Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

War with ISIS Examined; NFL Controversy Continues

Aired September 12, 2014 - 15:00   ET

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

RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour now. Hello, everyone. I'm Randi Kaye, in for Brooke Baldwin.

First to some breaking news in the fight against the terrorist group ISIS. For weeks, we have been told action that any against them in Iraq and Syria would not constitute a war. Today, that message changed, the White House saying we are in fact at war with ISIS.

Joining me now, Michelle Kosinski, White House correspondent.

Michelle, he said this in response to your question. What exactly did the White House say now?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Randi.

They said it very clearly, although it took some questioning there, because over the last couple of days, we have heard the messaging even saying, no, it is not a war in response to really specific questions. Yesterday, the secretary of state was asked, you know, it sounds like a war. It looks like a war. Are we at war?

The national security adviser was asked the same thing. Kerry at least said, no, that's the wrong terminology. National Security Adviser Susan Rice said, well, I don't know if you want to call it a war, but we call it a counterterrorism operation, a sustained counterterror campaign, but today, when asked, things have changed. The White House now says, OK, yes, the U.S. is at war against ISIS.

Here's what was said exactly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KOSINSKI: The administration hasn't wanted to call this a war on ISIS, but is it not a war?

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The question that you're asking though goes to sort of the central question that is important for people to understand.

This is not a situation where it's the United States against ISIL. The fact is, ISIL has indicated that they're ready to go to war against the world. And this president, as is expected of American presidents, is stepping up to lead an international coalition to confront that threat and to deny ISIL a safe haven.

And, ultimately, this international coalition will be responsible for degrading and destroying ISIL. So I think what you could conclude from this is the United States is at war with ISIL, in the same way that we are at war with al Qaeda and its al Qaeda affiliates all around the globe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSINSKI: Something has changed today in the messaging, possibly because they keep getting this question, different parts of the administration, like we mentioned, yesterday, secretary of state, national security adviser.

Well, today, we even heard it directly from the Department of Defense, using almost the same language that we just heard there in the daily briefing, saying that, OK, yes, you can call this a war on ISIS. In fact, we're saying that we are at war against ISIS, but they qualify it saying in the same way that you can say that we are still at war against al Qaeda, Randi.

KAYE: And you mentioned John Kerry and what he's been saying, how even though it looks like a war and sounds like a war, it's not a war. Let's play that sound bite.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELISE LABOTT, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Is the United States at war with ISIS? It sure sounds like from the president's speech that we are.

JOHN KERRY, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: I think that's the wrong terminology. What we are doing is engaging in a very significant counterterrorism operation.

And it's going to go on for some period of time. If somebody wants to think about it as being a war with ISIL, they can do so, but the fact is it's a major counterterrorism operation that will have many different moving parts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: So there's that and then you also have the sound from the Pentagon today. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REAR ADM. JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: What I said was, this is not the Iraq war of 2002. But make no mistake, we know we are at war with ISIL in the same way we are at war and continue to be at war with al Qaeda and its affiliates.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: So I guess what are we to think, right? But do you think that this is a deliberate turnaround, Michelle, or another case of mixed messages in all these different briefings?

(CROSSTALK) KOSINSKI: I think absolutely. I think at first the reason -- at least we could say one reason why they didn't want to call it a war was because of that escalatory effect. Also, it panics people at home. The president has been staunchly anti-war, ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And so the administration has wanted to really distinguish what is going on now from those prior wars.

You heard it in the response to my question, too, saying, well, we have been saying this is not like Iraq. This is not like Afghanistan. There's a broad international coalition on this. Here are other ways it's different.

Well, as over the last few days they have been getting these repeated questions and they're getting slightly different answers here and there and they know that it is a tough question -- I mean, when you look at the fact certainly it does look like a war even in the language the president was using, so it looks like now they have taken that step to say, OK, you can say that this is a war if you want to, but we're going to describe it more as the continued counterterrorism effort that we have been conducting or you could say the war that we are still at with al Qaeda -- Randi.

KAYE: Right. All right. Michelle Kosinski, thank you very much.

Let me bring in Christopher Dickey, foreign editor of The Daily Beast, to talk a little bit more about this.

Nice to see you.

First of all, what do you make of this? Why finally define us today as being at war with ISIS after saying all this time that we're not?

CHRISTOPHER DICKEY, THE DAILY BEAST: I think there are several things are going on.

First of all, when it comes to this being a war like the war we are fighting against al Qaeda, you have to remember the president is saying the authorization to use military force that gives him power to do what he's doing is the one that came out against al Qaeda or against anybody involved with the 9/11 attacks in September of 2001.

So if we are not fighting the same group, if we're not fighting a spinoff of al Qaeda, if this isn't the same war as al Qaeda, where is his authorization for the use of military force? That's one issue. So he's got to try to dance around that.

But the other problem, it is sort of two-fold, is that in fact what John Kerry was saying, what the secretary of state was saying is much closer to the way this administration actually conceives of this operation.

KAYE: Saying that it's a counterterrorism effort.

DICKEY: Yes. When the president said that this was something that would be reduced to manageable terms, that could be managed, that really reflects the president's thinking, because that's the realistic thinking about what you can do.

You don't defeat terrorism in the sense you defeat the German army in World War II. You defeat terrorism by giving it less room to operate, by taking away its means, by taking away its ideological initiative, by finding its leaders and killing them and eventually reducing it to where just instead of 1,000 people or 2,000 people, you are talking about a few hundred or a few dozen.

But to carry out a terrorist operation, you only need a few dozen people. So, You don't defeat it.

KAYE: But thinking in terms of the strategy that the president outlined, does this change anything now that they are actually using the word war?

DICKEY: No. What I just said was in fact the president's strategy. That's what they want to do. What he's going to be doing is all of those things to try to get the threat from ISIS down to manageable size.

KAYE: You also say and I know you have written quite a bit about this -- that we have been here before, that ISIS looks a whole lot like al Qaeda to you at least pre-9/11.

(CROSSTALK)

DICKEY: Yes. Well, that's right. What worries me is back before 9/11, I had been covering al Qaeda already for years at that point. And all of us who had been covering it understood that they were going to try to do something major against American targets and maybe in the United States.

There was even a memo to President Bush in August of 2001 saying they're going to attack here. It feels very much that way when you look at ISIS and their intentions and their abilities, and yet we hear the president say, we hear the head of the Department of Homeland Security say we don't have any actual intelligence saying they're going to attack the United States. We didn't on 9/11 either.

KAYE: That's what I was just going to say. But what does that tell you then?

DICKEY: It tells me that we should be very, very concerned, extremely vigilant and understand the threat is out there and probably the administration is doing everything it can to manage it, but the very disturbing thing is that with these huge bureaucracies up against these relatively small, nimble, impulsive organizations, it's very hard to counteract everything they do.

And the 9/11 Commission report was very clear. The greatest failure before 9/11 was a failure of the imagination, the failure to imagine what these guys could do, just like everybody failed to imagine that ISIS could take over in a matter of days the second biggest city in Iraq.

(CROSSTALK) KAYE: Right. Right. It is certainly alarming.

Christopher Dickey, nice to see you. Thank you.

DICKEY: My pleasure.

KAYE: We will have much more on this breaking news, including moments ago the State Department weighing in on whether this is a war. We will share that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: The question of the day seems to be this.

Is the United States at war with ISIS or is it not? And it seems the answer depends on who you ask, because just moments ago the spokesman for the White House came out and said that, yes, this is a war, when all along President Obama and John Kerry, Secretary of State John Kerry, have been saying that this is a counterterrorism operation.

In fact, the president when he spoke the other night never even used the word war in his speech. I want you to listen to what the White House said just moments ago and also the Pentagon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KOSINSKI: The administration hasn't wanted to call this a war on ISIS, but is it not a war?

EARNEST: The question that you're asking though goes to sort of the central question that is important for people to understand.

This is not a situation where it's the United States against ISIL. The fact is, ISIL has indicated that they're ready to go to war against the world. And this president, as is expected of American presidents, is stepping up to lead an international coalition to confront that threat and to deny ISIL a safe haven.

And, ultimately, this international coalition will be responsible for degrading and destroying ISIL. So I think what you could conclude from this is the United States is at war with ISIL, in the same way that we are at war with al Qaeda and its al Qaeda affiliates all around the globe.

KIRBY: What I said was, this is not the Iraq war of 2002. But make no mistake, we know we are at war with ISIL in the same way we are at war and continue to be at war with al Qaeda and its affiliates.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: So, I mentioned John Kerry, who said that we are not at war. Listen to what he told CNN just yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LABOTT: Is the United States at war with ISIS? It sure sounds like from the president's speech that we are.

KERRY: I think that's the wrong terminology. What we are doing is engaging in a very significant counterterrorism operation.

And it's going to go on for some period of time. If somebody wants to think about it as being a war with ISIL, they can do so, but the fact is it's a major counterterrorism operation that will have many different moving parts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAYE: So in that sound bite there that you saw with Secretary of State John Kerry, he was speaking with CNN's global affairs correspondent Elise Labott.

She's joining me now by phone to talk a little bit about that.

First, Elise, I guess what do you make of the fact that now the White House is calling it a war, yet the secretary of state told you yesterday this is not a war and it's the wrong terminology?

LABOTT: You know what, Randi?

They are really all over the place, this administration, aren't they, with the messaging on how they are going to characterize this.

I think they don't know because they never had anything like this before. The other night, the president when he gave his speech, he compared -- or said he will model the campaign after U.S. campaigns against al Qaeda in Somalia and Yemen.

But at the same time, those countries are rife with terrorism, so it's not really a ringing endorsement. And then he also said that it's nothing like -- Secretary Kerry told me that Yemen and Somalia are nothing like al Qaeda. Nobody really is on message here. Everyone is saying anything -- different things.

But I think one thing is clear, that this isn't a war in the sense that one organization, one army is fighting another. This is going to be a global campaign not just in the military sense, but there's going to be a diplomatic angle. There will be an economic angle. They will try to stop the flow of funding to ISIS with stopping illicit oil sales and other individual funding that's going from place to place.

It's not necessarily a war that you see on a battlefield, but it is very much like the war against terrorism I would say that the U.S. started fighting against al Qaeda in 2001.

KAYE: All right. Elise, thank you so much.

Let me bring in A.B. Stoddard, associate editor of "The Hill," and CNN national security analyst also a former CIA operative Robert Baer to a little bit talk more about this and break this down a little bit.

First, I guess, A.B., let me get your reaction on that. What do you think about now the White House coming out and calling it a war? A.B. STODDARD, ASSOCIATE EDITOR, "THE HILL": I really think they had

no choice. They went from being passive in the last few weeks to trying to mount an aggressive campaign to unite America behind an attack against ISIS and that what we're doing, what is involved here clearly means war and ISIS has declared war on us and as, Josh Earnest said, the rest of the world.

And sooner or later, they were going to have to call it that.

KAYE: Bob, what do you make of that? Does the word war even matter, whether you call it war or you call it a counterterrorism effort?

BOB BAER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Randi, you're right. It doesn't matter at all. We are at war. The Islamic State is a state. It's administering a large territory. There's something like 20 million people under its governance. It's doing fairly well controlling this area.

It has tanks. It has airplanes and it has surface-to-air missiles and it has communication systems we can't break into. It's a war even more than the war against al Qaeda. And, secondly, I think the White House is being disingenuous. They are Special Forces that are already starting to do probes into Syria and ISIS territories.

This is going to escalate over the days. But calling it anything other than a war I think is done for political reasons.

KAYE: Let me just ask you also about some other news today, Bob. Retired General John Allen appointed today as the envoy to help build this coalition against ISIS, including the Arab nations. How vital is that do you think to the U.S.' goal in terms of defeating ISIS?

BAER: I think it's extremely important. John Allen has been slated for this position for a while. He's going to try to rally support, especially in Iraq with the Sunnis to turn against ISIL. He's a smart guy. He was part of the awakening in Iraq. He knows what it means and if the Pentagon is allowed to get politics -- the election is coming up in 2016, elections out of the way -- I think he will do pretty well.

KAYE: In terms of the coalition and all the support and getting that together, A.B., why do you think the president came out and announced this strategy before he knew that this coalition had already come together? There are many of these countries that the U.S. is not getting support from.

STODDARD: That's true. There's a real lack of trust in this administration, frankly, for several reasons. Many nations in the Middle East believe that ISIS was allowed to become strong because we didn't get in on the ground in Syria to train the rebels when we knew who the rebels were.

You have Ryan Crocker, the former ambassador to Iraq and Syria, saying we have no idea who they are. That's not a really good plan here. I think over the weekend securing approval from Saudi Arabia to train in their territory and not in Syria to train rebel groups that we can identify there became such sort of a victory for the administration and they were so worried about how passive a stance the president had taken in public saying it was a manageable problem, et cetera.

They felt like they had to make that prime-time address and come out as soon as possible and they hoped that other nations will follow and that once Congress speaks in one voice and approves money for training of those rebels, that other nations will come along. But you see a lot of hesitance.

KAYE: meanwhile, this coalition could be up against a whole lot more than they bargained for now that we know according to the CIA that there may be triple the number of ISIS forces there waiting for us.

I want to ask you about that, if the two of you will just stick around. We will talk more about that right after we take a very quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KAYE: Welcome back, everyone.

Let's remind our viewers here of the breaking news that we have been following here in the last few minutes in the CNN NEWSROOM. Just moments ago, the White House spokesman confirming to CNN, to our Michelle Kosinski, that the White House is saying that the United States is at war with ISIS, even though we know that the president in his speech the other night said -- did not use the term war, but said this was a counterterrorism operation.

Now you have the White House saying we're at war, the Pentagon also saying that we are at war. But the secretary of state, John Kerry, just yesterday telling our global affairs correspondent, Elise Labott, that this is not a war and that that's the wrong terminology. We just spoke to her moments ago, and she says, you know what? These folks are all over the place. They don't what their -- they don't have their stories straight, obviously.

They don't have it all in line. Let's continue with our panel here to discuss a little bit about this. Bob Baer is with us and also A.B. Stoddard, the associated editor of "The Hill," and Bob Baer, as I mentioned, CNN national analyst, and Christopher Dickey, foreign editor of The Daily Beast.

Good to see all of you once again.

Bob, let me start with you on this news today also, the CIA telling CNN that there may be triple the number of fighters with ISIS there waiting for this coalition and waiting for these airstrikes. What do you make about the numbers? What do you make of the numbers?

BAER: Let me interpret it this way. What's happening is that the Islamic State is finding a lot of adherents. This is a message playing across the Middle East and they are not so much hard-core fundamentalists, as they are, for instance, ex-officers with Saddam's army who are joining. Various groups in Syria are disbanding and joining the Islamic State. I think they're riding a wave and the CIA numbers reflect that, that it started out as a small group last year, the J.V. team, as the president described it, and it's really been picking up strength. I think it's certainly supplanted al Qaeda. It's the organization to join if you are at all inclined to join a jihad.

KAYE: Chris Dickey, to you now on this. The U.S. doesn't seem to know who these rebel fighters are.

DICKEY: Well, it knows generally who they are. It knows for instance that some of them are coming from Europe, some of them are coming from Asia and some from Africa and some from the United States.

But when we're talking about 25,000, 30,000, we're not talking about Europeans, Americans or Asians. We're mainly talking about Syrians and Iraqis. And the big question is, the Sunni Iraqis and Syrians who have joined with ISIS over the last few months, will they stay with ISIS or at some point will they decide that the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence and that they can get a better deal by breaking away from ISIS?

ISIS is certainly aware of that danger, but right now its numbers are inflated.

KAYE: But their ranks have been decimated, have they not?

DICKEY: Yes. Their ranks were territory decimated in 2007 and 2008 during the surge in Iraq, but they have a very tight and efficient structure, I think tighter and more efficient than most people realize. They were able to survive even with 50, 60 percent of their leaders killed during that period.

They retreated into Syria when they had an opportunity after 2011. They regrouped and then they came storming back, as we know only too well.

KAYE: A.B., let me ask you because certainly the U.S. has now announced this action. Do you think that's actually helped boost recruitment efforts for ISIS?

STODDARD: There's a very good chance of that. But, really, President Obama will find this coalition building and this slow building up of other armies, other partner forces on the ground to be a very difficult task because they are unlike any other force, according to Secretary Hagel, that we have ever seen, the most well-funded, the best command of social media, the most able to galvanize and attract Westerners.

And this is really something that President Obama has now come out and said that he's going to be committed to. I think in the weeks to come, what's really going to be problematic is not only the challenge of meeting it globally, but here at home trying to keep the Congress and the country together on a sustained effort that will eventually involve real boots on the ground. He's continuing, as Robert said, to not say this is a war, not say that there's boots on the ground. There are boots on the ground. The numbers are nearing 2,000 now.

They will be in -- they might not be combat forces. They might be called Special Forces, but I think we will see a debate soon before Christmas about whether or not we need to strengthen our military involvement with more combat forces and that's going to be a very difficult debate.

HAYES: Yes, certainly is. All right. Well, much more on the ISIS threat, including an interview with a former U.S. general coming up. Thank you to all of you.

But, next, an inside look at the report that led the NFL to investigate its handling of the Ray Rice case. The Associated Press broke the story about the NFL allegedly receiving the Ray Rice video back in April. That led to a whole lot of questions about what commissioner Roger Goodell knew and when he knew it. We will talk to a managing editor of the AP about this report coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)