian military action to date inside Ukraine constitute an invasion?

HAGEL: Well, there are Russians in Ukraine. Russian military. Russian military equipment in Ukraine. You can define it any way you want. We have been very clear on this. We've said it. NATO has said it. General Breedlove has said it is.

SCIUTTO: They've said "incursion," though. U.S. officials haven't gone as far as to say, "invasion," which Ukrainian officials, as you know, have --

HAGEL: Well, I'll leave that -- others who worry about how you express yourself, or what words you do. That's not my role. This will be an issue that obviously will be very high on the agenda at NATO over the next two days.

SCIUTTO: Do you -- I mean, the reason I asked that question, is in part is because an invasion would seem to require certain responses that an incursion or a limited military intervention would not.

But specific -- let's get to the policy. The administration policy to this point, gradually raising the costs on the Russian economy has been designed, so say administration officials, to deescalate the crisis. Meanwhile, it is escalating, and even U.S. officials and yourself included have described it that way.

In light of that, is the U.S. policy regarding Ukraine a failure to this point?

HAGEL: Well, let's examine the facts here, Jim. The tension that has been rising and the escalation that's been occurring, that's been because of one individual. It's the president of Russia. It's not President Poroshenko of Ukraine. It's not NATO. It's not the United States. It's the Russian president who continues to take very dangerous escalatory actions. So, that's number one. And I think the proper context we should come at it.

Second, well, let's look at the damage that's been done to the Russian economy. The ruble is at an all-time low against any currency. It continues to find itself isolated in the world. You saw the recent announcement by the French government to in fact stop the sale of the Mistral ship.

SCIUTTO: Just today, yeah.

HAGEL: Today.

SCIUTTO: Advanced warships with a helicopter capability.

HAGEL: And you can go on to chart through all the other consequences so far that have occurred, that have had significant impacts on the Russian economy.

I wouldn't say those are failures. I would say those are pretty -- pretty significant. Now, has it accomplished --

SCIUTTO: But if the goal is to deescalate, they have failed, because Russia has kept on escalating military --

HAGEL: But Jim, do you want us not to do anything, as Putin continues to escalate?

SCIUTTO: No, the question I'm just asking is if the policy has been successful so far, and the evidence would seem to show that it hasn't.

HAGEL: Well, the president has been -- our president has been very clear. This is not a short-term deal. If President Putin continues to escalate, as he has been, he continues to drive his country into a ditch, there will be long-term consequences for that, as already consequences are starting to show up. We are dealing with this. We must, NATO partners, all the countries of Europe, in how we are handling this and how we are responding to it, as we are supporting the Ukrainians.

So, it is a -- not just a short-term issue here, but it's a longer term issue.

So I think the president, too, said very clearly last week, I mean, we're not going to a military engagement and a war with Russia over this. So then you look at the options that are responsible, and how do you deal with this, and I think we're taking the responsible actions that we must, that are pretty devastating to Russia.

SCIUTTO: I just wonder if the Russian president is taking advantage of that understanding, that because the U.S. will not take additional steps, and, in fact, even the economic steps have been slow in coming, there are critics on both sides of the aisle that the Russian president is taking advantage of that by making a fait accompli, for instance, the annexation of Crimea and the possibility of further territory under Russian control in eastern Ukraine.

HAGEL: Well, whatever Putin's calculations are, they are his calculations. We have never recognized the annexation of Crimea. That is something that's gonna have to be dealt with as we work our way through this.

But, as we've said, I've said, the president's said, all of our administration officials have said, we need to get the tensions lowered, the escalations stopped, and get into a position -- and we can't control that. We can help it, we can foster it, our NATO partners can, where this thing gets sorted out, so the world doesn't go to war over this.

But there are things that we can do and we are doing, they're pretty effective right now, to deal with Russia.

SCIUTTO: You gave a speech just a short time ago here in Newport talking about U.S. technological superiority and how countries, including Russia and China, are challenging that today, and, in particular, how the U.S. needs financial resources for the Defense Department to continue to -- to keep that superiority, that technological advantage.

I wonder if you could describe how severe that threat is to Americans who might not be paying attention at home to the advantage that -- the advances. rather that countries, such as Russia and China, are taking.

HAGEL: Well, I've said many times, and I think all of our senior administration officials, starting with the president, the vice president, that this so-called sequestration, which is an unaccountable, irresponsible way to govern -- well, in fact, it's not governing, it's deferring, is terribly dangerous to the future capabilities of our national security enterprise.

SCIUTTO: Can you give an example --

HAGEL: Yes, I can.

SCIUTTO: -- just for folks back home.

HAGEL: Well, just a quick review of the bidding here. About three years ago, there was a law passed by the Congress, signed by the president, to, over a 10-year period, take down about $490 billion from the Pentagon, over a 10-year period. That's be a reduction across the board.

SCIUTTO: Where has that hit you the most, and made it, in your view --

HAGEL: But that's only one -- but, Jim, that's only thing. So, that isn't sequestration.

SCIUTTO: Right.

HAGEL: Sequestration is about another $50 billion, in addition to that.

SCIUTTO: Sure.

HAGEL: Now, to give you an example of what happened to us last year, when we -- when we took the full brunt of almost $100 billion cut in one year -- steep, abrupt, immediate cuts, shots to the system. We had to stand down all of our training -- our Navy, our Air Force, our Marines, our Army couldn't train. We couldn't do maintenance. We couldn't go forward with contracts.

As you know, when we go forward with contracts to keep a technological edge, which we've always had since World War II, that is years out. We start that now, but we won't see the benefit for that for 10, 12 years. Those things were stopped.

And we reduced further our manpower, reduced further and cut into further every capability we had.

It won't show up in a year or two. It will start showing up third and four years out.

So, when you look at the long-range view of this, if we don't reverse sequestration, stop it, then it is gonna have an impact on the future capabilities of our country to keep, if nothing else, the technological edge, when Russia and China, for example, continue to put in significant amounts of money to keep not only -- not only keep them in the game, but to jump us on capabilities.

Now, they're not there yet. They won't be there for --

SCIUTTO: Catching up?

HAGEL: But they're catching up.

SCIUTTO: Would you call Russian military intervention in Ukraine the first or a first asymmetrical attack on U.S. and the West, in the way they've carried this out, on -- forces out of uniform, for instance, use of separatists on the ground, et cetera?

HAGEL: Well, I think it's this, Jim, if nothing else. It is representative of the world that we're now dealing with, the world that we're in, and I think the world we're going to be in for a long time to come.

That's why our special operations, our cyber, our technological edge, our counter-insurgency experience, our training, sophistication, intelligence now comes together at a -- at a point where -- it's always been important, of course. But now this is going to be the -- the tip of the spear as we go out.

We're always going to need a big capable Navy and Army and all the rest. But expeditionary work that the Marines were originally instituted for, they're going back to that. And -- and we're seeing what -- to your point about what's going on with the Russians in Ukraine -- I think more of -- of what we'll probably be dealing with in the future.

SCIUTTO: Asymmetric?

HAGEL: Asymmetric --

SCIUTTO: Not land armies and tanks and so on contending for territory?

HAGEL: I -- I think that's right but we have to be ready for everything. We -- we can't disarm in certain areas and then arm up in certain other areas. We don't have that luxury.

The United States is the only nation on Earth that helps other countries in the sense that we have a large portfolio. We're -- you know, we're in over 150 countries and we're -- we're more engaged in the world today than ever before whether it's Asia Pacific rebalance.

And this narrative, that somehow has gotten some credibility out there, that we're pulling back is just not true.

SCIUTTO: Let me ask you about the issues, the stories that have just captivated Americans the last week in the most horrible way and that's, of course, the beheading of Jim Foley, journalist, and Steven Sotloff, which we just had confirmation yesterday and today.

How -- is that a watershed event, do you believe, not just in terms of public perception of the threat from ISIS but in terms of how the U.S. responds to this threat?

HAGEL: It's probably a watershed event for a lot of reasons.

One is the sophistication of ISIL, ISIS and their communicative abilities, capacities. They're as sophisticated as anybody out there in how they frame and how they use modern technology.

That's partly what I was referring to when I said we've never seen anything quite like that. But that's just one part of it.

When you're beheading people and with the barbarism, the brutality that is their practice and then all the rest, that's not -- that's not unique in a sense of -- of how they treat other people. I mean, you -- you know and we have intelligence reports of some of the things, the atrocities they commit as they go through these villages. This is just beyond anything quite like we have seen.

And when you say watershed, well, I don't know about watershed but -- but it is a look into where -- where parts of the world may be going unless the United States, along with our partners and our coalitions, stop it.

This is the point the president was making. You got to destroy it because if we don't destroy it, it will get worse and it will get wider and deeper.

SCIUTTO: I wonder about your personal reaction to seeing those videos and those young American victims.

I sensed in Vice President Biden's voice today an -- an emotional -- perfectly understandable emotional and angry response. "We will chase them to the gates of Hell."

You're a veteran yourself. You've fought in a war to protect Americans and you are commanding many soldiers who are doing exactly that.

How did you personally react when you saw those videos?

HAGEL: Jim, I think regardless of your background, your experience, just as a human being with having some sense of decency and respect for human life and other people, it makes you sick to your stomach.

But it again reminds of the kind of brutality and the barbarism that is afoot in some of these areas of the world. And it is our responsibility -- the president, the vice president, mine, all of us -- to do everything we can to stop this now because it won't just recede into the -- into the gray recesses of history until we stop it.

And I think we have to think about that. We -- the emotionalism, of course, overtakes us all but we've got to be clearheaded on this too.

We've got to be responsible. We can't overstate things. We can't understate things.

We've got to be honest with the people of our country. We've got to be honest with these young men and women who serve our country. We've got to be honest with the world what we're dealing with here.