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New Day

Crucial NATO Summit Begins Today; Cameron Says ISIS Must Be Destroyed; Sotloff Family Breaks Silence

Aired September 04, 2014 - 06:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking now, the most important NATO summit in decades. President Obama face to face with world leaders, pushing for action against ISIS and Russia. We're live at the summit.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: One on one, CNN putting tough questions to British Prime Minister David Cameron and the secretary of defense, Chuck Hagel. What further military action will be taken against ISIS? Their answers straight ahead.

MICHAELA PEREIRA. CNN ANCHOR: Breaking overnight, the Department of Justice officially investigating the Ferguson police department. This as a judge decides whether Michael Brown's juvenile records should be released. We have the latest

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CUOMO: Your NEW DAY starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Chris Cuomo, Kate Bolduan, and Michaela Pereira.

CUOMO: Good morning, welcome to NEW DAY, it is Thursday, September 4th, 6:00 in the east, and this may be the most important gathering of world leaders in years. This morning in Wales, the NATO summit begins, and two huge challenges to take on.

At this hour, President Obama is sitting down with top officials from Britain, Italy, France and Germany about the ISIS threat. The question, how far are they willing to go?

BOLDUAN: The crisis in Ukraine is also on the agenda, of course. Ukraine's president, Petro Poroshenko, he's going to be joining the conference even though Ukraine is not a NATO member.

So what can emerge then from this summit to help the world start to emerge itself from these crises? CNN's Michelle Kosinski is in Wales where summit meetings are getting under way this morning. A lot on the agenda, as we've laid out, Michelle. Where do they begin?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kate. It seems like there's already been so much news on this, even before things started, but now it is getting under way with these big goals, and already some tough talk on these two complex, threatening problems, ISIS and Russia.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Good to see you.

KOSINSKI: This morning while President Obama met with British Prime Minister David Cameron, their joint op-ed in "The Times" of London circulated titled bluntly, "We will not be cowed by barbaric killers."

Stating today NATO is as vital to our future as it has ever been. On that ISIS threat, President Obama is still fielding some hits for the way he has described things. Yesterday he said this was the U.S. objective.

OBAMA: To degrade and destroy ISIL so it's no longer a threat.

KOSINSKI: A big statement, but when questioned by reporter, then he said it was.

OBAMA: To make sure that ISIL is not an ongoing threat to the region.

KOSINSKI: And?

OBAMA: Continue to shrink ISIL's sphere of influence.

KOSINSKI: CNN's Jim Sciutto later sat down with Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel who framed the U.S. goal this way.

CHUCK HAGEL, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: To degrade and destroy the capability of ISIL to come after U.S. interests all over the world and our allies.

KOSINSKI: He said destroy and degrade its capabilities, is that the same as destroying ISIS? He says yes, that all of the above statements are true, that the long-term object is still, as the administration has said, to destroy ISIS. In the shorter term, to stop its spread.

HAGEL: The president has asked us for different options and we've prepared those.

KOSINSKI: That's right. Hagel said there was much talked about strategy options, including in Syria, have been prepared and presented to the president, but they evolve. He also emphasized repeatedly the need for international and regional coalitions.

This is one of the goals here for NATO. As well as, of course, dealing with Russia. The U.S. doesn't yet buy Vladimir Putin's talk of a cease-fire, which seems to also include Ukraine giving up chunks of its territory, but the U.S. still won't call it an invasion.

OBAMA: It's a brazen assault on the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

(END VIDEOTAPE) KOSINSKI: What the president has been stressing already is that collective defense is what NATO is all about. Now all of a sudden that becomes very important. You have to expand it. You have to invest in it and one of the goals here is to create an international rapid response force -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: And an attack on one is an attack on all, that core principle of NATO. We're definitely hearing a lot more talk of that today. Michelle Kosinski with the president. Thanks so much, Michelle.

CUOMO: Now the president is doing his hand in hand with British Prime Minister David Cameron, and we have a very rare one-on-one interview with him, this chief ally, not just with ISIS but also with Russia.

The ISIS threat, however in particular, is very real for British citizens because they believe right now that many members of their country have gone to join and fight and that very likely the executioner of those two American journalists is from England.

So this interview is very important. Nic Robertson got the interview for us, and as a symbol of how unified the U.S. and U.K. are in this battle, Nic, this op-ed from both men, co-authored, somewhat unusual, shows how much is at stake.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And this is absolutely what they are trying to do, to show that they are prepared and willing to lead the way at NATO. Prime Minister Cameron obviously hosting here, but very much wanting to put across.

He is with President Obama on these issues of Ukraine and of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. I put it on the basis of this, on the basis of what President Obama had said in Estonia.

I put it to the British prime minister that President Obama had said ISIS should be destroyed and then said it should be shrunk to a manageable problem so I asked the British prime minister which it should be. This is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID CAMERON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: Destroyed, squeezed out of existence is the way I should put it. We should be clear what we're facing here, 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. This is a generational struggle.

ROBERTSON: Will Britain be committing air strikes against ISIS in Iraq and Syria?

CAMERON: We don't rule anything out. We'll act with partners in our national interest. We've already taken some important steps with Americans and others. We've been helping the Kurds.

ROBERTSON: On that poisonous narrative, the man with the British accent seen involved in the murder, the brutal murder against Foley and Steven Sotloff, is the British government any closer to identifying this British accented man and capturing him?

CAMERON: Well, we have -- we have been working exhaustively to identify all the people that are potentially involved. We won't give out that information publicly, but obviously what we're doing is everything we can to stop people traveling.

We're taking away passports. We are banning people from traveling. We're also prosecuting, convicting and imprisoning those that commit or support terrorist acts. We're preventing people from returning.

We're looking at all the things we can do, but I'm in no doubt that these people, they will face justice one way or the other.

ROBERTSON: Less shift to the other important thing on agenda here, Ukraine. President Putin released steps towards peace. Do you trust his steps in that outline?

CAMERON: Well, it's positive that at least making noises about peace. But the issue of trust is Putin is denying that there's Russian troops on Ukrainian soil when everyone can see that that is the case.

If you go on with this destabilization and potential breaking up of Ukraine, there will be a very different relationship between Russia on one hand and America and Europe on the other.

Let's be frank. Russia needs America and Europe more than America and Europe need Russia. We need to make that relationship pay.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROBERTSON: I followed up on that question with what does -- what is his view about the de facto annexation that President Putin is essentially outlining in this piece, the de facto annexation of a part of southeast Ukraine by the pro-Russian rebels and therefore by Russia itself.

Prime Minister Cameron said absolutely that cannot be allowed to happen. It seems to indicate that he puts -- puts no faith and certainly is not going to stand for those terms of peace that President Putin is talking about at the moment -- Chris.

CUOMO: Nic, great get. Really important to hear where the prime minister's head is on these two big issues, especially if he's the U.S. major ally in the campaigns on both fronts. Thank you for bringing it to us -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Let's focus in on the issue of Ukraine and the role of NATO here. It is a packed agenda as we've discussed at the NATO Summit with clearly a lot at stake. To continue the discussion, let's bring in former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, William Taylor.

Mr. Ambassador, thank you so much. A pivotal day. I mean, this NATO Summit, according to the former supreme allied commander of NATO, he called it the most important NATO Summit since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

When it comes to Ukraine and what we've seen happen in the past couple of days, the talk of cease-fire, the talk then of not a cease-fire, the seven-point peace plan, what is NATO's role here? What concrete steps would you like to see?

AMBASSADOR WILLIAM TAYLOR, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE: Well, NATO's role is, first off, to defend its members, and it's going to take steps to reassure the pols, the Baltics, the countries, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia that NATO is fully behind them and will fully defend them in a case. That's the first thing.

The second thing with regard to Ukraine, NATO will demonstrate that the violation of territorial integrity, the violation of international law, the invasion of neighbors that Russia has done over the past six months is unacceptable, and NATO will take steps, I believe, to support Ukraine.

Certainly politically, but I think militarily it will take some steps to boost the military capability of the Ukrainians. I hope they get to the point where they will provide weapons. It's a good thing that one of the NATO members, France, has decided not to provide weapons to Russia.

BOLDUAN: I did want to ask you about all of that, I mean, especially when you put it in the context of this has been -- this Russian aggression has been going on for six months.

I wonder what of those concrete items you'd like to see NATO move forward with. What is going to tip the balance, do you believe, because the violation of territorial integrity, that's been discussed for six months now.

TAYLOR: It has, ever since the Russians invaded and tried to annex, Crimea. Totally illegally, totally blatantly. They lied about it at first and then admitted that there were Russian troops there that were on the ground in Crimea.

One of the things about these discussions between President Putin and President Poroshenko is interesting is President Putin seems to be acknowledging finally that he's responsible.

That he has a major role in the destabilization of Eastern Ukraine so the steps that need to be taken are number one outside of NATO, harsher sanctions and the Europeans are taking a look at that.

The Americans are taking a look, but then weapons for Ukrainian military and NATO can play an important role there.

BOLDUAN: Do you think, Mr. Ambassador, that will happen because that is a point of contention, you know. People are very split if weapons will further exacerbate the problem on the ground or will help the problem on the ground.

Especially in light of Putin's comments when he said apparently recently that he could take Kiev in two weeks, which many people say, when you look at size of the two militaries, he could.

TAYLOR: He could. There's no doubt. Ukrainian military can certainly handle threats of the separatists in the southeast part of their country. Ukrainian military cannot take on the Russian military, which has been the situation for the past two weeks. That is the Russian military has come across the Ukrainian border and is now fighting with the Ukrainian military.

BOLDUAN: So then what do you make of the outcome? I mean, we've been asking the same question what's going to tip the balance, but also what is the eventual outcome to bring this crisis to an end?

I do want to get your take as there is now at least, as you said, talk of peace, talk of a cease-fire. What do you think is going to be eventual outcome because it surely does not think, does not look like Putin is going to pull Russian separatists or Russian troops out of Ukraine without getting something in that deal.

TAYLOR: I don't know what he's going to get out of this deal, but President Poroshenko has offered a way out, and it is a devolution of authority. This is one of the early demands of the separatists, a devolution of authority from Kiev to all of the regions in Ukraine.

To enable the local governments to make local decisions about budgets, about infrastructure, about language, so this is an offer that President Poroshenko has made, and if President Putin is now bargaining, now discussing this with President Poroshenko, then that's a good sign.

In particular if President Putin is now taking responsibility, taking responsibility for his troops in Southeastern Ukraine.

BOLDUAN: Mr. Ambassador, finally, what kind of a timeline do you think could you expect? I mean, not many people thought we'd be here six months from the beginning of this still talking about Russian aggression. Do you think with NATO summit we could see resolution of some kind soon?

TAYLOR: Well, of course, the Ukrainians and Russians and Europeans under OSCE are getting together tomorrow, and that's a good sign, but I would imagine that hard discussions will take weeks rather than days.

BOLDUAN: Ambassador, former ambassador, William Taylor, thanks so much, Mr. Ambassador. Great to have you on.

TAYLOR: Great to be here.

BOLDUAN: Of course. Michaela.

PEREIRA: All right, let us look at your headlines at 12 minutes past the hour. Steven Sotloff's family grieving family breaking their silence, remembering him as a mere man trying to find good. In a family statement, they accuse the leader of ISIS of violating Islam by beheading him. This morning we're also learning more about this murdered American's background. Sotloff was Jewish. He held Israeli citizenship. His Israeli connection was kept hidden in hopes that it would have kept him out of further danger.

New this morning, Dutch investigators say they will release a preliminary report into the Malaysian Air Flight 17 crash. They will release that next Tuesday. MH-17, as you'll recall, was shot down over Eastern Ukraine near the Russian border, July 17th. All 298 people aboard were killed. The Dutch Safety Board says further investigation will be needed before it can release that final report.

The Justice Department is set to launch a second civil rights investigation into the Michael Brown shooting. This investigation will focus on policing tactics in Ferguson, Missouri. It is separate from a probe of the Brown shooting itself.

In the meantime, new details revealed in court show the 18-year-old had no serious felony convictions or pending juvenile charges against him when he was killed.

The third American to be diagnosed with the Ebola virus has been identified as Dr. Rick Sacra. Dr. Sacra was in Liberia to replace two Americans who had become infected with Ebola in July.

Nurse Nancy Writebol and Dr. Kent Brantly were evacuated to Atlanta for treatment and released from Emory University Hospital last month. At this time, there are no plans to bring Dr. Sacra to the U.S. for treatment.

Yesterday John Berman and I were live on the air when Nancy Writebol gave a press conference, and we were remarking how incredible her recovery. It was two days shy of a month when she was hospitalized and she looked so healthy and strong. It's really a remarkable recovery.

BOLDUAN: She was telling Anderson, she had seen what kind of a death is like and she didn't believe she was going to make it.

PEREIRA: Witness it had time and time again, given the work she was doing. How horrible to know that that could be your fate, right?

CUOMO: Right. And now, not only is she a testament of the resolve of what it takes to beat it, and maybe she's a window into how we can get better at beating it.

PEREIRA: Maybe.

CUOMO: So, we'll have to see.

There are also some strong words to talk about this morning when it comes to is, not coming from the president so much. It's coming from the vice president.

Wait until you hear what he had to say about what ISIS will have to answer for and how after executing two Americans. The president is getting criticized for not really matching the passion that the vice president showed. Does this mean that they have a message problem, or is it just more political trouble? Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They should know we will follow them to the gates of hell until they are brought to justice, because hell is where they will reside!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Welcome back.

A big deal going on overseas, and in moments, President Obama will open a critical NATO summit in Wales. You are looking at live pictures from Newport, Wales, where world leaders are arriving at Celtic Manor.

Obviously high on agenda: building a united front against ISIS.

Overnight, the president repeated his commitment to taking on this organization, in a joint op-ed written with British Prime Minister David Cameron.

Now, the two leaders write they will not be, quote, "cowed by barbaric killers." What does that mean? How much resolve is there? What will happen next?

We are joined by Rula Jebreal, a journalist and foreign policy analyst, and Mr. Peter Beinart, CNN political commentator, as well as contributing editor for "Atlantic Media."

First question to you, Ms. Jebreal, do you believe you know what the president of the United States wants to do when it comes to ISIS?

RULA JEBREAL, JOURNALIST, FOREIGN POLICY ANALYST: I think he needs to explain more his strategy, but it's clear from what Biden has been saying, the vice president and others, that they will not stop in Iraq, that eventually they will go to Syria because they know that there's no way you can tackle the is issues without intervening in Iraq.

I hope that intervention, whether it's bombarding from the top, will be coupled with a political intervention, meaning you can't be allied with Assad. This is the guy that created this -- this monster, let's say, plus other regimes. If your allies in the region and you have and need Sunni allies, whether it's Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, you need these allies to be different.

First, Saudi Arabia. They can't pretend to be defended by the U.S., on the other hand, to finance the jihadists and to promote the Salafists.

CUOMO: What about the grand mufti? The grand mufti came out with the statement saying, we -- ISIS is enemy number one to Islam?

JEBREAL: Fine.

CUOMO: You're saying that's a mixed message?

JEBREAL: Fine, this is -- and I'm so happy that they are coming out, but this is part of the policies out. We need Al Asr mosque in Egypt, we need scholars, we need multiple interventions.

And, look, if you think of how al Qaeda came and was born, it was born in Egyptian prison and in Saudi Arabia. You have bin Laden and Zawahiri, number one and number two. There's a book about that is the most well-read book in the Arab world, and it's called "Milestone". And it's a manifesto for every Islamist.

It was written in the '50s by Sayyid Qutb, who was tortured, imprisoned, raped, they used dogs against him. And his journey of radicalization described perfectly. These are the same conditions that are taking place in prisons in Egypt, in Jordan, in Syria --

CUOMO: So, you're saying you're creating your own problem by how you deal with certain people.

JEBREAL: Absolutely.

CUOMO: We need to reform those.

But that's like three steps down the road, though, Rula.

JEBREAL: No, no, this is the fundamental issue because when you back these regimes as U.S. -- Sayyid Qutb came out and Zawahiri came out, Zawahiri was in an Egyptian jail, came out with one idea, transnational jihad. I will attack these regimes and their backers, whoever that is --

CUOMO: So, you're saying if you team up with these regimes to go after is, you may be perpetuating problem not stopping it because you're helping the motivators?

JEBREAL: No, you need to undermine the ideology. How do you do that? With reforms, with politics, with counterterrorism and counter- narrative. You need to have the imams, but you need these regimes to reform and change. ISIS was created because of the conflict in Iraq, but also because -- and Maliki who betrayed us, betrayed after the surge in '07. Petraeus went to the Sunni tribes and somehow brought them onboard.

CUOMO: They didn't let the Sunnis onboard, we thought he would.

But let me -- here's why I'm stopping you on it, because I think Jebreal is asking for too much. If the bar to stopping ISIS is making the world a better place first so that you don't need ISIS, I think your goal is gone before you even start going toward it.

What do you have to do to bring down this group of fighters? PETER BEINART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't think you can bring

them down. We haven't brought down the Taliban, the Taliban is still there, al Qaeda is still there. People don't like hearing Obama talking about minimizing ISIS or shrinking it. But in reality, that's the only thing we're going to do, unless we're going to send hundreds of thousands of ground troops ourselves.

What we can try to do is in alliance with people on the ground in Syria, try to reduce the amount of area they support and make it very clear to any Western jihadist who's thinking about coming to Syria, that they are probably going to face death. That's probably the best we can do.

CUOMO: So, you're kind of -- what's being played politics here in the U.S. right now, with mixed message with President Obama is pretty much what you're saying right now, you can kill me, but the idea that motivates my aggression is not so easy for to you kill. So, it's easy to say we can destroy the army, but you're not going to destroy the idea. That's what you're saying. Just like al Qaeda, just like the Taliban.

BEINART: Right. And also, we have particularly weak allies in Syria. It was difficult enough to defeat the Taliban when we had the Afghan government on our side. Difficult enough in Iraq when we had our own troops there.

In Syria, the moderate rebels are very, very weak right now. So, although it's very popular for these Republican politicians to say we need to annihilate them, we need to crush them, we need to destroy them, it sounds good, it might even win you a few votes, but in reality, it's probably beyond our capacity.

CUOMO: So, how do you do this? Because your idea, Rula, of change these places --

JEBREAL: No, no, not change.

CUOMO: -- so that you don't have this ideology, that's a very high bar.

JEBREAL: But you have to kill the ideology, we did this with communists. We did this with fascists. You need to kill the ideology.

And you can't think, OK, if I fix it here -- if you fix it here, it will go somewhere else. Listen, ISIS was al Qaeda and then it became ISIS. It was al Qaeda in Iraq. It was crushed. We killed Abu Musab al Zarqawi. We thought, OK, it's done. We killed bin Laden.

Guess what? You have al Baghdadi today and you have many others and many others --

CUOMO: Different names, same game.

JEBREAL: How do you kill that? You bring on board Sunni and demand from them to be different. When you see Sisi is my partner. Sisi is a guy a year ago that killed

1,000 prisoners in (INAUDIBLE) and imprisoned hundreds of thousands, and do you think when they will come out of jail they will be moderate Islamists?

We need to think in a very realistic way and have on board, I don't know the national security and the team -- the people that are examining these phenomena. They need to have people from the region, people that speak Arabic fluently and understand the phenomena in order to tackle it properly.

CUOMO: It's easy to say, we're going to go take them out, but it's going to be very hard to do. We have to --

JEBREAL: I'm actually optimistic. I think we can.

CUOMO: Because you may be less optimistic laying out how difficult this is going to be.

JEBREAL: Listen, it's not take a coffee here and put it here. It's a long run. It's a long strategy.

CUOMO: People have to know that. It's easy to think we're going to fight one fight and we'll be done. This is a bigger situation.

JEBREAL: Yes.

CUOMO: Peter Beinart, Rula Jebreal, thank you both very much.

Obviously, a conversation we have to keep having. A lot of parts to it.

Now, one of it is, does the White House communicate the right way? Do they have a message problem? Because you have the president, he said ISIS needs to be destroyed. Then, he says he needs it to be managed. Then, both have to happen.

So, which is it? We're going to debate this politically, straight ahead.

Plus, the feds set to announce a second investigation into the wake of Michael Brown's shooting in Ferguson, Missouri. This isn't about the shooting. This is about the police force that was involved -- the entire force is in the crosshairs. Why? We'll tell you.

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