Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Obama Says There Is Bipartisan Support For Strikes; U.S. Bombs Terror Targets Inside Syria

Aired September 23, 2014 - 15:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I've spoken to leaders in Congress and I'm pleased that there's bipartisan support for the actions that we're taking. America's always stronger when we stand united.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Bipartisan support said the president, House Speaker John Boehner and Senator Lindsey Graham are among prominent Republicans backing the action in Syria.

Newt Gingrich with us now, the former House speaker, co-host of CNN's "CROSSFIRE." Mr. Speaker, how much credit do you think the president and John Kerry should get for piecing this coalition together?

NEWT GINGRICH, CNN CO-HOST, "CROSSFIRE": I think they should get considerable credit. I think the country's stepping up to the plate -- that I'm surprised. We'll have to see how serious they are. But if Qatar actually comes in and is actively opposed to ISIS, that would be a significant breakthrough. Because a lot of the funding for ISIS has come through Qatar and so to have them switching sides will be a big deal. I think you have to recognize that there are a lot of people frightened by what's happening in the region and that there are a number of countries now that are stepping forward.

But I think, I'm happy to blame the president and the secretary of state when things don't work. Here's a case where they do deserve some real credit.

COOPER: It's interesting, though, with this coalition, you still have countries, Saudi Arabia and others which are supporting, you know, Madrassas in Pakistan, they are preaching extremism.

So on the one hand, they're part of this coalition against this particular extremist group with the other hand, though, they're still out there, you know, funding things, which long-term ideologically contribute to this anti-western sentiment.

GINGRICH: Well, Anderson, you're exactly right. This is where I hope when Congress comes back that they will insist on very broad hearings. You know, there are wars with radical Islamists underway in Nigeria, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Gaza, South Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

That's a huge problem and I think we have not taken seriously how big it is. We haven't taken seriously the Saudi role in funding the Madrassas, the radical schools that train people to become terrorist.

We haven't taken seriously the underlying funding of these organizations. Thirteen years after 9/11, we are still a long way from a global strategy against an increasingly global enemy.

COOPER: Yes, I mean, a war of ideas as well as a military campaign.

GINGRICH: That's right. And you look at over 100 Americans have gone to ISIS, over 500 British citizens have joined ISIS. There are over 10,000 foreign folks who have gone to ISIS.

This is a genuinely worldwide problem and is going to require some pretty creative thinking about how we're going to defeat it including in the U.S. and in Great Britain as well as in Syria and Iraq.

COOPER: It is, you know, you talked about when Congress comes back, we have midterm elections six weeks from today. They're all going on recess. They're not coming back, really, until November, until after the elections, will the fact that we're now at war in Syria change the dynamic in this election, you think, in any way?

GINGRICH: I think it changes a little bit. I mean, the Democrats are particularly, I think, split on this about 40 percent of the House Democrats voted no on training and equipping the Syrians just last week, there are a number of Democrats running for election, clearly torn.

Remember, Barack Obama defeated Hillary Clinton for the nomination in 2008 in part on the issue of war. And he entered office as a president who wanted to minimize our worldwide military involvement.

He's now sending 3,000 military to West Africa. He is sending American troops in a variety of forms in Iraq and elsewhere. I think it puts tremendous stress on the anti-war Democrats and causes problems.

For the Republicans, they're going to, I think, have to recognize that they've got to come back after the election and play a major role in thinking this through, holding hearings and trying to be constructive and forging a bipartisan majority to defeat this entire movement worldwide.

COOPER: Do you think Congress should vote on authorizing this? This is a war, this is a war without an end. I mean, this is --

GINGRICH: Yes.

COOPER: A campaign that shall go on and on.

GINGRICH: Well, first of all, I think we need to have hearings on defining what the enemy is. Is the enemy one group in Syria and Iraq or does the enemy a movement? Does the enemy a movement? Does the enemy included, for example, Boko Haram in Nigeria, al Shabaab in Somalia?

Does it include the folks who are in Yemen? I mean, how are we defining the war? I do think Congress ought to authorize it whether as an act of war or a very strong declaration with a series of steps.

We also need to make it illegal for Americans to either recruit, fund raise or go to places like ISIS. I mean, you can't have recruiters trying to find young people, for example, in Minneapolis-St. Paul and recruit them, young and men women and young women now being recruited to go over. That should be a criminal event.

COOPER: Newt Gingrich, appreciate it. Thanks very much.

GINGRICH: Thank you.

COOPER: On top of the news of U.S. strikes inside Syria, we are getting word from Israel that it shot down a Syrian fighter jet. More on that coming up after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Israel's military says they shot down a Syrian war plane over the Golan Heights today after what it calls growing tensions in the border area. Syrian fighter jet could be seen in flames as it crashed to the ground.

The Israeli military says the plane was identified while attempting to infiltrate Israeli air space and was brought down by an antiaircraft missile. The Israeli/Syrian border has grown increasingly unstable in recent months forcing U.N. peacekeepers to withdraw from the Syrian- controlled side of the Golan Heights just last week.

ISIS' so-called headquarters, its base of operations, is in Syria, but the militant group managed to terrorize and take control over a significant portion of the northern and western regions.

Today's allied airstrikes did not include Iraq, but no doubt officials there are closely watching developments in Syria. Our senior international correspondent, Ben Wedeman, is in Iraq with reaction there.

I'm wondering what is the perception in Irbil, the Kurdish controlled north, to these latest strikes?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: What we've heard from Kurdish officials is a very positive reaction that to the strikes, they've long been calling for them because, of course, really the heartland, the strategic depth of ISIS at the moment is in north central Syria around the city of Raqqa.

And as long as they were able to essentially operate freely in that area that really was a problem for the Kurds in Northern Iraq and, of course, for the government in Baghdad.

Now, in the last sort of month and a half, there have been around 190 U.S. strikes. And over the weekend, a few French air strikes as well on ISIS targets. But officials here say they'd like to see the sort of intensity and breadth of strikes that they've seen in Syria overnight in Iraq, as well.

They say that when U.S. planes are involved in supporting Kurdish or Iraqi troops in the field when they're battling is that it's a very piecemeal sort of tactical strikes, not sort of broad strategic strikes that would really cripple ISIS in Iraq as well as Syria.

COOPER: And have Peshmerga fighters, Kurdish fighters and Iraqi military and as well as Shia militia supporters, have they been able to make advances on the battlefield against ISIS?

WEDEMAN: Well, to the west of Irbil, the Kurdish forces, the Peshmerga have been able to retake villages that ISIS took. Now, one of the problems is that even when they take over these villages, they find that there are boobie traps, explosives and houses all over the road and stuff.

Even when they drive ISIS out, it's still a struggle to create an environment in which people can move back. They've retaken territory. But really many people have just remained in safer ground while the effort is ongoing to clear away the mines and the explosives.

To the south of here in Anbar Province, close to Baghdad, it's a somewhat different situation. The Iraqi forces are really under pressure from ISIS who have been quite successful to this day at really driving some of the government forces back.

So it's really a mixed picture. Now, we did speak with one senior Kurdish official talking about the Iraqi army, the central Iraqi army. He said it's not even really an army. And so, shot through with corruption, with incompetence that they don't have a lot of confidence in the Iraqi military.

COOPER: Incredibly worrying. Ben Wedeman, appreciate it. Thanks, Ben.

Coming up, a lot more. Take a look. U.S. Central Command coordinating a new war for the U.S., launching tomahawk missiles, dozens of military aircraft, dropping bombs. But why this type of fire power? We'll ask the former head of Centcom next.

Plus, as the U.S. engages in another war, the markets are reacting. What about oil? We'll take a look at that ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Only the beginning the Pentagon using those words to describe what it calls successful U.S. airstrikes against ISIS strong holds in Syria. Four dozen coalition aircraft hit centers and supplies, we're told, and acting alone, the United States attacked senior al Qaeda set to be poised for attacks on the U.S.

The question is, how successful were they? Let's bring in General Anthony Zinni, a former commander in chief of U.S. Central Command as well as author of "Before the First Shots are Fired, How America Can Win or Lose Off the Battlefield."

General, thanks so much for being with us. First of all, what do you make of the strikes as you see them thus far? Because as the military said, this is only the beginning.

GENERAL ANTHONY ZINNI (RETIRED), U.S. MARINE CORPS: I think it's an important beginning. What was concerning me, Syria was becoming a sanctuary, not just for ISIS but we saw other groups coming in here.

COOPER: For Khorasan?

ZINNI: Yes. And so the idea to leave Afghanistan or Pakistan or Yemen or Somalia suddenly be in the heart of the Middle East. It was beginning to become an attractive sanctuary. Not only by hitting ISIS in its base, but by hitting these other organizations I think sends a message we won't accept it as a sanctuary.

COOPER: It's interesting, particularly this group Khorasan says they were apparently in Syria not because they were interested in overthrowing Bashar Al Assad at all, but simply because it was an unstable country where they could kind of operate in a lawless realm.

ZINNI: Absolutely. They believed we wouldn't go there so they didn't have to worry about a drone strike hitting their leadership or the way things happen in Pakistan or Yemen or Somalia.

So I think they were looking for that safe haven and this had appeal to them and, of course, the protection that probably organizations like ISIS could give them in that environment, too.

COOPER: This entire operation rests on having others essentially fighting on the ground in Iraq. We're talking about Iraqi security forces, Iraqi militias linked with Iraqi security forces, the Iraqi military and Peshmerga fighters. How long does it take to get the Iraqi military capable of actually fighting?

I mean, you and I were talking before the break, because of Nuri al Maliki, the way generals could buy generalship, who had no military training whatsoever, no capabilities on the battlefield, they abandoned their troops.

Despite all the money we poured in, all the equipment we gave them, it seems to me it's going to take a long time.

ZINNI: To me, this is the most concerning part of this strategy. The ground piece. You have the Peshmerga. They aren't large numbers. They aren't well-equipped because the Iraqi's Maliki wouldn't let them receive equipment arms and the kind of equipment they would need to go into an offensive.

The Iraqi army as you point out, Anderson, is incapable and they proved that to stand up to ISIS. It's going to take a year or more to vet the leadership, to get credible leadership, to train them.

And then if they are Sunnis, they are going to have to have something to fight for and believe in. And then on the Syrian opposition, the so-called moderates providing arms, we're not certain who is getting these arms and whether or not they will stand up. They have another fight going on with Assad.

COOPER: That's the thing. For a lot of these groups, one leader of a group quoted at "The New York Times" as saying, look, we want to fight Assad. He's our priority. After that, we can deal with the extremist groups. That's exactly what the U.S. wants to hear. The U.S. wants them to now turn and fight ISIS.

ZINNI: But that collection on the ground to me is not substantial enough. Remember when the Marines were in Falluja and Anbar, even that we had air support and everything else, that was a tough fight.

COOPER: Right.

ZINNI: Without U.S. ground forces on the ground, it's not going to be credible and you're not going to get anybody else to sign up, in my view, on the ground unless you have U.S. leadership and then U.S. participation at that level.

COOPER: And they are only talking about 5,000 so-called moderate training 5,000 or so. That's a pretty small force to deal with ISIS, al Nusra, some of these other groups.

ZINNI: It also doesn't necessarily have the fire power to deal with them. We saw the fighting in places like Falluja. It can negate the kind of fire power we can bring. I think what you're going to see pretty soon is ISIS and others will now go and mix with the people, much like Hamas did in Gaza in order to defeat our ability to target them and isolate them.

COOPER: Right. So then how do you go after them if you don't have U.S. personnel on the ground?

ZINNI: There's an old saying in the military, if you're going to control people and terrain, you go to put boots on the ground and eventually want to come and face that. If we're truly out to destroy them and truly out to go to the gates of hell and to lead the effort, you've got to be up front.

COOPER: So you think it's inevitable that U.S. ground forces would have to be involved?

ZINNI: I think it's absolutely necessary. Remember, it wasn't just defeat. The president said destroy ISIS. I think that's going to be hard to do totally. But if you're going to destroy them as a fighting force, it's going to have to be on the ground.

And I don't think you're going to get credible coalition partners. You don't have on the ground now the kind of capability to do this unless you put American boots on the ground. The president is going to face that issue coming up, I believe.

COOPER: General Zinni, appreciate you being on.

ZINNI: Thank you very much. COOPER: Up next, will the airstrikes continue in the coming hours and how imminent was the threat from this al Qaeda terrorist? The Pentagon spokesperson joins CNN live next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: The U.S. and its coalition allies assess the aftermath of airstrikes in Syria, cautious investors are keeping a close eye on the markets today. U.S. markets follow the world market's trend today heading down. The price of oil lifted up, but continues a downward trend sitting at just $91 a barrel.

Let's go to some breaking news out of the United Nations. Richard Roth is joining me -- Richard.

RICHARD ROTH, CNN SENIOR U.N. CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, the United States has given the U.N. a letter to circulate to the Security Council regarding the legal justification under the U.N. Charter for the attacks and assault on ISIS positions inside Syria. The U.S. letter to the U.N. says that because Iraq previously

requested assistance from attacks from safe havens inside Syria and under the rights of self-defense, the United States was under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, able to attack Syria.

Because the government there was, quote, "unwilling or unable to prevent the use of its territory for such attacks, the Syrian regime has shown it cannot and will not confront those safe havens effectively -- Anderson.

COOPER: So essentially they are saying the justification for this bombing campaign is the self-defense of Iraq?

ROTH: That is correct. We know that they say there were imminent threats coming from Syria to U.S. interests. Russia has not been happy overnight regarding the U.S. attacks. Unclear how it will react inside a Security Council meeting -- Anderson.

COOPER: All right, Richard Roth, thanks very much. Jake Tapper and "THE LEAD" starts right now.