Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Leon Panetta Attacks Obama on ISIS; Chicago Teen Busted on Way to Join ISIS; First Ebola Case Contracted Outside Africa; Air Strikes Kill ISIS Fighters

Aired October 07, 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: Worthy fight. Former big league Obama player Leon Panetta coming out swinging, criticizing the president on Iraq, ISIS, and Syria saying he avoids the battle and has lost his way. This morning's "Post" headlines that stunning level of disloyalty to Obama.

Plus recruited for ISIS. A Chicago teenager's terrifying letter to his parents, why he wanted to join the terror group, calling American filth. This morning, we're asking, who bought his plane ticket and who was he going to meet in Turkey?

And Ebola in Europe. Spain now investigating an infected nurse's assistant. This is the first person known to have contracted the disease outside of West Africa. So why aren't we hearing the complete story of where she was and who that nurse came into contact with?

Let's talk. Live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LEON PANETTA, FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY: I take the position that when you're commander-in-chief that you really ought to keep all options on the table.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Good morning to you. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

Harsh criticism from one of the biggest players in President Barack Obama's cabinet. Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta now hammering his old boss on everything from ISIS to arming Syrian rebels. Even going after the president's leadership style.

It's all part of Panetta's new book "Worthy Fights" which releases today. He sat down with CNN's chief political analyst Gloria Borger.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PANETTA: I take the position that when you're commander-in-chief that you really ought to keep all options on the table, to be able to have the flexibility to do what is necessary in order to defeat this enemy. But to make those airstrikes work, to be able to do what you have to do, you don't -- you don't just send planes in and drop bombs. You've got to have targets. You've got to know what you're going after. To do that, you do need people on the ground.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST (on camera): Would ISIS be as much of a threat today had we left some force behind?

PANETTA: I do think that if we had had a presence there, it might not have created the kind of vacuum that we saw develop in Iraq.

BORGER: But you wrote that the president's active advocacy was missing. So are you saying he didn't give it the push?

PANETTA: I think the kind of push and direct involvement that I think could have had an impact simply never developed because the sense was if they don't want it, why should we want it?

BORGER (voice-over): Panetta describes a similar scenario on the question of arming the Syrian rebels in 2012. As Defense secretary he made the case to do it, as did most of the National Security team, but the president never signed off, arguing the weapons could wind up in the wrong hands.

PANETTA: That's understandable, but at the same time if we're going to influence the rebel forces, if we're going to try to establish a moderate element to those forces that it was important to provide this kind of assistance in order to have some leverage over what they were going to do.

BORGER: There was honest disagreement but then no decision.

PANETTA: To a large extent it wasn't that the president kind of said no, we shouldn't do it. The president kind of never really came to a decision as to whether or not it should happen.

BORGER (On camera): What do you mean by that, never came to a decision?

PANETTA: I think it basically sat there for a while and then got to the point where everybody just kind of assumed that it was not going to happen.

BORGER: Is that the right way to do things?

PANETTA: I think it would have been far better had he just made the decision we're not going to do it. And so that everybody kind of knew where we stood but we all kind of waited to see whether or not he would ultimately come around.

BORGER: And?

PANETTA: And it didn't happen.

BORGER: And you talk about hesitation and half-steps. Is that what you're referring to?

PANETTA: Yes, I mean it was that kind of just hesitation to really, you know, do what needed to be done. Now, you know, don't get me wrong, I think he was very strong in terms of the war on terrorism, and he made some tough decisions, but there were these decisions that basically never were confronted that I think in many ways contributed to the problems we're facing today.

BORGER (voice-over): Finally the president is taking action, Panetta says, albeit a bit late.

PANETTA: Made the decision to put troops on the ground in Iraq to try to help the security forces. He's made the decision to arm and train rebel forces in Syria, and he's made the decision to conduct air attacks. So in many ways, he's made the right decisions now. I think those decisions should have been made two years ago.

BORGER : The portrait Panetta sketches of Barack Obama sometimes looks more like a professor than a president.

PANETTA: He relies on the logic of his presentation, the hope that ultimately people will embrace that logic and then do what's right. You know what? In 50 years my experience is, logic doesn't work in Washington. You got to basically go after people and make them understand what they have to do, and that means you create a war room, you go after votes, you have to push people.

BORGER (on camera): So did you have a sense that the president found that distasteful or that it wasn't something he wanted to do, or was comfortable doing or --

PANETTA: I think it offended him that people would not really get serious and work on the issues, and I think as a result of that, he just felt, you know, how can I deal with people that simply don't want to do the right thing for the country?

Well, the reality is, if you want to govern in this country, you have to deal with people you don't like.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: So let's talk about this. Joining me now are senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta and CNN military analyst General James "Spider" Marks.

Good morning to both of you.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

MAJ. GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Hi, Carol, good morning.

COSTELLO: Jim, I want to start with you. An astonishing number of the president's men have bashed his policies -- Robert Gates, Robert Gibbs, Hillary Clinton, David Axelrod, why?

ACOSTA: Well, I think Robert Gibbs and David Axelrod have been sort of disagreeing with some of the president's tactical decisions. Gates, Clinton and Panetta on policy decisions.

And look, I love Leon Panetta's line to Gloria Borger that like logic doesn't work in Washington. I don't think truer words have ever been spoken but Leon Panetta is not the first person to write one of this kiss-and-tell books, he won't be the last. There will be other administration officials in future administration who will write these sorts of books.

But it does go back to this question, Carol, this very key question. The president obviously believes he made the right call on and that is whether he should have left a residual force in Iraq instead of completely withdrawing from the country at the end of 2011. The president feels he's right on that call. I asked him about this earlier this year. And he said well, the Iraqis did not want to give those forces immunity from prosecution if they were to stay in the country.

Obviously Leon Panetta says that the U.S. would have had leverage and could have driven a harder bargain to force the Iraqis to make that decision. But that's all in the past now. You know, Joe Biden the other day said that Leon Panetta was being inappropriate in writing this sort of book.

But really, to be quite honest, Carol, to be candid, you know, a lot of Americans don't really agree with the president's foreign policy these days. Poll after poll shows pretty deep dissatisfaction with the president's foreign policy and with his response to the situation with ISIS, although they agree with the policy at this point, they feel up until now, it hasn't been really the robust response that's been needed.

COSTELLO: Right.

ACOSTA: And so this --

COSTELLO: Right.

ACOSTA: I think this debate is going to continue on until 2016.

COSTELLO: Well, still, General Marks, we are at war. Is it damaging for a former Defense secretary to bash the president's war strategy?

MARKS: Well, I don't -- I don't think so at all, Carol. I think what needs to be demonstrated is where the gaps and where the holes are in this strategy that the president has laid on the table. As a result of that, hopefully he could do a course correction and make it better going forward. There still is time to right the ship if you will, and what you see with all of this is several things, one is there's a great frustration with the president's style, and I think that's important to describe, it's a style.

This is our president, so we want a successful outcome here. Let's be honest with each other. And frankly we're not seeing that in terms of foreign policy. You really have to lead and you have to make things happen. Things don't happen around you. You have to -- even with the best and the brightest, you know, when you look around the table and you look at those that he chose to be a part of his inner circle, I mean, these are incredibly talented folks, but they have to be led as well. Individually they have their own agendas and they have to be able to

see what the president's trying to achieve, that takes personal effort on the part of the president to make that happen, including what we've seen is that he shied away from that, he doesn't want to do the dirty work to make it work.

COSTELLO: All right. Major General James "Spider" Marks, Jim Acosta, thanks to both of you. I appreciate it.

As all of this goes on the fighting grows more intense by the day. This morning, we're learning that 29 suspected ISIS fighters were killed overnight in airstrikes, and in Kobani, that critical town on the border between Syria and Turkey, a U.S. official confirming to CNN five coalition airstrikes pounded the town overnight.

CNN's Phil Black is just outside of Kobani, where our teams are hearing heavy explosions and artillery fire.

PHIL BLACK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Carol, the accounts coming from within Kobani match what we are hearing and seeing here across the border in Turkey. We're hearing the sound of aircraft overhead, often followed by large explosions around the perimeter of Kobani.

All sides, the biggest explosions we think we've seen in the weeks that we've been watching this battle unfold behind us. Those in the city strongly believe that they are coalition airstrikes and they're pretty thrilled because the situation for those Kurdish fighters resisting ISIS is increasingly dire.

ISIS is now in the city, the fighting is street to street. It is intense. We're hearing about heavy casualties on both sides. And those Kurdish fighters, the some thousand that do remain, believe they cannot hold out indefinitely without more help from the outside, and what they're talking about there is more coalition airstrikes.

Carol, back to you.

COSTELLO: All right, thanks to Phil Black.

Back here at home, a Chicago teenager is waking up in federal custody accused of trying to join the terror group ISIS. Federal agents busted 19-year-old Mohammed Khan at Chicago's O'Hare Airport. A criminal complaint says Khan was hoping to do humanitarian work or join a police force for ISIS, but now he's facing up to 15 years in prison.

Khan apparently planned to fly to Turkey to meet up with someone he met online who would then take him to ISIS territory. One congressman tells CNN's Erin Burnett, ISIS knows how to navigate its way online to find such new recruits.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. C.A. "DUTCH" RUPPERSBERGER (D), INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: ISIS is smart, and they're using social media to recruit as many Americans or other allies to come to Syria to be radicalized and trained to fight and this is just an example of what ISIS is doing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: A top State Department official tells CNN efforts to combat ISIS's powerful messages online are working but are they?

CNN's Ted Rowlands has more for you.

Good morning, Ted.

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Mohammed Khan did talk to authorities after he was arrested at O'Hare but most of the evidence against him at least from the criminal complaint came out of his suburban home here.

The FBI investigators found notes, drawings and a letter to his parents, which tried to explain why an American teenager would want to go fight with ISIS.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ROWLANDS (voice-over): According to investigators, 19-year-old Mohammed Hamza Khan was on his way to join ISIS when he was arrested over the weekend after going through security at Chicago's O'Hare Airport.

In a three-page letter allegedly left for his parents and signed "your loving son" Khan, according to a criminal complaint wrote that he was obligated to migrate to the Islamic state and that he couldn't bear the thought of his taxes in the U.S. being used to kill his, quote. "Muslim brothers and sisters. The Western societies are getting more immoral day by day." He allegedly wrote. "I do not want my kids being exposed to filth like this."

Investigators say Khan was expecting that a contact he met online would meet him in Turkey and take him to join ISIS in Iraq or Syria, but details about who bought his plane ticket and who he would meet were not revealed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please, we want privacy.

ROWLANDS: Relatives declined to speak outside the family home in the Chicago working class suburb of Bolingbrook. Neighbors say Khan lived with his parents and a brother and sister and spent time at an Islamic center across the street.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's horrible, man, and it's in our backyard. You know, it's literally in my backyard and it's bad. It's bad.

ROWLANDS: Next door neighbor Steve Moore says he's known the family for about two years.

STEVE MOORE, NEIGHBOR: I was surprised, really surprised. I mean, the kid was polite, you know? I didn't expect like that in the least bit. ROWLANDS: What is unclear is how the teenager was radicalized or if

his family knew what he was planning. The criminal complaint mentions pro-ISIS writings and drawings found in common areas of the house, suggesting his views may have been known to members of his family.

Khan made an initial appearance in federal court Monday, members of his family were there in the courtroom, but had nothing to say after the hearing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROWLANDS: And, Carol, Khan is being held without bail. He does have a detention hearing scheduled for Thursday in federal court in Chicago -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right. Ted Rowlands reporting live for us from Illinois this morning.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the ripple effect from last month's fire and suicide attempt at an air traffic control tower continues. Details on the latest round of delay for travelers.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Checking some top stories for you at 17 minutes past the hour.

Air travel finally back to normal this morning in and around Chicago. This after fresh problem stemming from last month's fire and suicide attempt at Chicago's air traffic control tower. Yesterday, the FAA put all departures to Chicago's O'Hare and Midway on hold in order as they restored the phone lines and they removed damaged equipment from the September 26th fire.

New developments in the Veterans Administration scandal over long waits for medical care, first exposed here on CNN. Four senior executives now fired, they include the directors of V.A. hospitals in Pennsylvania and Georgia, and a regional hospital director in Alabama. Firings are the first since Congress passed a law making it easier for the V.A. to fire officials suspected of wrongdoing.

Samsung profits are plunging. One of the world's largest smartphone makers is reporting a massive 60 percent drop in profits from just a year ago, a result far worse than expected. The South Korean tech company has been losing its mobile war against Apple, as well as upstart smartphone makers in China.

There are new questions today surrounding the current outbreak of Ebola at the top, how did a nurse's assistant become the first person to contract Ebola outside of West Africa? We know that the medical worker treated a missionary and a priest after they returned to Spain from two countries in the Ebola hot zone. Both of those religious men died. The nurse's assistant is now being cared for at a Madrid hospital, not saying anything about her condition.

We begin our coverage of the latest developments with Al Goodman in Madrid.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AL GOODMAN, CNN MADRID BUREAU CHIEF: We're at the entrance to the Carlos Federal (ph) Hospital in Madrid, the reference hospital for infectious diseases where this nurse's assistant is now a patient, having caught the Ebola virus. Now, she used to work here on the medical team that treated two Spanish missionaries who caught the virus in Africa and came back to Madrid, one of them died in August. Another one in late September. She became ill a few days later, but didn't go into hospital until just the other day.

Now, health officials have also announced this day that three more are in the hospital, two considered suspicious cases, including the husband of the nurse's assistant, as well as an African man who recently traveled to Spain from Africa, and the third is another nurse who was on that medical team.

Now, health officials say all the proper procedures and protocol were followed but some in the health care workers unions and many people on the street are thinking, something clearly went very wrong here.

Now, over to my colleague Elizabeth Cohen in Dallas.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Thomas Eric Duncan is inside this Dallas hospital fighting for his life. He is in critical condition.

We now know that he's receiving an experimental drug called Brincidofovir. Now, in the laboratory this drug has shown promise against Ebola but Duncan didn't get it until he had been sick for 10 days, that's quite a bit of time for Ebola, which is a virus that can move very quickly.

Now, 48 of Duncan's contacts are being followed to see if they, too, show signs of the disease. So far, they're not sick, which is certainly good news, it means that right now, the disease is not spreading in the city of Dallas. One of those close contacts is Louise, his girlfriend, and she is very angry at the president of Liberia.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: The president of Liberia, as you know, she has made a statement saying that she's very angry at Thomas.

LOUISE, THOMAS DUNCAN'S GIRLFRIEND: I am so, so angry at her. This president does not care, she does not care.

COOPER: You're saying she's not doing enough to combat Ebola?

LOUISE: No, she's not doing enough. She's not anything and I have my three boys over there, they better not go after them, they better not go after my family.

COHEN: For more, we go to my colleague Nima Elbagir, in Liberia.

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This behind me is the room that Thomas Eric Duncan was renting in this compound. It is the focal point of so much of the fear and paranoia that's ricocheting around the world and that room through that door is exactly how he left it the day he boarded that plane heading to the United States.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Nima Elbagir says nine other people are dead or dying after coming into contact with the same infected woman as Thomas Eric Duncan.

Our thanks to all of our CNN correspondents.

Still to come in THE NEWSROOM, think you pay enough for your cup of coffee? Well, actually I was going to say don't freak out but I'm freaking out! The price of coffee beans just hit a two-year high, Christine Romans.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: You know, sometimes when a price goes up you use left of it, but not coffee. Americans drink 450 million cups of coffee a day. Prices are going up because of a drought in Brazil. I'll tell you what you need to know, after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Good news and bad news for all of you coffee addicts out there.

First, the bad. The price of coffee beans hit a 32-month high but Christine insists do not freak out just yet because the cost of your morning cup of coffee won't necessarily go up, at least not yet.

Really, Christine Romans?

ROMANS: She's looking at me with the evil eye as she drinks her coffee. Coffee prices already went up this summer. First time in three years, you saw packaged coffee prices go up and the severe drought in Brazil where half of the Arabica beans are grown.

So, this is a real interesting situation. You could have people consume more than they produce of coffee this year that, means prices have to go up. They're already at a two-year high. The Arabica beans are used in the gourmet blends, something was using a lot of the blends that you're going to be drinking today most likely.

COSTELLO: That's why I lift my pinky when I drink my cup.

ROMANS: So interesting, too, because there was a drought and then there was rain, all the wrong times for the growing season. So, some of these plants are flowering at the wrong time and real concern among people who study this is that the plants weakened this year, it could mean there's been less output next year. So, it's a two-year problem for the Brazil plant.

COSTELLO: Oh, that sounds bad.

I'm just curious, how much do Americans spend every year on coffee?

ROMANS: More than $23 a week on coffee, believe it or not.

COSTELLO: Wow.

ROMANS: You spend like $1,200, $1,100 a year on coffee.

But, Carol, one important vital beverage that we drink more of than coffee in this country.

COSTELLO: Beer?

ROMANS: It is beer.

COSTELLO: Yes!

ROMANS: We spend more on bear than coffee. Beer prices are not going up.

But, you know, but gas prices are going down. I say there are two really important day-to-day economic indicators for Americans. It's gas prices and it's coffee prices. Your coffee prices could end up going up. They've already been up a little bit this summer.

COSTELLO: All that you save on gas will be --

ROMANS: I know, I know, stay with your gas tank.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: Christine Romans, thanks as always.

ROMANS: You're welcome.

COSTELLO: Still to come in THE NEWSROOM: He lives in Chicago, but the feds say this teenager had packed his bag and was on his way to join ISIS when they closed in on him. CNN's Jim Sciutto is following the story. He joins us next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)