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ISIS Video; U.S. Sends Combat Troops; Robot to Land on Comet

Aired November 11, 2014 - 14:00   ET

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

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Brianna Keilar, in for Brooke Baldwin.

We're following some major developments in the war against ISIS. The terror group has just released a new violent and graphic propaganda video.

That's an explosion in the Syrian border city of Kobani where much of this documentary-style video is set. We won't show you the most horrific images of ISIS' victims, but the video also uses clips of reporters reporting from the besieged area and news reports from western media showing world leaders condemning ISIS' actions.

Another clip right here appears to show ISIS fighters shooting down a military helicopter in Iraq. If we have that clip. Jim Sciutto, CNN chief national security correspondent, with us now.

There's also, Jim, at the end of this, a mention of President Obama. President Bush is mentioned. What is the purpose of this video?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, all these videos, they have the same purpose, they brag and they threaten. They brag about, for instance, there's a clip of shooting down an Iraqi helicopter. There are pictures of the dead YPG fighters, these are the Kurdish fighters who are fighting ISIS in Kobani. But they also threaten, you know, all of this intended to attract recruits and supporters.

But the threat was interesting, and I'll just read the translation of it. It says, "if Obama promised you with defeating the Islamic state, then Bush has also lied before him." Making the point here -- because, remember, ISIS originated with al Qaeda in Iraq going back to 2005, 2006, 2007, the U.S. was fighting al Qaeda -- in effect the same fighters, including al-Baghdadi, the leader in Iraq. So they're saying here, listen, you tried to defeat us in Iraq seven, eight years ago. It didn't work. You're going to fail again. That's, in effect, their message of this - of this video.

KEILAR: We think of ISIS, Jim, and ISIS is Syria and ISIS is in Iraq, but now you have a militant group in Egypt, the predominant one there in this hugely important country, vowing loyalty to ISIS. What can you tell us about this?

SCIUTTO: Yes, this is a big deal. One, it just shows the international appeal of ISIS as it has won successes in Iraq and Syria. It becomes, you know, the new star terror outfit. We've seen that in their recruiting numbers, particularly of foreign fighters, a thousand a month, and that has not let up with the U.S.-led air campaign. In fact, there are some that believe that this U.S.-led air campaign will actually increase recruiting because they see ISIS is standing up to the west and its powerful military.

But now you have this Egyptian group that to this point has been principally focused on attacking the Egyptian government and military, now swearing allegiance to ISIS. The worry here is, does that group then take its campaign against civilians, which has been ISIS' strategy. That's a big deal. Egypt is a very powerful and populous country, but it's also a country that Americans, a lot of westerners visit. Will this bring those kind of attacks to a place that many of us might visit some day. But also, would it threaten this government? Remember, Egypt is a U.S. ally, if an Israeli -- it's got diplomatic relations with Israel. So it shows that ISIS has power beyond its power base now and that's a disturbing development.

KEILAR: And if that does threaten the economy by threatening tourism, then you would think that it would threaten the government. So we'll be following that very closely.

SCIUTTO: Absolutely.

KEILAR: Jim Sciutto, thank you.

As for the U.S.-led fight to destroy ISIS, we can now tell you that there will be two separate components of the U.S. contingency deployed to Iraq's volatile Anbar province. The American troops that are going to do the actual training, and then there are these security element, known as force protection. They are going to be combat-capable troops. And joining me now to talk about this is General Daniel Bolger. He's a retired army lieutenant general. Also the author of "Why We Lost: An Inside Account of the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq."

I want to ask you about that first, that section of troops that will be combat capable, how likely, in your estimation, is -- are they going to ultimately end up in combat?

LT. GEN. DANIEL BOLGER, U.S. ARMY (RET.): We shouldn't kid ourself, Brianna. You send forces into Iraq, Americans, you're going to fight. That video shows you what the enemy thinks about us. They are longing to close with and fight American troops. Now, if our troops fight, I'm going to tell you, we'll win. We won all the tactical fights by and large in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the challenge is, we're going to put people in there trying to avoid getting into those kind of a mix. In that area, you're in it as soon as you arrive.

KEILAR: You say in your book, "I am a United States Army general and I lost the global war on terrorism." Those are very serious words. You go on to talk about the mistakes that were made. You say, you didn't know really - the troops didn't know who they were fighting. There wasn't advanced information about the enemy on the ground. And also that there was a lacking U.S. commitment to back up Iraqi forces. Knowing that, and that's how you see the struggles in Iraq, you watch U.S. forces going back into Iraq, are you fearful the same thing is happening? BOLGER: Well, actually, Brianna, I'm cautiously optimistic because

I've seen two things different this time.

BALDWIN: OK.

BOLGER: The first is very important, and that's that our president, President Obama, has made the point that this is going to be a multiyear struggle. We're not talking about a quick war. We're not talking about shock and awe. We're not talking about something that's going to be over in a couple weeks. He's warned the American people, this is going to be a multiyear effort.

And second, which is very important, it's an Iraqi-led effort. Our forces are combat capable, but the majority of the fighting is going to be done by the Iraqis. We shouldn't kid ourselves. They're not the best soldiers in the world. They have their challenges. But the fact of it is, it's their country to secure. And when they are in the lead, that actually hurts ISIS recruiting because in that case the ISIS fighters are killing fellow Iraqis and that does not play well among their supporters.

KEILAR: If you think one of the key elements that was lacking when it came to U.S. involvement in Iraq was having a force that stayed behind and backed up Iraqis as they took the lead, how long do you think U.S. forces will now be involved in Iraq? Years?

BOLGER: If we're serious about this, Brianna, and we need to have that public debate, we're talking decades. If you want a good example, the armistice in South Korea was 1953. We still have over 20,000 troops there. That's the type of commitment you're talking about if you're really going to quell an insurgency and support that very weak government in Baghdad.

KEILAR: I wonder, I want to get your reaction to something that we've heard Senator John McCain say. He has said that this reminds him of Vietnam, what's going on with the Obama administration policy as it pertains to ISIS in Iraq. What he's talking about is more the kind of slow increase of troops.

BOLGER: Yes, that incremental escalation, send a plane this week and a platoon of guys next week and shift (ph).

KEILAR: Double your force from a few hundred -

BOLGER: Right.

KEILAR: To 1,500. Do you agree with him?

BOLGER: I agree with Senator McCain in that we have to look at the example of Vietnam. He's exactly right there. But what we want to do though is, again, have the Iraqis lead. They have to want it more than us. We can't go in and do the counterinsurgency for them. We can't go in and fight for them. We tried that from 2003 to 2011. It didn't work. But if they take the lead, it's going to be messy, it's going to be slow, but as long as we stay committed with a small appropriate amount of force, about what we've got now, some aircraft, some intel capability, the ability to protect yourself, we'll probably make a difference.

KEILAR: You were there for years. Do you think the Iraqis are prepared do that?

BOLGER: I think what the Iraq - the Iraqis right now are not. I mean they were good soldiers as long as they were alongside of us. When we withdrew the majority of our forces, their forces crumbled. That shouldn't surprise us. We saw them do that in '91 and 2003 when we fought them. To change an army takes decades. You have to build leaders, you have to build good sergeants, good officers, and that won't happen in a couple years. So a long-term commitment is important, but it's got to be a measured commitment and the Iraqis must be in the lead.

KEILAR: Looking at Iraq, I want to get your opinion on Afghanistan -

BOLGER: Sure.

KEILAR: Because, obviously, there was not a residual force of U.S. troops left in Iraq. Possibly that could happen with Afghanistan. Are you fearful --

BOLGER: We're on the track for it.

KEILAR: Are you fearful that the same thing is going to happen, that we could be sort of revisiting the scene of Afghanistan in a few years?

BOLGER: We could very well, Brianna, but I'm encouraged by watching our current administration and the Congress wrestle with the challenge in Iraq. I think there's a chance, a hope that we're going to get it right in Afghanistan.

KEILAR: General Bolger, thank you so much for being with me. Really appreciate it.

BOLGER: Thank you.

KEILAR: Turning now to a story that is affecting millions of Americans. It isn't Thanksgiving yet, and it's still more than a month until winter, but already parts of the U.S. are dealing with record- breaking snow and brutal cold. A storm system straight from the arctic is blasting parts of the Midwest and the Great Lakes. Some areas are buried under more than a foot of snow already. And over the next few days, even parts of the deep south will be in a deep freeze. We'll continue to follow this story and bring you updates throughout the day.

Just ahead, one scientist calls it space's sexiest mission ever. What does that mean? Very soon a robot is aiming to land on a comet. A mission that has been decades in the making and we'll explain why it's so historic.

Plus, two controversies erupt during President Obama's trip to Asia and they involve Nicorette gum, Vladimir Putin and a shawl. Here why Chinese media are livid with both leaders. And CNN is learning that Robin Williams suffered from Lewy Body

disease, an illness that can cause severe hallucination. We'll have details, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: This past Friday, a California coroner officially ruled Robin Williams' death a suicide. And now we're learning specifics about what may have led the Oscar winning actor to hang himself in August. His widow, Susan Schneider, said Williams has Parkinson's Disease, but a pathology report reveals he also suffered the Lewy Body Dementia. That's the same disease radio icon Casey Kasem had before he passed away in June.

With me now to talk about this, Dr. Devi Nampiaparampil, assistant professor of anesthesiology and rehabilitation at NYU School of Medicine.

You know, Dr. Devi, this is obviously a man that I think so many people had warm feelings for and were entertained by and so there are a lot of questions when we learn about really additional information here, this Lewy Body Dementia. What is it exactly? DR. DEVI NAMPIAPARAMPIL, ASST. PROFESSOR, NYU SCHOOL OF MEDICINE:

Well, Lewy Body Dementia is very similar to Parkinson's, so you can have some of the same problems with your movements and some of the same problems with your thinking. I mean there's some overlap with Alzheimer's. But one of the things that makes it difficult to tell is that, you know, really to be able to tell the difference, you might get a brain biopsy to take a look at what the brain looks like under the microscope, but there's not really a good advantage to doing that because since we don't have a cure for Parkinson's, since we don't have a cure for Lewy Body Dementia, why put someone through those risks? So you try to manage the symptoms.

KEILAR: Yes, I mean, you can imagine the risks with a brain biopsy.

NAMPIAPARAMPIL: Of course.

KEILAR: The coroner's report, Dr. Devi, says that Williams had a, quote, "increase in paranoia." Where would that come from? Would that be from the Lewy Body Dementia?

NAMPIAPARAMPIL: It could be. It could also be from the medications that you usually use to manage these things. So to really understand, I mean, Lewy Body Dementia is very similar to Parkinson's in that people have a problem controlling their movements. So if you've ever potty trained a child, if you've ever tried to train a pet, you know what you do is when you get, you know, when you get the behavior that you want, you reward it, right? And when you see something that you don't want, you don't give it a reward.

The brain does the same thing with your movements. So let's say that you want to walk across the room, your brain gives you a reward chemical called dopamine. And when you do something that you don't want, you don't get dopamine. So in Parkinson's and Lewy Body Disease, the problem is that you don't have enough dopamine and it's not really managed properly. So that's why people, let's say they're trying to walk or they're trying to talk or they're trying to do something that requires muscle movements, if they don't have dopamine, then they have a hard time doing it. So people with Parkinson's tend to have problems moving.

Now, they also can get rewarded with this chemical for movements that they don't want, like a tremor, which is why you see abnormal movements sometimes. So it's really a problem in terms of regulating the movement.

KEILAR: Yes.

NAMPIAPARAMPIL: And when you take these medications, the other problem that happens is that this medication actually can cause hallucinations. So, you know, people take the medication. It's the miracle drug for some because it allows them to be able to do those movements that they want. You know, so it allows them to talk and to interact with their family, do different things. But the problem is, you can't totally control where it's going to end up. So if you take it by mouth, it can work on other parts of the brain where you really don't want it to work and it can cause hallucinations. Now Lewy Body Dementia itself can cause that problem as well because you can't regulate that chemical. But that could -- those could be factors that contributed here.

KEILAR: Could there be a confusion between the Parkinson's Disease and between Lewy Body Dementia? Because, like you said, you don't really know if a patient has Lewy Body Dementia most times until they passed away.

NAMPIAPARAMPIL: Exactly. I mean there is confusion because in Parkinson's you can also see Lewy Body. Now, Lewy Body, they're little kind of microscopic sort of deposits that end up in the brain. And we're not sure exactly what their function is, but they're just kind of debris, like your brain is taking out the trash or what they are. But you can see them both in Parkinson's and in Lewy Body Dementia. The only difference is really with Lewy Body Dementia, you see some things that are also very similar to Alzheimer's disease.

So, again, because we don't have a cure for Alzheimer's or for Lewy Body Dementia or Parkinson's, you know, we don't really do a lot of invasive things to try to figure out the difference, we kind of look at the symptoms that people have in these disease and then try to control the symptoms to make them feel better.

KEILAR: All right, thanks so much for explaining that to us, Dr. Devi Nampiaparampil. Really appreciate you being with us.

And just ahead, as President Obama and Vladimir Putin come face to face, Russia makes a provocative move involving Iran and its nuclear ambitions.

Plus, history in the making. What's being called the sexiest mission ever in space. Very soon a robot will attempt to land on a moving comet. And we have Bill Nye "The Science Guy" joining us live to talk about what's going to happen. Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: I'm sure you have tried to shoot a basketball. But what if the basket were moving and so were you and the distance that you'd have to throw the ball? Well, so far that it would take 10 years just to get within reach. That's kind of what the European Space Agency is trying to do tomorrow, except it's even harder than that. For the first time ever, scientists will try to land a robot on this comet, it's called 67P, and conditions need to be just right. The first of four green lights that need to happen, that's set to be given at any moment now. Scientists have been chasing this guy, 67P, since 2004 when this Rosetta mission began. And Rosetta is so historic, the European Space Agency released a fantasy short film on how Rosetta could lead to answering the age-old question -- how did life begin?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is the key to life on earth?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Water.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Water.

For a long time, the origins of water (INAUDIBLE) life on our home planet have been an absolute mystery.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Pretty cool stuff there.

With me to talk about it, the author of "Undeniable: Evolution and the Science of Creationism," Bill Nye "The Science Guy."

So, I think there was a little bit of a hint there. What's the key? Water. How would this mission, though, reveal perhaps that question, the origin of life, what is it?

BILL NYE, "THE SCIENCE GUY": Well, so, first of all, water seems to be all over the solar system. It seems to be frozed up everywhere on all these objects, like comets. But there are two questions that get us all. Where did we come from and are we alone in the universe? And if you want to answer those two questions, you have to explore space.

And that's why the European Space Agency sent a mission out there to learn more about comet, which we're certain are part of the primordial solar system, part of where we all came from. But technically it's a heck of a thing.

So you may not have thought about this, but the book is held here on the desk, dust is held on the bookshelf from gravity. But not only does the book -- the earth have gravity, the dust has gravity. Whoa!

KEILAR: That is one (ph).

NYE: So they're going to let this thing go. Philly (ph), in my Latin class they say filet (Ph). Let this thing go. It's 100 kilograms, 200 something pounds and the mutual gravity will pull them together. Whoa!

KEILAR: How difficult is that?

NYE: Well, it's really difficult.

KEILAR: Yes.

NYE: I mean everybody -- this thing's been flying for 10 years. There's so much space in space and you say, well, what are you going to learn out there? We don't know, that's why we're sending a mission.

KEILAR: OK, the question that I have, and we talked a little bit about this in the break, I asked it in the break because I thought maybe it wasn't a smart question, but you said I could ask it. Haven't we kind of seen this movie before? It sort of - it sort of reminds you of that '90s flick "Armageddon" where they're landing a spaceship on an asteroid. This is a comet, but you said they're related.

NYE: Comets and asteroids are - yes, they're just - we call -

KEILAR: Is there any sort of - is there anything that's kind of similar to this? (INAUDIBLE).

NYE: Well, it's exactly similar. No, but I -- there's no evidence, no evidence at all, that the ancient dinosaurs had a space program. And if they had, they would probably have deflected this asteroid that caused them so much trouble 65, 66 million years ago. And so everybody -- someday it is to be hoped humankind will be able to give an asteroid this little nudge so it doesn't hit the earth. But, meanwhile, we want to learn as much about these objects as possible.

Now, the word "comet" is where you have enough water that the gentle heating from the sun causes a tail to form.

KEILAR: Yes.

NYE: That's why we love these things. But they're made of essentially the same thing as an asteroid, they're rocks and ice. There's a lot of water ice in the solar system and so that's why people have proposed flying out to asteroids, harvesting the water, using electricity from solar panels, making rocket fuel and flying around. These are all extraordinary ideas, but the longest journey starts with a single step. And the Rosetta mission is a great step.

KEILAR: Well, so if this is a step, then what's the next one? Once the landing happens, then what?

NYE: Well, the next step - well then we'll find out more about the comet itself. So you see there's an expression we love. Is it a solid object that Bruce Willis' character would have encountered?

KEILAR: Now you're speaking my language, thank you.

NYE: Yes. Or it is a rubble pile, as we like to say? And the word "pile," wait, it's in outer space. So, OK, it's a thing, it's a cluster. And so what we want to do is learn more about how these things travel and what holds them together. If we did have to deflect one practically, how would we do it?

And just -- if I can just talk briefly, you have to believe that there are comets and asteroids. You have to believe that the solar system is 4.5 billion years old or all of this will not make much sense to you. And that's why I wrote this book. Just to bring my book back in here.

KEILAR: "Undeniable." We'll plug your book. "Undeniable: The evolution -

NYE: No, but it was just (INAUDIBLE) -

KEILAR: Yes, exactly. "Evolution and the Science of Creation."

NYE: So the Rosetta mission - the Rosetta mission is an extraordinary thing and we at the Planetary Society, I strongly recommend you check out planetary.org. We've got an excellent blog there written mostly by Emily Lacklaw (ph). And, everybody, this is what brings out the best in us. Space exploration is where we solve problems that have never been solved before, especially planetary exploration, deep space exploration.

Thank you.

KEILAR: Bill Nye, thank you very much.

And just ahead, President Obama arriving at a dinner at the APEC Summit in Beijing chewing some gum. Some in China pretty upset with that. They're calling it rude.

And, another awkward moment, this one involving Vladimir Putin and a shawl. Did he cross the line? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)