Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

NATO Tackling Russia & ISIS; Lone Survivor of ISIS; Dad Charged with Murder; Defeat of ISIS Unlikely Soon

Aired September 04, 2014 - 14:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: You are watching CNN. Hi, there. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

And right now the president is meeting with his allies in what many are calling the most important NATO Summit since the group formed back in 1949. The pressure, the stakes really couldn't be higher. The top of the agenda, Russia's military incursion into Ukraine and President Vladimir Putin of Russia, his defiance. But a more urgent concern is really taking center stage here today, the bloody advance of ISIS militants both in Syria and in Iraq. Its slaughter of those two Americans driving home the group's blood-thirsty hatred of the west. British Prime Minister David Cameron really setting the tone for all these talks. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID CAMERON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Russian troops are illegally in Ukraine. The extremist Islamism 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)

BALDWIN: Let's take you to the site of that summit, to Cardiff in Wales. Jim Acosta, our senior White House correspondent, there.

And, Jim, let's just begin with NATO's chief. He says he would seriously consider helping Iraq fight the extremist group of ISIS after the request from Iraq's president today.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Right.

BALDWIN: What do you think will be decided over the course of the next two days?

ACOSTA: Well, I can tell you, Brooke, I was just on a conference call with other reporters, and the deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, who was walking through, you know, the press really through this process that is taking place here at the NATO Summit in Wales, and the president is here right now asking for that support, for international support, for some sort of military mission against ISIS and it is undefined at this point. I think that's, you know, that's a kind way of putting it. They just don't know how it's going to take shape.

But a little bit of news to come out of this conference call. Ben Rhodes did tell reporters that the president is getting indications, his top administration officials like Secretary of State John Kerry, the secretary of defense, Chuck Hagel, who are also here, National Security Adviser Susan Rice, they're all getting indications that, yes, other NATO partners, other NATO nations are showing a willingness to participate in some sort of NATO mission or international multinational mission against ISIS.

Having said that, they don't expect there to be an announcement at the end of this summit saying that that type of mission is coming. But I thought that was the big headline from this conference call, that these NATO countries are showing a willingness, a -- you know, really to go forward with some sort of military action against ISIS. You know, we're going to hear more of this as the hours go on.

The other big thing I think that also is coming out of this summit today, Brooke, and I'll just mention it very quickly, on this conference call Ben Rhodes said that the U.S. and these NATO countries here are starting to come to some sort of agreement on the next round of sanctions against Russia for what's happening in Ukraine right now, Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK, so two subjects. The first, you know, really responding to folks saying -- calling for coalition building. And so we're hearing this willingness through this summit.

What about this joint opinion piece penned by both President Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron, where you hear the words, and this is a word we heard over and over with Secretary Hagel talking to Jim Sciutto yesterday, talking about the barbarians and from the vice president as well. The quote from the op-ed, "we will not be cowed by barbaric killers."

ACOSTA: Right.

BALDWIN: When you mention potential coalition building, Jim Acosta, I mean there are the usual suspects who, of course, jump on. But what about other countries? What about Turkey, for example?

ACOSTA: Right. Well, you know, I think that op-ed was really about putting all of these leaders on the same page rhetorically. As you know, Brooke, over the last couple days, we've been seeing sort of a variance when it comes to, you know, what President Obama is saying. First he said degrade and destroy and then later on he said, well maybe we'll make ISIS manageable. Then you had the vice president coming out later in the day and saying we want to take them to the gates of hell, or we'll go to the gates of hell to get them.

BALDWIN: Uh-huh.

ACOSTA: And so I think that op-ed was about getting all of these leaders rhetorically on the same page.

Having said that, another thing to come out of this conference call, and it does, I think, indicate how far along the process they've gone, is Ben Rhodes told reporters that different NATO countries, should they participate in this military mission against ISIS, and it sounds like they will, would do different things, just as we're seeing in Afghanistan. And they were going as far as saying on this conference call that as things are winding down in Afghanistan, that will free up resources perhaps to go after ISIS.

Now, one thing the president wants to do, he wants to see the outcome of this diplomatic mission that's going to take place in the next couple weeks when Kerry, Hagel and Lisa Monaco, the counterterrorism adviser to the president, when they all travel to the Middle East, because not only do they want a NATO or some of the countries in NATO involved in this type of military mission, they also want regional partners. The president met with the king of Jordan today, King Abdullah, and so that is a big component in this process, as well. They're not to the point yet, Brooke, of saying, yes, there will be a multinational military mission against ISIS, but it sounds like one is coming, Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK. So, Jim Acosta, thank you so much, in Wales.

So that's just one part of the story. The other issue, of course, as we're hearing time and time again, the threat of ISIS and really putting a face on the victims. You know we talked so much about ISIS. We talk about the group's extreme brutality and see this bizarre sense of almost glee with which it carries it out and then publicizes its own atrocities. So just a quick pause, if you have kids in the room, just take this moment, you might want to have them move to a different space because what we're about to show you is really, really tough, really graphic to look at. But this is what tells the story. This is ISIS up close. So here we go. Let me take you back to last week.

You may have been with us when we aired these images. Remember, this was the aftermath of a massacre of Syrian soldiers. This was video provided by human rights groups. Human rights groups gave us this video. After we aired that video there, and as if to confirm to the rest of the world that, yes, they did indeed do this, ISIS released video of the massacre itself. And again, horrendous images. In fact, more graphic than what we just showed you.

So here it is. This is a video released by ISIS of this massacre of Syrian soldiers. They had been captured at a base near the ISIS stronghold. We've talked about this city. This is the Syrian city of Raqqah. This is ISIS. These are the people we talk about day in and day out.

Now, I want you to hold these series of thoughts because what I'm leading up to is this stunning story of a man who actually survived an ISIS massacre that happened in mid-June near the Iraqi city of Tikrit. And here are the victims. One after another being marched to their deaths. I mean, look as the camera is panning, as far as the eye can see people are lined up, marching to be murdered.

These are Iraqi army recruits. You are about to hear the story of one man, this father, this husband, who managed to survive. This is phenomenal journalism today from "The New York Times." An amazing story, translation from "The Times" at the bottom of your screen. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALI HUSSEIN KADHIM (through translator): This is me. I'm 100 percent sure. Not only 100 percent, a million percent.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In June, ISIS militants massacred hundreds of army recruits. This is the improbable story of Ali Kadhim, the only known survivor.

KADHIM: I'm married and I have two children.

We don't have anything. No work (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ali volunteered for the military on June 1st. He was stationed at Camp Speicher (ph), a former U.S. military base near Tikrit and two hours north of Baghdad. Just 12 days later, he was lying on a field surrounded by corpses, awaiting a bullet to the head. "The New York Times" verified Ali's story using witness accounts, a Human Rights Watch report and videos of the massacre published online by ISIS.

KADHIM: That's my (INAUDIBLE), but I'm (INAUDIBLE).

Each (INAUDIBLE) shirt of the person before him.

They make us sit like (INAUDIBLE) of death.

As I turned, I saw the first (INAUDIBLE) in the head. The blood shot up. I thought that was the (INAUDIBLE). There was (INAUDIBLE). But then I remembered (INAUDIBLE). It was a different feeling. I kept thinking about my (INAUDIBLE). Who will call her (ph) then? (INAUDIBLE) happened to them?

He shot the first, the second, the third. Then he came to me. I swear he fired. But I don't know where the bullet went. The guy on one side fell. The guy on the other side fell. There was (INAUDIBLE). I fell too.

(INAUDIBLE) is like this mouth open, bloodied (INAUDIBLE) all over.

I still remember his shoe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: That was just part of the story. You have to go to "The New York Times" website to just watch this whole thing.

Nic Robertson, let me bring you in. Nic is our -- one of our senior international correspondents. He has covered all kinds of war zones, conflict zones for years and years.

And I just wanted to ask you, you know, when we hear that story, this just stunning -- almost in disbelief, wondering how he managed to survive, first, just the brutal, you know, shootings and killings and then across the river when - I can't help but think of all of the people, right, Nic, who did not escape, the thousands of people who did not escape this slaughter. And in all your years reporting, have you ever seen anything like this?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, Brooke, it reminds me listening to accounts that we would hear from Bosnia, where there was ethnic cleansing, which is what human rights watchers say -- or rather Amnesty International is saying, ISIS is perpetrating in Iraq and in Syria at the moment, ethnic cleansing. Back then in Bosnia, thousands of people at times we're thinking of the village of Shrebrenita (ph) were lined up and shot. And just because of the sheer industrial scale of the mass murder that was going on, as we're seeing with ISIS, this mass murder on an industrial scale. Some people simply survive because they just can't see everyone that they're shooting down. There are one or two lucky survivors.

In this case, one person who lives to tell the tale, lives to tell the kindness of strangers that helps save him, as well. He's a Shia, but there are Sunni villages he goes to, he knocks on the door, he doesn't know what's going to happen when the doors open. But those people from the other sort of Muslim sect help him.

This is a terribly harrowing story. And it - and it just -- his survival speaks to that wholesale slaughter. And even when you have dozens and dozens of gunmen turning their guns on hundreds and hundreds of soldiers lined up like that, somebody is going to get through. It just tells you how many people were slaughtered, the probability of somebody escaping. His story is such an important account of what's happened will help build better that picture and articulate and tell first-hand a war crime. British government here is spending money gathering this sort of information right now so the prosecutions can be made against ISIS leaders in the future.

BALDWIN: He kept talking about the honorable Sunnis who were helping him escape. Ultimately, ISIS knew which city he was hiding out in. Other strangers helped him head home. And I kept wondering, so he survived today. You know, and his story of one -- is one in a million because he escaped. But just the notion that all these other people have been slaughtered. And when we think of ISIS, Nic, and we know oftentimes in warfare, people demonize their enemies. You know, they say this group is evil. But in this case, it seems ISIS is saying, they're demonizing itself. We are evil. What does that say to you?

ROBERTSON: It tells me the degraded, debased nature. It tells me the type of people they're appealing to, the mentality that they're appealing to. Most Muslims around the world believe that their religion is a religion of peace. They -- and that is their faith and that's the belief that they grow up with.

This group has nothing to do with that whatsoever. The people it is trying to attract are the most violent, the most blood thirsty, the most nialistic (ph), the most debauched, if you will. That tells me that it's trying to attract people like this to join the fight. And let's face it, why does it want people like that? You know what, around the month before the 30 days before the elections in Iraq this summer, the 30 days before those April elections, there were more than 50 suicide bombers in Iraq alone. The vast majority of those were ISIS suicide bombers. The vast majority were all foreigners attracted to the fight. When ISIS uses propaganda like this, it attracts the most blunt-minded people to their cause. And it simply uses them as cannon fodder to blow themselves up, to open a gate into a compound of a government building, into a military base or whatever it is. They're trying to attract people who are willing to just throw their life away. And so many of them are foreigners coming in to do that. They're asked, do you want to take part in a suicide operation? It's almost a test of faith whether -- almost a test of their faith in the group that they want to join.

BALDWIN: They're growing. I mean just hearing Secretary Hagel telling Jim Sciutto yesterday, they have half of Iraq and half of Syria. That was stunning. Nic Robertson, thank you so much.

Just ahead, are lawmakers rushing America back into war as the rhetoric is heating up? It's a legitimate question. We'll debate that coming up.

Also ahead, the Obama administration telling CNN the defeat of ISIS will not happen on its watch. So why will it take a generation to fight this group that apparently only became varsity over the course of the last couple of months?

And the dad accused of leaving his son inside that hot car this Georgia summer on purpose has just been indicted. But malice murder isn't the only charge against him. The surprising developments out of that story ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Got some huge new developments today in the case against a Georgia father accused of being a horrible father who intentionally left his toddler son in a hot car to die while he went away to work. Justin Ross Harris could now face the death penalty in his son's death. And just a short time ago, this grand jury indicted him on eight counts. So top of the list, malice murder. That's what qualifies for the death penalty here. Then you have two counts of felony murder. Follow that one.

And then there's another twist in these charges. Watch this with me here on the screen. Count six, criminal attempt to commit a felony sexual exploitation of children. What is that, you ask? That stems from nude photos Harris allegedly text messaged to an under aged girl. Now police say he sent them to her and other women while he was at work and his son was in that hot car.

We will hear from the district attorney out of Cobb County in Georgia at the top of the next hour. So stay with us as we'll be watching and listening for that.

But first, let me bring in criminal defense attorney and former Atlanta prosecutor, Philip Holloway.

And, Philip, in Georgia here -- this is important to differentiate -- in Georgia, there are two types of murder, and the first is malice murder. The second is felony murder. Can you just explain what is malice murder? What does one have to prove here?

PHILIP HOLLOWAY, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Sure, Brooke. Thanks.

You know, malice has to do with showing that someone premeditated something, they deliberated it, it was particularly evil. In Georgia, we use the phrase "abandoned and malignant heart." It's something very, very sinister. But what's interesting about this indictment, count three is also felony murder. It's based on a theory of criminal negligence charging the underlying felony of criminal -- excuse me, negligently inflicting harm to a child. So you can't have negligence and malice sort of at the same time. It's an alternative theory of liability that gives the prosecutor some room in case they can't prove to a jury to their satisfaction beyond a reasonable doubt perhaps that the father intentionally killed the child.

BALDWIN: And just quickly from just your, you know, legal expertise, perspective, when you saw these eight different counts, what did you think?

HOLLOWAY: Well, what it showed me was that the prosecutor is trying to develop a motive. They want to show all of the facts and circumstances leading up to the child's death, not just that day, but for the weeks, the months, so forth, going back. Because if the jury is going to accept that this man maliciously killed his child, they're going to have to have a really good reason to do it because it's counter intuitive. Human beings don't want to think that someone could do something like that to a child.

BALDWIN: We'd like to think they can't. Phil Holloway, thank you so much.

As we mentioned, top of the next hour, we'll be hearing from the district attorney here on these new charges. What will he say? We will find out together here on CNN.

Now it is time to blow some ISIS military targets to smithereens instead of just talking about it. That is the take of one of my next guests. Is he right, or should the U.S. build a stronger global coalition?

Plus, just minutes from now, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder will announce a top-to-bottom review of the Ferguson Police Department. Hear what he is looking for and whether the judge should consider releasing any possible juvenile records of Michael Brown.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: It's pretty amazing because six months ago we had hardly even really heard of ISIS and now there is talk of war with these brutal Middle East terrorists. And the White House is saying they will not be defeated any time soon. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TONY BLINKEN, DEPUTY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: This, as the president has said, is going to have to be a sustained effort and it's going to take time and it will probably go beyond even this administration to get to the point of defeat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Stunning, ISIS was virtually unknown and, in the blink of an eye, we are speaking now of a long and surely costly effort to defeat them. Let's bring in my next two guests. Buck Sexton is here with me, national security editor with theblaze.com and formerly of CIA's Iraq office, and Peter Beinart, CNN political commentator.

Gentlemen, welcome.

PETER BEINART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Let's get back to Mr. Blinken's comments here in just a minute. But, first, Peter, to you. A number of Republicans are saying, why isn't the Obama administration calling this a war? Should it be called a war?

BEINART: I actually think it should because I think it would increase the pressure on them to go to Congress. But it's in the context of a much larger war around the world where the United States is dropping bombs and launching drone strikes in a whole series of countries. And I think part of this problem we've been struggling with ever since September 11th is to recognize that if we really are at war, there needs to be a certain kind of oversight that comes from Congress over the administration's actions. And if Republicans really want that oversight, then I would think it would be a good idea.

BALDWIN: What do you think? Does it matter?

BUCK SEXTON, NATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR, THEBLAZE.COM: Look, I -- it matters also in the domestic political context because the Obama administration's policy in Iraq has been a vacuum that's increasingly becoming a vortex. They're brought into this. They clearly don't want to be a part of this because President Obama, as you said many times, ended the war in Iraq. Well now -

BALDWIN: The American people don't want to be in it.

SEXTON: And the American people don't want to be in it as well but there are threats that both sides now agree are very real with ISIS. The administration lost a couple of months, I think, that very clearly should have been used more aggressively to do something, to push back against the tide of ISIS. As soon as the militants took Mosul in June, it was very clear they were a serious jihadist army on the march. But President Obama has his own reasons for why here at home he doesn't want to be seen as a president who is the third to go into a war in Iraq. And I think that that's making a lot of the decisions for him.

BALDWIN: I think we heard like the hardest line drawn in the sand, if you will, with Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel talking to Jim Sciutto this time yesterday, coming out for really defining the goals, et cetera, when it comes to ISIS. But now we're hearing from, you know, Tony Blinken basically sort of saying - saying this. Let me quote him. It's going to take time and it will probably go beyond even this administration to get to the point of defeat. Why do you think the administration would say this?

BEINART: I think because it's correct. I don't think -- we haven't defeated al Qaeda. And, you know, more than 10 years after 9/11. We haven't defeated the Taliban, even though we've had lots of ground troops in Afghanistan.

BALDWIN: So you don't think they're intentionally lowering expectations?

BEINART: I think that they're under political, domestic pressure to say - because it sounds very macho -- we're going to destroy them, we're going to annihilate them, we're going to defeat them. But I think what they actually know is that in reality the best we're going to be able to do is actually weaken them and minimize them and make them less of a threat.

SEXTON: I also think they very clearly are hoping that they can contain this problem just as long as they can until they can hand it off to the next administration. I think President Obama doesn't want to make any tough decisions in Iraq. He is piecemeal getting involved. He's doing the bare minimum he has to do to make it look like he's taking some kind of action against this, again, jihadist army that's beheading (ph) people and --

BALDWIN: But what's wrong with the notion of, behind closed doors, everything's being constantly defined and redefined. All the plans that the Pentagon, the DOD is presenting to President Obama, as everyone keeps saying, he's prudent, he's cautious.

SEXTON: We've had six years of that. This needs action. It needs action now. It needs decisive action. And timing actually matters. The longer we wait, the stronger the Islamic state gets, the more entrenched they become in these areas of Syria and Iraq.

BALDWIN: In six months they took half of Syria, half of Iraq.

BEINART: Right. Right. But you actually have to know what you're going to do and you have to have a reasonable belief that it's actually going to be constructive. I don't buy the idea that it's not - that Obama hasn't taken tough decisions. His decision to stay out of Syria has been a tough political decision. It's gotten him criticism even from Hillary Clinton. But I think the position he's held to, and you can argue one way or the other, is that he doesn't think that U.S. military intervention in that particular circumstance would make things better for U.S. national security. It's a debatable point, but it's not exactly as if it's a slam dunk on the other side.

SEXTON: Right. But what's not debatable is that his decision to not get involved in Syria, we've now seen the end results of that. The (INAUDIBLE) Islamic State -

BEINART: Yes, but we don't -- we don't know what - we don't know what - we don't know what would happen -

BALDWIN: Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. SEXTON: What happened in Syria has spilled over into Iraq. The containment policy, the red lines that disappeared, all of that is gone now.