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A Moment of Silence on 9/11; President Plans to Train and Arm Rebels in Syria; Three New Bombshells Surrounding NFL; 9/11 Commemoration Ceremony at the Pentagon

Aired September 11, 2014 - 09:00   ET

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


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. As the United States ever inches closer to war with ISIS, this morning shall the nation pauses. The nation pauses to remember what led to the prolonged war with al Qaeda.

This is a live look at the World Trade Center memorial site, where terrorists used planes as missiles 13 years ago. As they have done ever year since the attack, family members are reading aloud the names of nearly 3,000 victims. They and we will pause in just a minute to mark the second plane hitting the south tower. We will bring that moment to you live.

The solemn ceremony comes 12 hours after President Barack Obama announces a major shift in policy to defeat ISIS -- air strikes in Syria, arming Syrian rebels, sending more military advisers to Iraq. Obama goes as far as calling ISIS a cancer that will take some time to eradicate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I've made it clear that we will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country wherever they are. That means I will not hesitate to action against ISIL in Syria as well as Iraq. This is a core principle of my presidency. If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.

Now that those teams have completed their work and Iraq has formed a government, we will send an additional 475 service members to Iraq. As I've said before, these American forces will not have a combat mission. We will not get dragged another ground war in Iraq.

Across the border in Syria, we have ramped up our military assistance to the Syrian opposition. Tonight, I call on Congress, again, to give us additional authorities and resources to train and equip these fighters.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: The threat of ISIS and today's anniversary of September 11 have many Americans concerned for their safety. A new CNN/ORC poll believe there will be an act of terrorism in the United States around September 11. That's up from just two years ago. In fact, the number of people worried about terrorism has tripled in just the past year. Terrorism is now the second most important problem facing the United States, behind the economy.

As I said, at 9:03, the commemoration ceremony will pause to remember the moment the second plane struck the south tower. Let's pause.

(BELLS TOLL)

(MOMENT OF SILENCE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Klaus Bothe.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Carol Marie Bouchard.

COSTELLO: All right, as you can hear, they are reading the names of those taken from us that day on September 11, 2001. And a reminder, United Airlines Flight 175 hit the south tower at 9:03 Eastern Time. It was headed from Boston to Los Angeles. 65 people were on board that plane.

Poppy Harlow joins us now from near the memorial site. Good morning, Poppy.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Carol. I -- you know, as a New Yorker, someone who was here on 9/11, and someone who has lived here for the last 13 years, it is always a very difficult day. But I'm always reminded of the strength of us, this country, this city, when I look at the tower behind me that has been rebuilt, One World Trade Center, it is going to open this year.

The family members that are down there today, for many of them, it's very important to be there. A girl who was 4 years old told us, Carol, when her father died, is 17 now. She comes every year, reads names; it makes her feel closer to her dad. You can certainly understand that.

I also spoke with the parents of Peter Alderman, a 25-year-old man who was killed, murdered in the attack. His parents told me last night he would have been 38 and it is still hard for them to believe that they lost him. But, at the same time, they are listening; it's important for them to hear his name read.

This is what it's about. It is about the people and the families and all those lives lost and the way that we remember them and the way that we honor them. Today, for the first time on 9/11, the plaza, the memorial, that beautiful memorial, will open to public tonight at 6:00 Eastern so that they can share with everyone else there.

Also, this morning, the museum opened early, 7:30 in the morning, for the family members to be there. And you see a lot of New Yorkers walking by us here, stopping, looking up at that symbol of America's resolve and our unwillingness to be defeated that is One World Trade Center.

Of course, police are here in full force, this city is on high alert, as it always is; bridges, tunnels, they're watching them very closely. But I did speak with the NYPD police commissioner, Bill Bratton, who told me this morning there is no imminent threat to New York City. But you can bet there are a lot of police out and they are watching things very closely. Carol?

COSTELLO: All right, Poppy Harlow, thanks so much.

Terra Strada lost her husband, Tom, on 9/11; he was on the tenth floor of the north tower, an ordinary day turned extraordinarily tragic. Terry is with me now. Thank you so much for being with me on this day.

TERRY STRADA, LOST HUSBAND IN 9/11: You're welcome. Thank you for having me.

COSTELLO: I want to show our viewers a picture of Tom and I would like you to tell people about him

STRADA: Tom had this bigger than life personality. When he walked into a room, he commanded the room. He could make any ordinary story a funny story, so he was the love of my life. And we had three children together. They were 7, 4 and 4 days old on September 11. But he was a wonderful father, a wonderful son, a loving brother to his sisters and brothers, and he is missed deeply every day.

COSTELLO: I just -- I can't even imagine. So it's been 13 years since Tom and thousands of others died. And we are still talking about a terrorist group threatening America. Does it seem like a terrible case of deja vu to you?

STRADA: A little bit, yes. A horrible case of deja vu. It's very frightening where we are right now.

COSTELLO: Did you listen to the president's speech last night?

STRADA: I did. I did. At first, I kind was upset with the timing of it. I was hoping today could be about remembrance and reflection. But as long as he decided to do the speech last night, I took the time and listened. I feel that he kind of makes us feel -- puts it out there that we are safer than we really are. And there's some things that I think he could talk to more about, that --

COSTELLO: Well, be specific for me. What other things did you want the president to say last night?

STRADA: Well, last night, he did say that they were going to double down on the funding. And my group, for a long time now, has been advocating for the release of the 28 pages from the joint inquiry, which goes to the state sponsors of the terrorists of 9/11. We've never had that revealed. So that truth has been withheld from us for 13 years.

We feel that if we could speak or know more about the funding of 9/11, we could go after the people that fund terrorism, and maybe we wouldn't be where we are today if we had actually gone after the people that facilitated and funded September 11.

COSTELLO: Well, you make a good point, because many people say the only way really to defeat ISIS is to cut off the money. And we know that ISIS gets most of its money from criminal activity, but it's funded through other means as well.

STRADA: Yes. I'm sure it is. We believe that foreign governments were involved in sponsoring 9/11. We never brought that out to the -- out to be told to the American public, so we've never dealt with it so we've never had justice, we've never had accountability, we've never had the truth be told. So, nothing has stopped them. They continue to fund the terrorist organizations.

COSTELLO: OK. I want to go back to the ceremony that's going on right now, because I know your daughter is going to read her dad's name.

STRADA: Yes. Yes.

COSTELLO: So, tell us about that.

STRADA: Oh, it means a lot to her. She has just turned 17 this year and she put her name in; she wanted very much to come down and read it -- you read names and then you get to speak of your loved one. So she'll get to talk about him today and it means a lot to her.

COSTELLO: And I know you want to get down there. So I will let you go.

STRADA: Yes, all right. Thank you.

COSTELLO: Terry Strada, thank you so much. We appreciate it.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, President Obama on the offensive with a pledge and a promise to destroy ISIS fighters. Coming up next, what will the U.S. strategy look like in Iraq and in Syria and what will it mean for American troops?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: After weeks of criticism, President Obama finally laid out a strategy to dismantle and ultimately destroy ISIS. During a primetime address to the nation, the president delivered an emboldened threat to jihadist fighters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: I've made it clear that we will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country wherever they are. That means I will not hesitate to action against ISIL in Syria as well as Iraq. This is a core principle of my presidency. If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: In addition to authorizing air strikes in Syria, the four- step strategy includes also includes a plan to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels on the ground. As for the ongoing mission in Iraq, Mr. Obama plans to send additional 475 military personnel there, bringing the total number of U.S. forces in Iraq to about 1,600. OK. So, cue the partisan bickering. Shortly after the president's

speech, right here on CNN, Republican senator John McCain pointed the finger at the Obama administration for why the United States is currently facing this crisis. The result, a heated exchange with former White House press secretary turned CNN contributor, Jay Carney.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: Lindsey Graham and I, and Joe Lieberman, were in Baghdad. They wanted a residual force. The president has never made a statement during that or after that he wanted a residual force left behind. The Iraqis were ready to go. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that the number cascaded down to 3,500. That was not sufficient to do anything but to defend themselves. And you in your role as a spokesperson bragged about the fact that the last American combat troop had left Iraq. If we had left a residual force, the situation would not be what it is today. And there would not -- there would be a lot more --

JAY CARNEY, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Senator, I can posit with great respect for you that we can disagree on that--

MCCAIN: You can't. No, you can't, because you don't have the facts.

CARNEY: Sir, if I may--

MCCAIN: You don't have the facts, Mr. Carney. That is the problem.

CARNEY: Senator, I understand that you present the facts that you believe are true based on the argument that you have made for a long time--

MCCAIN: No, no, not I believe, they are true.

CARNEY: -- sir, that we should leave troops in Iraq in perpetuity.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: So that when on for a while and inspired a great big Twitter war. But we won't talk about that part of the equation. Let's talk about something, well, with more depth. We're joined by CNN military analyst, Lieutenant Rick Francona. He's also former U.S. military attache in Syria. Welcome, sir.

LT. COL. RICK FRANCONA (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Sure.

COSTELLO: OK, so, let's talk about residual forces in Iraq. President Obama ran as the anti-war president; the American public wanted troops out of Iraq. So, was the president wrong to take them out? And if he had left more American troops there, would ISIS be a threat?

FRANCONA: Well, I'll be diplomatic, I won't say he was wrong, but it did lead us to where we are. Without a U.S. presence there, the Iraqi army was allowed to atrophy. There was no one watching what was happening. There was no one advising Prime Minister al Maliki, no one watching Prime Minister al Maliki as he systematically replaced all of the competent military commanders with his own cronies. And as we saw what happened, the Iraqi army collapsed when pressured by ISIS.

COSTELLO: Well, let's talk about the Iraqi army collapsing, because, you know, part of the president's plan includes training the Iraqi military. But didn't we already do that?

FRANCON: Yes, we did and we spent a lot of money doing it, a lot of time, a lot of blood and treasure, doing this, to get them up to the speed where they could actually defend the country. And when we left in 2011, we were reasonably confident that that was the case.

With the change of leadership in the Iraqi military, of course, they did collapse. Now, we're going to start this process all over again. Now, that necessitates getting some of these qualified commanders back into uniform. The problem is many of these military commanders were Sunnis and they're up in the Anbar area, in the Diyala area, and they've allied with ISIS. So, we're almost starting from scratch now. There are some good units in Iraqi military, but there's just not enough of them.

COSTELLO: OK. So, Senator McCain is right, right? He's right?

FRANCONA: He's right.

COSTELLO: He's right. OK. So let's move on and talk about solutions. So, I know there's a problem with training Iraqi forces. The Obama administration also wants to train these so-called moderate rebels within Syria. Possible?

FRANCONA: Yes. This is a real problem. This is something that should have been done in 2012. Hindsight's 20/20, I understand. But that lack of support from the west for the Free Syrian Army, the secular moderates, mostly former Syrian military officers, created a power vacuum into which came the AQI-sponsored, al Qaeda in Iraq sponsored, al Qaeda in Syria, the Jabhat al-Nusra, who became ISIS.

So the two things, the collapse of the Iraqi army or the hollowing of the Iraqi army, and the power vacuum in Syria has created where we are today. Can the FSA be trained? Can these moderates actually do anything? We may be too late. They may be too weakened now, because they've taken a beaten from ISIS, they've taken a beating from the Syrian military. This -- Syria is going to be the key to this and Syria is going to be a very difficult situation.

COSTELLO: All right. I want to bring in chief national security correspondent, Jim Sciutto. I want bring him into the conversation, too.

Put your feet to the fire, Jim. So, the president also mentioned this regional coalition that was going to help America fight ISIS. How exactly is that regional coalition going to help?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, the administration sees it as absolutely necessary and, right now, you have Secretary of State John Kerry in the region with a shopping list, in effect, of the kind of help that the U.S. wants from these partners.

For instance, from Turkey. Turkey is the key transit point for foreign fighters into Syria, a real problem here, there are thousands of them. And it's the view of many U.S. officials that Turkey hasn't really lifted a finger to stop that flow. They're going to want that flow to stop. Jordan, very close U.S. ally there. Intelligence support, they also border Syria, but they may also ask Jordan for special forces help on the ground to help give you that on the ground presence that folks like Colonel Francona and others know is necessary to supplement whatever you do from the air.

Other countries as well, Qatar, a U.S. base there funding some of the bad militant groups inside Syria, not ISIS but some of the other radical groups. They want countries such as Qatar to stop the flow of money and support and fighters.

But a lot of this, you know, you have a lot of statements of support from nations in the region there, but the question is what do they actually deliver? And that's still an open question.

COSTELLO: We'll see. And that's just what you said, Rick, like all the countries going, yes, we'llsupport you, United States, but you do the dirty work.

FRANCONA: It's hard to believe that any of these countries are going to pony up military ground forces to send them to Iraq, later on maybe Syria, if the United States is not willing to do the same. I've takled to a friend of mine to Saudi Arabia. He says we'll send troops when you send troops.

COSTELLO: And we're not going to send troops, right? At least that's what the president says.

Jim, the other concern is the amount of money that American taxpayers will have to pony up to conduct this fight. What, we spent more than $1 trillion fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. How much could this particular coNFLict cost?

SCIUTTO: You know, that's still an open question, frankly, Carol. The president already asking for $500 million, but certainly it's going to go higher. You speak to a lot of people here in Washington, both on the Hill and in the Pentagon and elsewhere, who say that this effort over the last couple of years to bring down the Pentagon budget is effectively dead. You know, you're going to have a long military operation here. It's not going to be the Iraq war, it's not going to be $1 trillion war like the Iraq invasion, but it is going to be long. The Pentagon talking about three years. Air strikes are expensive; keeping those ships in the Gulf are expensive; giving the units and support there that are necessary to keep the American advisers safe, this all costs money. And that price tag, which, of course, we, the American taxpayers, are going have to foot, we don't know what that price tag is.

COSTELLO: Jim Sciutto and Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona, thanks to both of you. I appreciate it.

FRANCONA: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Still to come in the NEWSROOM, Ravens fans have had a tough week dealing with the Ray Rice fallout, but they have a big game tonight. And may I say, Andy Scholes, they have a bigger controversy on their hands?

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS: Well, you know, they certainly do, Carol. I have been talking to a lot of Ravens' fans this morning about the whole Ray Rice situation. I will tell you what the mood is here in Baltimore after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: There are three more bombshell developments surrounding the NFL and Ray Rice. Number one, the Associated Press is reporting a law enforcement official sent that elevator video of Rice punching Janay Palmer to an NFL executive back in April. As you well know, Commissioner Roger Goodell says he didn't see the video before Monday, because he didn't have it.

Bombshell number two, the NFL is bringing in a former FBI chief, Robert Mueller, to investigate how the league handled evidence in the Rice case.

And bombshell number three, Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti intimated that Ray Rice lied about what happened inside that elevator.

All right, we're going to actually pause on this story for just a second and head to Washington, because the president is arriving at the Pentagon because, as you know, in a matter of minutes, he -- actually, let's listen.

(MUSIC PLAYING: TAPS)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ladies and gentlemen, please direct your attention to the flag on the Pentagon building. The flag hangs today from sunrise to sunset, in honor of Patriot Day, and in remembrance of the 184 lives lost at the Pentagon.

Ladies and gentlemen, the national anthem of the United States, performed by the United States Navy brass quintet.

(MUSIC PLAYING: THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER)