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At This Hour

Peace Plan in Ukraine Could Take Effect; Cameron Doesn't Rule Out British Air Strikes Against ISIS; Calls for End to Media Blackout on ISIS-Held Hostages; Hot Car Death Dad Indicted; Peace Plan for Ukraine and Russia?

Aired September 04, 2014 - 11:00   ET

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

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN CO-ANCHOR: NATO's secretary-general calls the crisis in Ukraine a wake-up call, @THIS HOUR a possible breakthrough on that front. Ukraine's president says a peace plan could take effect tomorrow.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN CO-ANCHOR: World leaders trying to tackle the ISIS threat, President Obama and British prime minister David Cameron vow they won't be cowed by barbaric murders, but when will they decide a plan of action?

PEREIRA: Casting a wider net in the Michael Brown shooting investigation, the Justice Department set to launch a broader civil rights investigation into police practices across the county where a white cop shot the unarmed black teenager.

BERMAN: Hello, everyone. I'm John Berman.

PEREIRA: That means it's Friday tomorrow. I'm Michaela Pereira. Those stories and so much more ahead @THISHOUR.

It is being called NATO's most important meeting in more than a decade. The pressure and stakes are made higher by Russia's actions in Ukraine and ISIS's bloody rampage in Iraq and Syria.

British prime minister David Cameron saying NATO is as vital to the future as it has been in the past.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID CAMERON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Russian troops are illegally in Ukraine. The extremist Islamist threat has risen in a new form in Iraq and Syria. These are just two of the threats that we face.

NATO is the anchor of our security and over the next two days we must reinvigorate and refocus this alliance to tackle new threats and to ensure it continues to foster stability around the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: This morning we learned that a peace plan between Russia and Ukraine could go into effect tomorrow. That is the word of the Ukrainian president. In addition to that, pro-Russian separatists reportedly say they are ready to call a cease-fire if certain conditions are met.

Of course the other major issue feting this NATO conference is ISIS and how NATO might help to fight it. NATO's chief saying he would seriously consider helping Iraq fight the extremists.

Our Michelle Kosinski is in Wales, following the details of this meeting, called one of the most important in a decade.

Michelle, Ukraine backed off the peace plan yesterday. There was all kinds of confusion. Is there a sense where you are that perhaps this deal is now the real deal?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, it definitely sounds more serious and at least more agreed upon, but we're still trying to get details on what it would entail ourselves.

It was confusing yesterday because it was announced a plan had been agreed upon, but then as more information came out, it turned out that one of Russia's demands was that Ukraine essentially give up part of its territory, and Ukraine has been saying that would be unacceptable, so that quickly fell apart.

And, today, the Ukrainian president tweeted out that there was an agreement to a cease-fire, but it looks like what will happen now is that Ukraine and Russia will meet tomorrow in Ukraine.

They will each present proposals for a peace plan, and if they can agree on those proposals and sign the document to it, then there would be a cease-fire effective essentially immediately. That would be tomorrow.

What's unclear still is whether Russia is still making these demands about taking over part of Ukraine, Crimea, including other parts of the east, that it controls now.

That's been the big question mark from the beginning. Is it a foregone conclusion that Russia now controls those territories indefinitely, or is there something to be worked out where Ukraine is going to take them back? Remains to be seen.

PEREIRA: We also know that, obviously, ISIS, Michelle, a big topic of conversation there and a great concern globally.

Is there any sense beyond sort of the fiery talk that we're hearing about substantive action that would make us understand that NATO sees this as more than just a regional problem?

KOSINSKI: Right. Good question, because there has been a lot of tough talk, even before the summit started.

We're still hearing that, but several leaders have mentioned that, you know, it can't be just about talk. This is urgent. It's a serious threat to European countries and there has to be some kind of action. So what this will be about is coalition building, laying the groundwork for future action -- we don't know exactly what that action will be yet, aside from the U.S. air strikes that have been continuing in Iraq -- and also regional coalition building.

So the U.S. wants European countries to use their influence, also, regionally in regards to Iraq and Syria, and that will be the basis for moving forward.

PEREIRA: All right. Michelle Kosinski in Cardiff, Wales, we appreciate that. Thank you so much.

Now before sitting down with NATO allies, today, British Prime Minister David Cameron spoke to CNN. He's made it clear the ISIS threat is a threat to the British way of life.

BERMAN: Many British citizens are believed to have joined ISIS, including the man believed to be the executioner of two American journalists, James Foley and Steven Sotloff.

The killer does seem to speak with an accent believed to be from the London area, and he has warned that a British hostage will be executed next.

PEREIRA: British Prime Minister Cameron is unequivocal when our Nic Robertson asked him what should happen to ISIS.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: President Barack Obama yesterday in Estonia, saying that ISIS should be destroyed, he also went on to say it should be shrunk to a manageable size. What should it be -- destroyed or shrunk?

CAMERON: Destroyed, squeezed out of existence is the way I would put it, but we should be clear what we're facing here is this Islamist extremist narrative, a poisonous narrative.

It isn't just in Iraq and Syria. We've also seen it in Somalia, Mali, of course in Afghanistan when hosted by the Taliban. So this is a generational struggle.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Now, something else from that terrific interview that Nic did. The British prime minister did not rule out the possibility of his military carrying out air strikes against ISIS, as U.S. forces have done in Iraq.

Did not rule out the possibility which is different than saying an enthusiastic endorsement of British military action.

Want to bring in Douglas Ollivant who served as director for Iraq at the National Security Council during the Bush and Obama administrations. He's currently the vice president of the global strategic consulting firm, Mantid International. Douglas, thanks so much for being with us. I've been reading a lot of the stuff you've been writing about air strikes right now. You heard the British prime minister said he would support maybe in the future air strikes against ISIS.

What are the limitations? They seem to be working in Iraq. How far could they go in Syria?

DOUGLAS OLLIVANT, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, MANTID INTERNATIONAL: Well that's a complex question. Air power can work almost exclusively by itself when you're fighting an opponent who's attacking.

So, for example, when ISIS was pushing up towards Erbil a couple of weeks ago, air power was very, very effective in destroying that almost by itself, because someone who's attacking has come out of their position or out of their house or city, and they're moving in the open, and a pilot can see them, and it's very, very easy.

Then we've seen air power working in a second role lately at Amerli, at Mosul dam, in support of the Iraqi forces on the ground, be they Kurdish or Iraqi air op.

So we'll see air power used in one of those two roles in the coming weeks.

PEREIRA: So if not air strikes, then what?

OLLIVANT: Well, air strikes are certainly going to be what the U.S. and other western powers will contribute, but you have to have forces on the ground to push the Islamic State out of the territory that it controls in Iraq and Syria.

And I think we may see a very, very strange coalition of the willing, including not only Iraqi forces, but we saw the PKK, which is a Kurdish terrorist group out of Turkey play a very helpful role in rescuing the Yazidis off the mountain.

We have a seen Iran have a relatively helpful role, although we're cautious about that, and there may be other forces that can play as well.

BERMAN: But are these boots on the ground, this unusual coalition you're talking about, of Iraqis and Kurds and perhaps Iranian advisors going to cross the border from Iraq into Syria? Who is going to fight ISIS on the ground in Syria?

OLLIVANT: That's the complicated piece. The politics in Iraq are difficult. The politics in Syria are exponentially more so. So it's going to be difficult to find the right ally in Syria.

The force with all the military capability, the Syrian regime, is politically impossible for us to use, and the force we would like to use politically, the Free Syrian Army, just doesn't have the military might to really be an effective partner.

PEREIRA: Douglas, President Obama and Prime Minister David Cameron together inked an op-ed in "The Times of London," and in it, among some of the things they say, speaking very strongly about it, they list a plan to sort of unite Iraqis, the Sunnis, Shia, Kurdish, Christian, and other minority populations.

They go on to talk about partnerships and training for others who are peaceful and tolerant. This obviously is something very long term. Do you think there's value? You see the value in doing that as well?

OLLIVANT: Absolutely. I mean, Iraq for all its faults and it's very easy for us to be frustrated with Iraqi politics, is still the only parliamentary democracy in the entire region.

So while it's extremely dysfunctional, and it's very, very easy to criticize their politics, it's the only regime in the region that's not an authoritarian monarchy of some sort.

So we do kind of have our cards all in with Iraq, trying to make it better. We're hoping that they form a government in the coming weeks, as I count the days. They sometimes count them different than we do, but they should have a government by the middle of next week.

BERMAN: You make a good point there. It's a dysfunctional parliamentary democracy but a parliamentary democracy nonetheless.

Douglas Ollivant, great to have you with us. We really appreciate it.

OLLIVANT: Thanks very much. Have a good day.

BERMAN: Ahead @THISHOUR, the ISIS militants, they really are almost as media savvy as they are merciless and barbaric.

So how can the West take away their propaganda power, the power to shock and terrorize? We'll have that conversation coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: @THISHOUR the U.S. and Britain are promising to follow ISIS to the gates of hell, degrade, and destroy them.

But tackling the killers could take more than just firepower. It could take stripping their power to shock, surprise, and terrify through the media.

BERMAN: Yeah, and some people think part of that strategy should be government's and media not withholding information about these Western hostages.

Details about Steven Sotloff were blocked out for a year. The fact that he was Jewish, the fact that he was a dual Israeli citizen was not revealed, I don't think, until yesterday, well after his death.

A former editor at "The Jerusalem Report" where Sotloff freelanced wrote, "In the end our self-imposed censorship made no difference."

Jamie Dettmer is an independent foreign correspondent and Daily Beast contributor. So you think, Jamie, that these blackouts helped ISIS? Explain that to me.

JAMIE DETTMER, INDEPENDENT FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I do, because I think we're providing a certain amount of control we could take away from ISIS by, for example, not naming the hostages.

Look, as a war correspondent out there, I know most of the names of the western hostages at the moment, as do my colleagues. But our organizations are keeping to these media blackouts on the grounds, they're being told by governments, and by insurers, and by the security people that it will help protect the hostages. Well, it didn't help to protect James Foley, a friend of mine, nor Steven Sotloff. And what it is doing is adding to the drama for ISIS to be able to name these people when they feel like naming them.

As well as that, it's not helping us in the field. There is information that these blackouts are blocking in a way, information, real-time knowledge, that some of us need when we're going in and out of these war zones. I can think of two or three cases subsequently in terms of operations I've been involved in, that it would have been very useful to have real-time knowledge of certain details.

PEREIRA: First of all, our condolences with your friend and we want to pass those along to you. I think all journalists, and all people are reeling over the deaths of these two young men.

What about the families? Do they at least deserve to have a measure of privacy? I know that even though they may be aware of the situation, that rest of the world doesn't, and they may not have to be suddenly dealing with us journalists in their face wanting to know how they're feeling. Is there an aspect of that we should consider?

DETTMER: Of course. And I think that a lot of us are very sensitive to the families, and the families are often very confused. David Rohde, a former "New York Times" journalist, who himself had been abducted in 2008, originally believed the media blackout in his case helped. Recently he kind of started changing his mind and was saying that there are no good choices for the families.

I've talked to some of the families. They are not sure what to do. They're being told by employers, or security people, or governments that a media blackout would be the best thing. Often a lot of these families subsequently believe the blackouts have allowed the governments, in particular, off the hook, that they could have been doing more if they there had been more public pressure on them to do more. Governments are very nervous about revealing this kind of information because in one way there's an erosion of voter confidence, it advertises their impotence in these cases, which is why they prefer to keep the lid down on them. But a lot of families subsequently are very unhappy when they look back about the blackouts.

BERMAN: It is an interesting thing you bring up. A lot of times the secrecy is dealing with countries that do pay to get some of these hostages back. The United States and Britain don't officially pay. So that kind of secrecy doesn't factor in to this issue.

But what about Steven Sotloff? We just learned he was Jewish, he was a dual Israeli citizen. It seems awful to ask now, because obviously we know what happened in the end, but that could not have possibly helped him as a captive of ISIS, that information had come out six months ago?

DETTMER: Sure, I agree there are certain things. I'm not saying all information should be provided, and there are a couple cases I can't go into where if information came out they could certainly lead to a very quick death for one or two of the hostages. So obviously there has to be a certain amount of responsibility if we think that a certain piece of information is going to result in someone being killed of course we should withhold it, and "The New York times" published that information and then subsequently took it out of their piece on-line because they came to the -- came to that conclusion that it was very highly dangerous.

And there's certain things -- no one is saying, for example, and no major media organization is providing links to these terrible murder videos. And that's denying, in a sense, the blood lust pornography that ISIS is using, which I think is a very important ingredient in attracting some of the western fighters to ISIS ranks who seem to get turned on by this violence.

I'm not saying everything should be go, but we need to get far more serious about how much power we're giving ISIS in terms of the narrative.

PEREIRA: Interesting conversation.

BERMAN: I have to say, I didn't go into this agreeing with you, and I'm still not sure I do. But you make some very interesting, thought- provoking points that really should be discussed. Thanks so much.

PEREIRA: Thank you, Jamie. Thanks for joining us. Food for thought to be sure.

All right. Ahead @THISHOUR, Ukraine says a peace plan with Russia could go into effect tomorrow, but will this actually force pro- Russian rebels to stop the fighting? We are going to speak with a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

This is CNN breaking news.

PEREIRA: Our breaking news is out of Cobb County, Georgia. We have just learned that Justin Ross Harris, the father of little Cooper Harris, 22-month-old child who died in his father's vehicle left in a hot car for several hours, Justin Ross Harris has been indicted on eight counts including malice murder.

BERMAN: Yes, I think the number of counts and the range of the charges here are fascinating, all the way up to malice murder. There is more information we do need to learn about this. We just have that little bit of information now.

Our Martin Savidge is on the scene, he is finding out what he can and we will speak to him in just a moment. But eight counts including malice murder for Justin Ross Harris, obviously a very serious range of counts he faces.

PEREIRA: We'll talk to Martin also Jean Casarez will join us a little later in the program to talk about this. Another big story thought that we are following.

BERMAN: Ukraine says a peace plan with Russia could go into effect tomorrow.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETRO POROSHENKO, PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE (through a translator): If it is confirmed and a meeting takes place, I will address the army general staff leadership and order a bilateral cease-fire, and we hope that the implementation of the peace plan will be launched tomorrow. All our partners and I are looking forward to it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: We're all looking forward to it. The question we're all now asking is after more than four months of fighting could there be this major break-through in this conflict? Pro-Russian rebel leaders do say they are prepared to order a cease-fire if an agreement is reached for what they call a political settlement.

PEREIRA: Joining us by phone is former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst.

Ambassador, thank you so much for joining us today. I think you can give us a unique perspective on this since you know the region very well and the intricacies involved. What do you think? Do you think this plan will actually get a cessation of conflict?

JOHN HERBST, FORMER UNITED STATES AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE: I'm a little bit skeptical, but I don't rule it out.

PEREIRA: Okay.

HERBST: What's happened is, over the past two months, the government of Ukraine has exerted greater and greater control in the eastern part of the country where Russia has been conducting in a regular war. Finally over the past two weeks, Russia introduced directly its own troops and with those troops they have stopped the Ukrainian advance and in fact pushed back substantially in the other direction. If, in fact, there is a cease-fire, it will be a cease-fire which recognized that significant portions of eastern Ukraine are under Moscow's control, not Kiev's and that would be very unfortunate.

BERMAN: But the Ukrainian leader, Petro Poroshenko, keeps on suggesting that this cease-fire will take hold. Do you think that indicates at least some willingness in his camp to accept a Russian, if not direct presence, at least influence, in the eastern part of his country?

HERBST: Well, I think your question is a good one, and, in fact, you're right, he said several times over the past 36 hours, that a cease-fire can be achieved and he's looking for it. He may have decided that given the fact that Russia has continued and escalated its aggression, given the fact that the west has, in a shortsighted fashion, refuse to give him arms, this is the best deal he can make. That is all possible. Let's understand that this all is rewarding Russian aggression.

PEREIRA: So help us understand what it is that brought Russian President Vladimir Putin to the table to begin with. Because there has been so much rhetoric out of the region, and he has said look, we can't be part of a crease talk plan because we're not part of this. This is the separatists. What do you think brought him to the table?

HERBST: Well, let's understand when he says that, he is simply lying. This is a man who praised the artistry of Joseph Goebbels, the great Nazi propagandist. This is a man who said that the troops that took over Crimea back in March were not Russian, and then admitted a month later that in fact they were Russian troops.

PEREIRA: Right.

HERBST: He has taken this position in order to sow confusion in the west and also to try and deny legal responsibility for the aggression because it's also possible that Russia will face some sort of action in international courts as a result of its aggression. That's why he says that.

But the game for Mr. Putin is pretty simple. He wants to make sure that either Ukraine is a country which follows his national security dictates, or Ukraine is a country which is unstable because he does not want a stable Ukraine which pursues its own national security policy.

BERMAN: And you do wonder if he's trying to mess with NATO leaders who are meeting in Wales this week, make their job more difficult as they consider possible action.

Former Ambassador John Herbst, thanks so much for being with us to discuss everything that's going on there.

PEREIRA: It is. He said it's meant to confuse the west. Well, well done.

All right, we're going to take a short break here @THISHOUR. But when we come back we're going to talk about the indictment that we've just learned about in Atlanta -- or outside of Atlanta, Georgia, in Georgia, Cobb County. We have learned that Justin Ross Harris has been indicted on eight counts. We'll break it down with our Martin Savidge coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)