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Obama Faces U.N. on ISIS Strikes in Syria; U.S. Warns of Homegrown Terrorists; Interview with Rep. Peter King; Kerry: We Stopped the ISIS Onslaught

Aired September 24, 2014 - 09:00   ET

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

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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Because of the almost unprecedented effort of this coalition, I think we now have an opportunity to send a very clear message that the world is united.

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CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: President Obama minutes away from making his case to the world.

Good morning and welcome to our international viewers joining us. I'm Carol Costello in New York.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Wolf Blitzer here at the United Nations.

One hour from now President Barack Obama makes a critically important speech right before the United Nations General Assembly. But make no mistake, he will be speaking to the entire world.

COSTELLO: That is most definitely true.

The cost of the U.S.-led offensive now carries a deeper sense of danger. Washington issues a warning to law enforcement agencies from coast to coast. Be on the lookout for a possible backlash including homegrown terrorists. This as a senior ISIS leader calls on Westerners to strike the United States and one of its allies at home.

Overnight the U.S. and its Arab partners launched new strikes on ISIS targets in Syria. The coalition forces struck an ISIS staging area near the Iraqi border. Inside Iraq they hit an ISIS fighting position near Irbil. Outside Baghdad, armed vehicles and a weapons cache were the targets.

Now Mr. Obama will try to convince other world leaders and their citizens that the cost is just and the mission is critical. The president's message as he tries to rally global support, the threat posed by ISIS and other terrorist groups needs to be confronted right now.

CNN has deployed its resources -- vast resources.

BLITZER: Pretty important speech.

COSTELLO: It is. I'll toss it to you, Wolf. Go ahead.

BLITZER: Well, it's a critically -- it's a critically important speech that the president will be delivering in about an hour or so from now. And as you been pointing out, we've deployed all of our vast resources to break down all the angles of this unfolding story.

We're going to check in with our correspondents, our guests, our analysts leading up to the president's speech. Live coverage of course here on CNN.

The setting, by the way, is the largest diplomatic gathering in the world. The topic is war right now. Something the president of the United States certainly did not necessarily want to be addressing as he approaches the final two years of his administration.

Let's begin our coverage this hour with our chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto. He's here with me at the United Nations.

You know, the focus, of course, is ISIS, the war in Iraq and Syria. And he's going to be addressing several other critically important issues as well.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: No question. This is going to be a broad speech about American leadership in a world with many challenges. Certainly ISIS, but also the Ebola outbreak, nuclear negotiations with Iran, Russian military action in Ukraine.

It's going to be a speech where he says that American leads with others. He's going to talk about the coalition that has come together for these strikes against ISIS inside Syria. But he's going to say America leads. America does not lead alone, but it does lead.

And I'm told as well that there's going to be something of an optimistic tinge to this. Talk about all the potential of when the world works together with American leadership that it can meet these challenges, although it's a very challenging world but that America and the world together can meet those challenges.

BLITZER: He addresses the United Nations General Assembly this morning and then does something unusual. He presides over a special session of the United Nations Security Council, a five-permanent members, the 10 rotating members. He will be in the president's chair, the U.S. is president of the Security Council this month and he wants to pass a resolution.

Here's the question. What does the resolution say and will the Russians veto it?

SCIUTTO: Here's the -- here's resolution right here. This is a draft copy. And it -- it zeros in on the flow of foreign fighters and money into Syria. And it requires nations. Here's just some of the language. All states shall prevent the movement of terrorist or terrorist groups by effective border controls. It also gets at the recruiting and the organizing requiring states at home to stop the many groups that help funnel fighters and money to the terrorist groups in countries like Syria and Iraq as well.

And it also, interestingly, calls on states, in fact requires states to make it a criminal offense for entities in their countries or individuals to either send money, financing, recruitment efforts, et cetera to these terror groups. So it is calling on these nations really to step up the effort because remember, a lot of the nations, even some of them American allies, Qatar, for instance, accused of not only allowing foreign fighters to head towards Syria, but encouraging them, allowing things that masquerade as charities, in fact, to funnel money to terrorist groups.

Now I'm told that the president would not bring this resolution before the Security Council today particularly with the U.S. presiding unless he believes he has the votes including from Russia and China, who, you know, often in danger of vetoing U.S. --

BLITZER: Right.

SCIUTTO: U.S. resolutions. So it is believed that this will pass today. It's a very tough resolution.

BLITZER: And Russia has a very close relationship with Bashar al- Assad's regime in Damascus, which isn't necessarily all that happy the U.S. is using its air power, the air power of five Arab allies, as well, going after ISIS targets and al Qaeda targets inside Syria. The Syrians, they are at war with these guys, but they are not happy the U.S. has invaded their sovereignty, if you will.

SCIUTTO: That's true, although it is interesting when you look -- the louder protests have been coming from, say, Russia or Iran. Countries that are aligned with the regime of Bashar al-Assad and also often will take shots at the U.S. when it takes military action abroad.

When you look at the statements from the Syrian government, although they say the U.S. should have asked their permission, of course, to cross their border, Syria does say that they are willing to help, in fact, and they're happy to see the international nations are tackling a terrorist threat that they have been talking about for some time.

It's interesting. And this is one of those many complications of this conflict right now that the U.S. finds itself on the same side as the Assad government against ISIS.

BLITZER: And it's -- they are undermining, they're weakening -- dismantling positions of ISIS, which is an enemy of the Bashar al- Assad regime.

SCIUTTO: Exactly.

BLITZER: But they don't necessarily want to help Bashar al-Assad stay in power.

SCIUTTO: Although that may be a byproduct of all this.

BLITZER: Certainly, maybe.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

BLITZER: All right. We're going to be here all day watching what's going on.

Jim Sciutto, thanks very much.

The president of the United States set to address the General Assembly less than an hour or so from now. Of course we're going to bring you live coverage of his speech as soon as it begins, Carol. In the meantime, back to you.

COSTELLO: All right. Ahead of the president's remarks across the country law enforcement is on heightened alert this morning. They are looking for lone wolves in the United States who may be plotting to retaliate right here on U.S. soil for the attacks on ISIS and the al Qaeda affiliate in Syria.

The joint bulletin from the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI warns, quote, "We face an increased challenge in detecting terrorist plots underway by individuals or small groups acting quickly and independently or with only tenuous ties to foreign handlers." It adds, quote, "Pre-operational indicators are likely to be difficult to detect."

Disturbing, right?

CNN justice correspondent Pamela Brown joins me now with more.

Good morning.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning to you, Carol. So as a precaution this warning was sent out by federal officials to law enforcement agencies across the country to stay on high alert, stay vigilant and keep their eye out for anyone who may be a homegrown violent extremist who want to retaliate in the wake of the strikes in Syria.

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BROWN (voice-over): A new bulletin from the Department of Homeland Security warning authorities that it, quote, "cannot rule out the possibility that some homegrown terrorists acting alone or in small groups could attempt simple attacks with little or no warning."

This comes in the wake of U.S.-led airstrikes in Syria. U.S. officials say one of the goals of the operation was to eliminate the command and control structures of an al Qaeda group called Khorasan.

REAR ADM. JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: These strikes were undertaken to disrupt imminent attack plotting against the United States and Western targets.

BROWN: A U.S. intelligence source says the group had already acquired materials and was in an advanced stage of planning to carry out an attack in the West, in the U.S. or Europe, but no specific targets are known.

Senior U.S. officials tell CNN that in July security at international airports was increased after intelligence suggested Khorasan was creating easily concealed bombs for Western recruits to smuggle on to airplanes. What makes the threat of Khorasan attack so worrying is their ties to al Qaeda's master bombmaker in Yemen, Ibrahim al-Asiri.

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: The concern is that al-Asiri has trained a number of apprentices in these techniques, and these apprentices, some of them have migrated to Syria. The fear is that some of them had joined this group Khorasan there and have helped them develop these new techniques.

BROWN: Al-Asiri is thought to have built the underwear bomb that failed to detonate aboard an airliner from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009 and a plot to blow up planes using explosives in printer cartridges.

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BROWN: And U.S. officials say they targeted a training camp and command and control facilities linked to the group. Officials are still assessing the result of the strike trying to figure out if they were able to take out the key leaders in the Khorasan Group -- Carol.

COSTELLO: So what are law enforcement officials looking for to detect these lone wolves?

BROWN: So they're looking for any unusual behavior. Anyone who is using their social media account to espouse violence. Anyone that's grown increasingly violent in -- in the way that they are posting or I should say anyone who is sort of encouraging violence in their posts, encouraging extremism.

And then also anyone who might suddenly do that and then shut down their social media account, Carol. Obviously those are red flags that officials are going to want to look for. And they're acutely aware of the fact that ISIS has been using social media to sort of push their agenda as propaganda, pushing for lone wolf attacks. So that's something that they are also very concerned about in the wake of these strikes in Syria.

COSTELLO: Is there any way to know how many lone wolves there are out there?

BROWN: Well, officials I've been speaking with say there are hundreds of individuals that they are keeping their eyes on who could become homegrown violent extremists. What makes this difficult is that anyone could be in their, you know, basement being radicalized on their computer. And it's very tough for intelligence officials to track that person from the time they go from their basement to perhaps launching an attack in the U.S.

So it's something -- and that is a big reason why we have this bulletin to sort of remind law enforcement officials to keep their heads down and stay focused and vigilant. COSTELLO: All right. Pamela Brown, thanks so much. We appreciate

it.

It could take days for U.S. military officials to determine how much damage was done to initial targets in Syria. We do know that the first round of airstrikes which took place on Monday was carried out in three waves.

The first was aimed primarily at an al Qaeda spinoff organization known as the Khorasan Group. Not ISIS. In total the United States fired 47 Tomahawk missiles, eight of those were against Khorasan targets.

That actually came as a surprise to many of us mainly because it wasn't part of the president's expressed military strategy. We're not the only ones surprised.

Listen to Democratic Senator Tim Kaine.

SEN. TIM KAINE (D), VIRGINIA: The constitutional allocation of power that was put into the Constitution and it has its expression in statutes as well, was put in, in my view, for a really important reason and it was this. Don't ask service members to risk their lives if there's not a political consensus that the mission is worth it.

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COSTELLO: So let's talk more about this with Republican Congressman Peter King. He's a member of the House Homeland Security Committee and chairman of the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence.

Welcome, sir.

REP. PETER KING (R), NEW YORK: Thank you, Carol.

COSTELLO: Congressman, Americans were told we were going to conduct airstrikes against ISIS, but no one told us there was an imminent threat coming from this group called the Khorasan Group. Did you know?

KING: I have known for the last several months about the Khorasan Group. I first learned about it, I guess, three or four months ago. And basically this was kept top secret and classified. And the reason for that is basically we didn't want the enemy to know what we knew about them.

The Khorasan Group is an affiliate of al Qaeda, extremely dangerous and they do have bomb makers and other explosive experts and so I give the president credit for attacking them without giving any advanced warning to them at all.

COSTELLO: Did you know, though, that the United States was going to target this Khorasan Group in Syria?

KING: No, I do not know that. But I support the president doing it because they are affiliated with al Qaeda. And we are at war with al Qaeda. And this is a direct threat to the United States and to me the president has this power as commander-in-chief to carry out this type of attack.

COSTELLO: Wouldn't -- wouldn't it have been nice if you did know? Because let's say there's some other group, there's some other offshoot of al Qaeda within Syria or some other country. Couldn't the president just decide to conduct airstrikes without the approval of Congress and without the knowledge of the American people? Isn't that a concern?

KING: The president has the power as commander-in-chief. And people have known about it. We have been talking about the Khorasan Group. If word had gotten out, that would have given them an opportunity to get away, to disappear, to hide. And so no, this to me, the president's main job as commander in chief, it's to protect the American people.

I believe he has the absolute right to carry this out. Now later on, Congress thinks it was inappropriate, we can take action as far as cutting off funding. And you can't have 435 or 535 commanders-in- chief. And if they told too many people, I assume the speaker of the House was told, I assume that the majority leader of the Senate was told, and probably certain people at the very top of the intelligence committee, probably the -- you know, the chairs of both the House and the Senate.

But, no, I don't believe that even though it might be nice, it could also be very dangerous. And surprise is an element. We are at war with a deadly enemy. These people want to kill this. And I'm willing to give the president that power to kill them first.

COSTELLO: So you're willing to sit on the sidelines and allow the president to make these decisions?

KING: I'm willing to do what a member of Congress should do, that's to watch as carefully as I can. I'm on the intelligence committee. I'm not the Secretary of State. I'm not the president of the United States. I have -- my job as a member of Congress. The president at his job as commander-in-chief, and that's to protect the American people. And he's doing the right thing. And this has happened many times in our history.

Eisenhower sent troops into Lebanon for that. Harry Truman sent troops into Korea. This is something that the president has the right to do. Congress can take follow-up action if we oppose what the president is doing, we can cut off funding. We can take what action we think is necessary to them.

But we can't be up front with every attack as far as everyone being brought into it because in this case, the Khorasan group could have escaped and we could have had many Americans dead. So, that to me is a price I don't want to pay.

COSTELLO: Congressman Peter King, thanks so much for joining me this morning. I appreciate it.

KING: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Wolf?

BLITZER: Carol, thanks very much.

Still to come, Washington's top diplomat on the U.S.-led airstrikes against ISIS fighters in Syria.

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JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: What we have done is we have stopped the onslaught. That's what we were able to achieve with air power.

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BLITZER: Secretary of State John Kerry just in the last hour, an exclusive interview with our own Christiane Amanpour.

A special edition of NEWSROOM continues. We'll talk to Christiane, play some of the interview, right after this.

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MARK WALLACE, FORMER U.N. AMBASSADOR: We have a real risk of alienating the complexity of forces that are on the ground here. And that's one of the reasons why people have called for boots in the ground. It's very hard to do this purely from the air.

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BLITZER: Welcome back to our special coverage. I'm Wolf Blitzer, reporting from the United Nations.

Right at the top of the hour, President Obama will deliver an important speech on the militant threat posed by ISIS and the decision by the United States and the coalition of five Arab allies to go to war.

Also appearing at the United Nations is the Secretary of State John Kerry.

Our own Christiane Amanpour sat down with the secretary of state for an exclusive interview in the last hour right here in New York. Christiane is with me here at the United Nations.

Christiane, you had an opportunity to pick his brain on what we're going to hear in the course -- not only today but the days to come, weeks to come. This is going to be a long ordeal for the U.S.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, and he made that very clear. It couldn't have been a better time to talk to him in the second day of this expanded airstrike against ISIS targets in Syria. He said this is going to be a long, long haul. He said don't expect to see these ISIS people flushed out or surrendering any time soon. It's going to take a long time. He talked about what President Obama is going to be saying, little

preview about the coalition, about the strategic need to do this, about trying to delegitimize ISIS and taking away their claim to Islam.

And actually, many of the Arab world leaders have started to do that. They will not call them Islamic state and they absolutely disassociate themselves from these people and from their claim to Islam. So, that's that.

He talked about going after the Khorasan terror group and he said that wouldn't go into the details of the plot, but he did say that they had informed Iran, they had informed Damascus about these strikes. It's not against Assad right now, it's against ISIL. And that is their focus.

This is what I asked him, this is the top of our interview today.

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AMANPOUR: Can you confirm what we have all been talking about that there's a second day of strikes underway on targets in Syria and Iraq? And that the leader of the Khorasan group and another major leader have been killed?

KERRY: Well, there's definitely a second day and there will be a third and more. This is going to go on.

The president has been very clear that we're going to do what's necessary to get this job done. So, the answer is, this will go on for some time in various forms.

One of the things I'd like to emphasize, Christiane, is that everybody is fixated on the strikes. But this is a very broad-based strategy, which involves foreign fighters.

The president will chair a U.N. Security Council meeting today on foreign fighters. It involves cutting off financing. It will involve major effort to reclaim Islam by Muslims, by those to whom it belongs. And I think you will hear from the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, from the council, from people all around the world who are outraged by what ISIL is doing to Islam.

AMANPOUR: Can you confirm the death of the leader of the Khorasan group? Which you struck, we were all surprised. Nobody had really been paying attention to it.

KERRY: Right.

AMANPOUR: Has the leader been killed?

KERRY: I can't personally confirm that at this moment, no.

AMANPOUR: Regarding one of the key items that you just mentioned and the president said, to cut off the flow of funding to ISIS and other such groups, many of the coalition partners who you have got, the Arab coalition partners have been blamed for either directly funding or turning an eye away from the funding going to these groups.

What are you going to say to them? Are you convinced they are onboard to stop this funding?

KERRY: Well, I'm absolutely convinced that the coalition is onboard. There's no question about it and they proved that in the air, in their willingness to join historically -- to many people's amazement -- they all came together. We had a very frank meeting yesterday with all of them with the president.

They are committed to this because this is a threat to every nation, and they see that. It's also a threat to legitimacy. It's a threat to statehood. It's a threat to their futures.

And so, it's much bigger stakes than just immediate counterterrorism and so forth.

AMANPOUR: And you can be sure that they're going to cut the funding?

KERRY: Well, let me talk about the funding for a minute. In the very beginning, Christiane, when the efforts to oust Assad took place, there were people who made calculations that the important thing is to remove Assad. Yes, there are some bad apples there, but we want to get him out.

And that, unfortunately, resulted in funding to different groups and it was frankly a sloppy process. It did not provide the coordinated, concerted effort that was need.

So, since then, there's been a real focus on this financing. And state-sponsored support of these groups, I believe, is over. It is ended.

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BLITZER: Now, Christiane, I think it's fair to say you can't overemphasize how important it has been for the Obama administration that five Sunni, Muslim, Arab countries joined not only rhetorically, but militarily in these airstrikes.

AMANPOUR: Absolutely right. They told you and me they are in it for the long haul, these Arab allies. A lot of questions were asked where was Turkey, a NATO member who's not been part of this.

Secretary Kerry told me Turkey has assured the United States they are going to be a part of this, quote, "big time", in all aspects. So, watch this space. Turkey will join in whatever way they do, but they're going to be joining.

The other big piece is the Iraqi political system, because everything is banking on this new Iraqi prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, to draw the Sunnis back into the process and deny ISIS their allegiance. That's going to be a huge job.

Secretary Kerry believes this new prime minister gets it and will hopefully be able to accomplish that. BLITZER: I've spoken to Kurds. I've spoken to Sunnis. They hope

that's true, but they remember hearing similar words about Nouri al Maliki over all of those years when he was prime minister of Iraq --

AMANPOUR: True.

BLITZER: -- and he was so disappointing.

AMANPOUR: True. He's a slightly different character than al-Abadi who's been abroad, who knows more about the world, who speaks fluent English. That might not seem much, but he gets it. He hears the nuances. People have called him more pragmatic, more moderate. I asked him about Maliki's mistakes.

Remember, they are close. They are from the same party. And while he department want to dump all over Maliki, he said, yes, there were mistakes. I'm not much more inclusive, and I believe I can do this, and I also believe that I'm getting them onboard.

We'll wait to see the results, but he has a huge task. He said the pressure is enormous.

BLITZER: Yes. So much depends on that prime minister, that government in Baghdad doing the right thing. They didn't do the right thing until now. Let's see if they do the right now. Christiane, good work. Thanks very, very much.

Christiane is going to be with us here throughout the day.

Our special coverage continues right after a quick break.

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