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American Fighting Against ISIS; Ebola Fears

Aired October 07, 2014 - 15:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news from the FBI.

Investigators are now asking for your help in identifying this masked man in an ISIS propaganda video. Here he is. He is standing behind a row of kneeling Syrian soldiers. But it's what he does before shooting them that has the U.S. authorities so entirely worried.

He speaks English, perfect English, with what sounds like an American accent. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They lied! Wallahi, we are the harshest towards the kuffar, and the flames of war are only beginning to intensify.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Joining me now, our senior Washington correspondent, Joe Johns.

Joe, tell me what you know. What's the FBI saying about this guy?

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, this video is significant for a lot of reasons. Not only is it the latest video of ISIS fighters executing prisoners.

It also appears to show a jihadi spouting ISIS propaganda, speaking perfect English with a North American accent and also alternating between speaking Arabic, delivering an on-camera tirade before he and other ISIS fighters appear to shoot them all dead.

We're obviously not showing all the video. The victims appear to be Syrian soldiers. The man speaking has the mask which you refer to over his face, which makes him unrecognizable. The FBI posted portions of that video today asking the public for help in identifying the man.

They say they're hoping someone might recognize this individual and provide them with information. The FBI says this is part of a broader outreach to try to get the public to help identify people who are traveling overseas to fight with terror groups, and it goes without saying they're also, perhaps, even more interested in learning the identities of American ISIS fighters who might be returning home.

The intelligence community's trying to determine whether the ISIS fighter in the mask is an American or a Canadian, Brooke. BALDWIN: So now we have the FBI and this man on this wanted poster.

They want information leading to him.

But also, Joe, the FBI wants the public's help in identifying other individuals, correct, who have also joined the fight alongside ISIS.

JOHNS: Absolutely.

Right, and this is part of a broader effort, we're told, by the FBI to try to determine who these individuals are going overseas to fight for the terror groups. But that deeper concern, as I said, is about people coming back with the training and the skills perhaps to be able, at least, to do harm here in this country or on this continent.

BALDWIN: Joe Johns with the latest word, plea for help from the FBI, thank you so much in Washington.

And the battle to turn back ISIS in Syria, it's breeding a new kind of fighter. They're hardened as any soldier, highly disciplined as well. Some are willing to blow themselves up to stop ISIS' deadly advance. What's different about these fighters? They are young women, Kurdish female fighters.

CNN's Phil Black talked to one of them. And here is her incredible story.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Piros (ph) is soft- spoken, a shy, awkward 17-year-old girl raised in a small village. But she tells me proudly, she has killed, and she wants to kill again.

(on camera): When you were a fighter, when you were fighting, do you believe you killed members of ISIS?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): I killed maybe nine that I saw. When I killed one, I felt proud and happy and I told everybody.

BLACK (voice-over): Piros is the Kurdish region around Kobani, the city in Northern Syria now being overrun by ISIS. It's where local fighters have desperately resisted the Islamist advance. They are outgunned, outnumbered. They are men and women.

In Kurdish society, there is special glory and pride for the female warriors who share the burden of holding the front line. Piros used to be one of them.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): When I was a baby, I was thinking about fighting. Before ISIS, I was thinking about fighting for the Kurdish people.

BLACK: She shows me where a Kalashnikov bullet ripped through her side during an ISIS attack on her checkpoint earlier this year. She's still recovering.

(on camera): Do you wish you were still in Syria fighting? UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We have to follow our

leaders. If it were up to us, we would go among ISIS and blow ourselves up. We would do anything just to kill these people.

BLACK (voice-over): That's just what this Kurdish woman did on Sunday. Arin Mirkin (ph) blew herself up, killing ISIS members who were trying to take Kobani.

Kurdish women have earned a reputation for being brave, fierce and very capable. They know ISIS will show them no mercy. This photo, which CNN can't confirm the authenticity of, appears to show an extremist fighter proudly lifting the severed head of a Kurdish female fighter.

Piros was once free to kill and risk death for her people, and her family was proud, but she could only speak to us with her father's permission, and he insisted we hide her face.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Being a woman in the family is like being in jail. When a woman fighter walks in town, women say, look, she's free. She can do what she wants. Kurdish women become fighters because they want freedom.

BLACK: Only a short distance from where Piros now makes tea for her family, Kurdish women and men are fighting for the freedom of their homeland. Despite their courage and sacrifice, ISIS is advancing and Kobani is falling.

Phil Black, CNN, on the Turkish-Syrian border.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: All right, Phil Black, thank you so much.

I want to take you now quickly here to the CDC in Atlanta, the director, Dr. Tom Frieden, speaking here about Ebola.

Let's take a listen.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

DR. THOMAS FRIEDEN, DIRECTOR, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION: It's controlled in the same way.

One individual in Uganda died from Marburg. Their cause of death was not immediately identified. But we have done important work in Uganda to help the Ugandans better have a laboratory network so they can find cases, have a response network with disease detectives and people who can follow up, and have an emergency operations center to track individual cases.

And as a result, they have identified contacts. Those contacts include an individual who was the embalmer who then went back to Kenya. That individual was traced and tracked to Kenya, was tested, does not at this point does not have Marburg, and the contacts within that patient's family in Uganda are being tested and so far there have not been additional cases.

I mention this because oftentimes in public health what gets noticed is what happens. And it's hard to see what doesn't happen. So, if we stop the outbreak in rural DRC and we prevent an outbreak of Marburg in Uganda, that may not be headlines, but it tells us that there is progress and gives us confidence that we will be able to control Ebola in West Africa.

Now, there's a lot we're doing based on what we have learned in the past week. For example, we have hospital awareness efforts. We already work regularly with hospital associations. We have an intensive involvement on infection control, technical support and other issues. And out calls from doctors have increased 10-fold since the first case was diagnosed.

So, there's a lot of awareness, and we're working to increase that even further. We're also working very closely with health departments, city, big city, state and health department associations, Dr. Lakey and his colleagues in Dallas are an example of an excellent functioning health department.

Well, we to want make sure any lessons we learn in Dallas are rapidly incorporated into the practice of health departments around the country. I know that people are eager for more information about travel. And I want to address that for a couple of minutes before concluding and turning it over to Dr. Lakey and then to questions.

As the president said yesterday, we're looking hard at what we can do to further increase the safety of Americans and in the coming days we will announce further measures that will be taken. Right now, I can give you some basic principles.

We want to ensure, and we will always ensure that the health of Americans is our top priority. We want to ensure that anything we do works and is workable. We recognize that whatever we do, until the disease is controlled in Africa, we can't get the risk to zero here. We may be able to reduce it. And we will look at every opportunity to do that.

But we also don't to want do anything in medicine that will backfire. In medicine, one of our cardinal rules is, above all, do not harm. If we do something that impedes our ability to stop the outbreak in West Africa, it could spread more further there. We could have more countries like Liberia and the challenge would be much greater and go on for a much longer period of time.

We know how to stop Ebola. That's what's happening in Dallas today. That's what's beginning to occur in parts of West Africa. The signs of progress are there, but it is going to be a long, hard fight. And I think we should always keep in mind that the enemy here is a virus.

And we together can stop that virus.

Now I would like to turn it over to Dr. David Lakey, the commissioner for the... BALDWIN: Dr. Tom Frieden there speaking at the Centers for Disease

Control, giving members of the media just an update sort of on the situation as it stands with Ebola.

And a couple of things I heard that jumped out at me. We were talking to a nurse yesterday on the show from the Boston Medical Center saying they felt like they weren't prepared if and when the next patient evolves with Ebola.

And so just hearing Dr. Frieden reassuring people, saying they're speaking with hospitals and doctors and staffs to have that readiness effort in full effect, that was encouraging to hear. And then also, as we heard the president mention yesterday, the big question is travel, right? How does this affect everyone hopping on planes, preventing the spread of Ebola?

He said those will be made public over the course of the next couple of days, but said of course the health of Americans is his top priority, but also described Ebola as this virus and combating it will be a long, hard fight.

We will talk to our chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who was in Africa really before the story took front-page news, Ebola. He will join me coming up this hour to discuss.

Also ahead, an American fighting overseas. But he did not go to Syria to join ISIS. He actually went to Syria to fight along the Kurds against ISIS. What made this man leave Wisconsin and join the fight? We're talking to the reporter who spoke exclusively with him in Syria.

Also this:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People are getting shot by the police.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: This is the video that has everyone talking today, all of this because these people were pulled over because they were not buckled up. We will explain what happened moments before this police officer smashed this car window and Tased the passenger with kids in the backseat. Was this right? Was this wrong? Stay with me.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

A revelation from a Kurdish group that is right now actively battling ISIS. They say there are three Americans fighting with this group. One of them has now been identified as this 28-year-old from Wisconsin. His name Jordan Matson from Racine.

Matson's friends say he told them last month he was heading to Syria and now he's appeared on a Kurdish TV station.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JORDAN MATSON, AMERICAN FIGHTING AGAINST ISIS: My name is Abal (ph) Sadar. I am from Wisconsin in the United States.

I was previously a soldier in the United States Army. I wanted to come join because I got sick of watching so many innocent people be killed as Da'esh grew and my country doing nothing about it for over a year.

I got sick of everyone saying how bad it was, but doing nothing about it. So I made up my own mind to come up here to do something about it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: All right.

Someone actually spoke with and she helped bring the world his story. She is Sophie Cousins. She did the reporting for "USA Today." She joins me from Beirut.

Sophie, welcome.

SOPHIE COUSINS, JOURNALIST: Thanks very much.

BALDWIN: So, we heard part of the why. But let me first ask you as he introduced himself in that video with a totally different name, has he changed his name?

COUSINS: Well, I mean, Sadar is the name that his Kurdish comrades call him. He hasn't officially changed his name. He's still introduced himself as Jordan. So, you know, we will see what the future holds.

BALDWIN: OK.

It is one thing to think about going to Syria, think about fighting ISIS. It's another to save up the money as he did for six months to travel to go do this. How did he explain this to you?

COUSINS: I mean, yes, you're absolutely right. This is a huge commitment and something that he gave me, the impression that he had thought about for a long time.

He repeatedly told me that he was sick and tired of seeing Christians, in particular, being slaughtered. And he was sick of paying lip service just on Facebook and on other online communities. And he was sick of the U.S. government not doing anything, as you said.

So, he worked as a delivery driver for six months and saved up the funds. And I met him in Syria.

BALDWIN: You met him in Syria. Did you ask him at all if he had looped in his parents, his close friends in these months that he's working as a delivery driver trying to save up to go to Syria?

COUSINS: He really didn't specify.

We didn't go into that much detail about his personal life before Syria. But he did say that he won't be here -- I mean, he will be in Syria for at least three years, which he expects ISIS to take that long to defeat.

BALDWIN: So he is committed. He says he will be there fighting the fight for three years. He is also, though...

(CROSSTALK)

COUSINS: I think I'm having some technical difficulties, because the line has just cut out.

BALDWIN: Oh, no, did we lose her? Sophie, can you hear me? Or do we lose her? We lost her. I hate it when that happens.

Sophie Cousins, we will come back to her, but basically she was saying, you know, this young man has gone over to fight, committed himself to fighting ISIS for the next three years and has apparently been injured. And who knows, who knows what the future will hold for him.

We will stay in touch with her and let you know.

Coming up next, criticism about President Obama's strategy in Iraq from a former senior member of his national security team. Leon Panetta says the president wasn't forceful enough, wasn't flexible and didn't know exactly what he was going after. But should the former defense secretary and CIA director be criticizing a sitting president and discussing potentially sensitive strategies?

We will discuss that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Second-guessing is Washington's favorite pastime, especially in a president's second term. No surprise, another member of President Obama's inner circle is offering his own, shall we say, unflattering evaluation of his boss.

This time, it is former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta with this new memoir. And CNN's Gloria Borger sat down with Panetta for his take on the president he served. And some of his most scathing criticism was actually over the debate as to whether or not they should arm the rebels in Syria. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEON PANETTA, FORMER U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: 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.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: 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, 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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Leon Panetta with Gloria Borger.

So this memoir actually follows memoirs by another former secretary of defense, Robert Gates, and, of course, one by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, all the way their boss is still on the job.

Let's go to David Gergen. We love talking to David Gergen. He's a CNN senior political analyst, former adviser to Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton.

So, David Gergen, welcome. And before we get to the substance of that conversation between Gloria and Secretary Panetta, when it comes to memoirs, you know, as we mentioned, Gates, Clinton, now Panetta, do you fault these people for criticizing their boss while he is still sitting in the Oval Office?

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Not very much. I might have 10 or 15 years ago. There was a different standard then, Brooke. And the phrase that was often used, there should be -- quote -- "a discreet interval," a discreet interval between a time you serve a president and the time you write a memoir, so that, as you say, people leave office, you know, or the political complexion of the landscape changes, so it doesn't seem quite as stinging.

But standards have been lowered in so many different areas over the last 15 or 20 years. This is just one more. We are what we are. Do I blame these folks? I really think the story here is how frustrated they were. To have both Bob Gates and Leon Panetta write memoirs that are stinging, and I think really underscores the fact these are two heavyweight guys. These are serious men. They weren't looking for power. They were asked to come join.

And for them to come out with the kind of memoirs they have, really, I think, underlines how frustrated they must have been in office.

BALDWIN: It's interesting, though, just going back to -- you talk about the landscape changing and how this wouldn't happen 10, 15 years ago, and you say the standards have lowered. Whose standards, David Gergen?

GERGEN: Well, you know, I must say that at least two or three administrations ago, people started -- inside White Houses began to open up to Bob Woodward at "The Washington Post" who famously wrote a variety of insider accounts.

And there was almost -- in one administration I worked in, there was an expectation that you would talk to Bob Woodward, that you would give him things, that you would say things to him. And when I first came to Washington, you know, 30, 40 years ago, that was certainly not the case.

But, you know, once you start talking to journalists and they have these instantaneous books while you're still in office, it's not much of a step forward or sideways or backwards, depending on your perspective, to have memoirs written by the people who were there themselves.

What's the difference between sitting there with Bob Woodward and giving -- and spilling your guts to writing a memoir?

BALDWIN: That's interesting. Just we thought it noteworthy that Robert Gates, in his memoir, he wrote this -- quote -- "I was put off by the way the president closed the meeting. To his very closest advisers, he said, "For the record, and for those of you writing your memoirs, I'm not making any decisions about Israel or Iran. Joe, you be my witness.'"

Bob Gates writes, "I was offended by his suspicion that any of us would ever write about such sensitive matters." So, just worth noting from the Gates memoir.

But finally here, David, on substance here with regard to the Panetta interview, and arming of Syrian rebels or not, you know, it's said that -- a lot of this, he was laudatory of the president, saying it just took President Obama a long time to come to the right decision.

GERGEN: That's right. And his essential argument over the last few weeks, even before the book came out, was that he believes the United States under President Obama got out of Iraq too soon and got into Syria too late.

And, you know, so he's just disagreed with both of those decisions. I was surprised in the interview with Gloria Borger that he went on to say that that contributed a lot to the current circumstances. That in effect says mistakes we have made contributed to the rise of ISIS. That surprised me.

But I do want to go to one fundamental point, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Sure.

GERGEN: And that is -- and I know -- listen, I'm a big Bob Gates fan. I'm a big Leon Panetta fan. I have worked with both. I think the world of both of them.

And what both of them found and have gone public with is a view that too much power has been centralized in the White House, not only this White House, but in former White houses, but particularly now, and that decisions that are made in that White House tend to be made through a political lens that the inside advisers tend to be in the political sphere, not the substantive sphere.

And that has given -- that has offended these folks pretty deeply. I know them both. I talk to them privately, and I can tell you they're not the only ones who feel that. There are a number of people that have not come forward. And I have to say, you know, Bob Gates said, I wouldn't want to write really sensitive stuff.

We don't know what each one of these men left out of his memoirs. I can guarantee you there were very, very sensitive, highly confidential things that didn't make it into these memoirs. Both memoirs were, you know, were scanned by their respective departments and given clearance that they did not violate confidentiality rules.

BALDWIN: Glad you made the point. David Gergen, as always, we thank you so much.

GERGEN: OK. Brooke, thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Thank you, sir.

GERGEN: OK. Take care.