Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Taliban Attacks School; Russian Economy Collapsing?

Aired December 16, 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: The White House today responding incredibly harshly, President Obama calling the attack on children a sign of depravity, while, in London, Secretary of State John Kerry spoke not just as a diplomat, but as a father.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KERRY, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Mothers and fathers send their kids to school to learn and to be safe and to dream and to find opportunity.

And particularly at this military school in Pakistan, they sent their kids there with the hope and dreams of serving their country. Instead, today, they are gone, wiped away by Taliban assassins who serve a dark and almost medieval vision and the opposite of everything that those mothers and fathers wanted for their children.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Here's what we know. Authorities are still looking for survivors who may be hiding, victims and explosive devices those attackers left behind.

Who are these militants? What do they want?

Robert O'Neill is joining me. He is a Navy SEAL who claims to have fired the shot that killed Osama bin Laden.

Robert, thank you so much for being with me. And thank you for your service to this country.

ROBERT O'NEILL, FORMER U.S. NAVY SEAL: Thank you for having me, Brooke. It's great to be here.

BALDWIN: So, when you first heard about this heinous attack on all these children in Pakistan, I want to know what went through your mind when you heard about this?

O'NEILL: This just another example of what our enemies are capable of. They know that hitting a school where the most innocent of our people are,they know they can send messages that way. They're just -- they're very bad people that will do anything to try to push their ideology forward.

BALDWIN: But what's the strategy? I mean, why -- beyond the, you know, the numbers and the pictures of little, you know, young, young people killed, why schools?

O'NEILL: In this particular case, it's because it was near or connected to a military site, and they wanted to kill the students, the children of senior military members. They want to have the military members thinking something other than military strategy and how to defeat the Taliban.

And at the end of everything, they want to instill terror. And this is the way to do it. If anything happened to anyone's family or children, the first thing they would do is think about their family and not about what their job is.

BALDWIN: You know, Robert, I don't know if you saw this. We actually got a statement from the Afghan Taliban. A spokesperson released a statement condemning this attack, saying they're always against attacks, you know, on innocent civilians, especially young children.

What do you make of that?

O'NEILL: Well, that's -- it's not true. The Pakistani Taliban also released one saying that their aim was not to harm children, but they're attacking a school.

And when they say they're not going to harm children, yet they're burning teachers in front of the children, making them watch. It's part of their information campaign to put out bad information like they always do. They don't tell the truth.

BALDWIN: Calling B.S. on their statements, I respect that.

Let me ask you this, and let me shift to another story you're familiar with. Last week, we covered the Senate Intelligence Committee releasing that report on the CIA's brutal interrogation techniques. The Senate would say, you know, the torture.

On the floor when this whole thing came out last week there on Capitol Hill, we heard from veteran Senator John McCain, a prisoner of war himself. This is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: Its use was shameful and unnecessary. And contrary to assertions made by some of its defenders and as the committee's report makes clear, it produced little useful intelligence to help us track down the perpetrators of 9/11 or prevent new attacks and atrocities.

I know from personal experience that the abuse of prisoners will produce more bad than good intelligence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So that was Senator McCain.

We have been watching you, Robert, on Twitter, and you tweeted, "ISIS is trying to sell James Foley's headless body to his parents for $1 million. Anybody really care if we water-board these lowlifes?"

Going to give you more than 140 characters to explain yourself. Tell me what you thought of the report.

O'NEILL: Well, obviously, this is a much more -- this is a broader subject than a tweet can handle.

Senator McCain has more experience than I do with this. And I agree with him that torture does not work. I think torture is vile. It's the worst thing to do to somebody else, and he knows from experience. However, I think that our definition of torture has kind of softened in the past. When they're interrogating people that do have information, it's going to be a process that ultimately ends up with the good cop/bad cop thing that's going to start with confusion, with some loud music, stress positions, getting them out of their element.

If there is a problem, they're claustrophobic, for example, and they put them in tight positions, they're going to shake their will a little bit. And then ultimately, when they start to stop doing that, they're going to come around and start talking. It's a long, long process.

BALDWIN: Is that acceptable? Is all of that acceptable torture to you?

O'NEILL: I don't think it's torture at all. I think torture is something that you do not walk away from. Everything that was being done here as soon as it stops, it's over.

The sensation of drowning, as soon as it stops, it's over, and you can walk away from it. I don't think personally that it's torture. I think we need to look at it again. Some of these techniques being used, they're uncomfortable. We were we were tortured, according to this, in SEAL training. It's terrible, but it's over when it's over.

BALDWIN: So if the U.S. finds itself in another war and perhaps with a different president and we find ourselves in a situation in which the U.S. takes captives, if this wasn't maybe your definition of torture, would this be acceptable in trying to extract information, even though it may not be eventful? You follow me?

O'NEILL: It's not up to me what is classified as torture, but I think the conversation needs to be had to rethink it, because I don't think stress positions and loud music and keeping someone awake for a while in order to make them give up information that can ultimately save people's lives, I think that should be rethought.

BALDWIN: OK. Let me also -- there was a new poll that was out today that seems to agree with you. Pew Research found 51 percent of respondents found that the CIA's tactics were justified, compared with 29 percent who think they were not justified, and 20 percent who said they didn't know. You agree, yes?

O'NEILL: I agree that most of America thinks the same way I am. And it's not based on a poll. But one of the things that I do is, I speak around the country and I

talk to a lot of Americans. It's not scientific. But a lot of people have told me that I'm saying a lot of things that a lot of them would want to say. And, again, I don't agree with torture. And I don't think it works.

But I think some enhanced interrogation does work when you're not putting any permanent -- you're not hurting someone permanently. I think that we can be enhanced and we can be smart and we can catch them in lies and then we can get the truth of them.

BALDWIN: Final question to you because you're the guy to ask. There was such debate between what we heard from the CIA last week and from this torture report as to whether or not the information through enhanced interrogation techniques or torture led to finding, hunting down and you shooting the bullet that killed Osama bin Laden. Do you think that helped you find him and kill him?

O'NEILL: Absolutely, it did.

They found Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. They had him in detention for a while. They used these techniques and they used the time. That ultimately led to the courier that drove back to the house where Osama bin Laden was. And I'm convinced that they knew where he was the whole time, but they weren't telling us because we were being nice.

We used enhanced interrogations. They told us, we found him, and ultimately my team killed him.

BALDWIN: Wow. Robert O'Neill, pleasure talking to you. Thanks again. I really appreciate it.

O'NEILL: Thanks for having me. Great to be here.

BALDWIN: You got it.

Coming up next, more on our breaking story out of Pennsylvania. Actually, right now, the body believed to be the former Marine accused of killing six people in a shooting spree has just been found. Investigators believe it is, indeed, the suspect here, Bradley William Stone.

This is the picture law enforcement released right around this time yesterday. Authorities think he shot and killed his ex-wife and five of her relatives in a murderous spree that spanned at least three cities. A seventh shooting victim, a 17-year-old boy, survived the attack, but is in serious but stable condition.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RISA VETRI FERMAN, MONTGOMERY COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY: The past day- and-a-half have been -- it's been extremely harrowing. It's been very challenging for us in the community and for our law enforcement officers.

It's been important for us to get information out to the public and you have helped us do that very seamlessly. And so I want to thank you for that. And we also want to thank the members of our communities across three different towns, really four different towns yesterday.

They were inundated with law enforcement officers in a very significant operation. We got extreme cooperation and courtesy from our communities.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: And schools in those communities were shut down today because of this ongoing manhunt. In just a short time from now, police, the district attorney there in this county will be giving a news conference with more on what they found just today.

More breaking news into CNN on the hacking of media giant Sony, or as Sony calls it, cyber-terrorism now. There is a word of a new warning.

Let me get the latest now from Laurie Segall here.

As we talk about this movie that is coming out, Laurie, what's happening now?

LAURIE SEGALL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is pretty noteworthy.

A couple of hours ago, on the same site that a lot of these hackers are claiming, these hackers that claimed to have been behind the hack, have been posting data, there was another dump, another data dump. And here's what they said.

They went from talking about putting a threat of sensitive data out there to actually implying the threat of terror. Now, I want to read you what they put out there. They said: "Soon all the world will see what an awful movie Sony Entertainment pictures has made. The world will be full of fear. Remember the 11th of September."

Now, they go on to talk about the premiere, which is happening here in New York. It's already happened in L.A. But they go on to talk about the premiere and saying people should look out if they're going to the premiere and also people showing up to the movie should keep a distance away. So, you know, this is more serious than some celebrity gossip. This is much more serious than looking through some e-mails and some interesting conversations.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Much more serious.

SEGALL: This is the first time a group claiming to be the GOP, the Guardians of Peace, who are the ones claiming to have been behind this, this is the first time they're actually taking it to another level, Brooke.

BALDWIN: What about -- so this movie comes out Christmas Day, correct?

SEGALL: Yes.

BALDWIN: What about the theaters? How do they handle this?

SEGALL: I have got calls right now, actually, to the landmark Sunshine here in New York to see whether or not they're going to actually go forward with the movie. "The L.A. Times" is actually reporting they are going to go ahead and go forward with this. But this could have a huge impact, because the premiere is Thursday, but this comes out on Christmas. This is a huge day where people go to the movies.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: I love going to the movies on Christmas Day.

SEGALL: This is what we do on Christmas Day. And they're inciting fear. This won't just affect Sony, I mean, Sony Pictures. This will affect other studios who also have been movies being released too, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Let us know what the theaters say. So far, just talking to Brian Stelter, he says Sony isn't rethinking, censoring or not releasing it. So let us know. Let us snow.

SEGALL: Absolutely.

BALDWIN: Laurie Segall, thank you.

Next, chilling new video of the hostage siege. You're about to see what the snipers saw as they watched the gunman inside of that coffee shop for hours and hours. We have that for you.

Also, Russia's economy, folks, is in big, big trouble. Some experts say it's collapsing. Hear what the Russian fed did in the dark of the night.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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

As the world watched the Sydney siege play out on television, police and special forces snipers, they were watching these sights on their rifles and a mostly evacuated TV station just across the street from the standoff, the newsroom became part of the story, part of the news. This lone cameraman holed up for 16 hours with a sharpshooter and police tech providing unique support as this whole siege played out.

Here's Seven Network's Greg Parker.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GREG PARKER, SEVEN NETWORK: For me, one of the hardest things to see was those three women forced to hold that flag up against the glass and then another image of a poor guy in obvious distress with the muzzle of a shotgun, you know, in frame being pointed at his head. And that was the first time we'd seen a clear threatening pose. It was the gun's pointed at the bloke's head who was very passive stance up against the glass.

NARRATOR (voice-over): Veteran cameraman Greg Parker has been around the block a few times. He's seen good. He's also seen evil, but never this close to home.

PARKER: It did start like any other day. One of our producers had literally just walked back into the door, the Lindt, hot chocolate in hand.

NARRATOR: Within minutes of the attack on the Lindt cafe, Greg had three cameras, including one with a powerful .600-millimeter lens trained on the four windows. When police snipers arrived to take up position in our newsroom, they saw immediate value in keeping Greg at their side.

PARKER: I knew we were getting something pretty remarkable in what we could see with that lens on the camera. And the sniper concurred and then said could we stay there and keep sweeping and giving him continual information of what we're seeing behind the glass?

They were, you know, suitably impressed with the scope of what we were getting from our camera and straight up said, can you stay, can you keep that shot up for us?

NARRATOR: It was soon just Greg, a police sniper and a police technician in the eerie quiet of an empty newsroom. For 16 hours, Greg quietly fed these remarkable, chilling images to police headquarters.

PARKER: The guys back in the police sort of command were then asking for specific shots. So we would -- we put on Kevlar vests and came down and relocated cameras as they needed them to be.

Specifically, that window that they called window four, where the flag was being sort of held up was where the gunman was continually sort of positioning himself and putting hostages between himself and the window and himself in the door. It was generally horrible. In 20 years, you know, it's very rare to come across such upsetting footage. There's nothing you can do.

NARRATOR: As the world watched the chaos and heartbreak of Australia's biggest city grappling to come to grips with terror, Greg and the police sniper crouched quietly just meters from the scene.

PARKER: For a real long time, it was just him and I, I think, for five or six hours making small talk. And to be honest, the situation kept us pretty busy because we were both looking for any opportunity that was going to effect a positive outcome.

And then we continually were sort of blown away just how sad the situation was as it went on and on. We both just were sort of praying that these families of these people were going to get out.

NARRATOR: There were little victories.

PARKER: Every time hostages escaped, we were cheering, you know, high-fiving almost. It was awesome to see. But then, the longer it went on, the lights went off, signs weren't looking good. And the scene was getting sort of worse by the hour.

NARRATOR: As the hours ticked by, the gunman's behavior became more erratic.

PARKER: We continually saw him moving, almost shoving them, walking behind and really intimidating, angry kind of threatening manner. It was just horrible to see.

You could see him communicating. And especially after those guys escaped, he became agitated. He was grabbing the hostages and moving them and continually keeping them between the window and himself, it seemed.

NARRATOR: Still, the entire focus of emergency services was obtaining a peaceful resolution.

PARKER: I was in awe of the way they handled it and the patience they showed because they were tried and proven methods of how to get the best possible result. And that was constantly being relayed to us.

NARRATOR: But their patience ran out with the echo of a single gunshot.

PARKER: We heard a shot. He confirmed, hostage down, window two. Six seconds later, we saw the special forces guys breach. It was -- it was pretty loud, pretty frightening.

It's like nothing I have ever seen before, ever. The moment he crossed the line of taking down a hostage, it was a forced action from police in my mind and probably anyone else that was seeing it. You know, they're not going to sit around and wait for another hostage to have the same wait.

NARRATOR: After all Greg Parker saw on Sydney's longest, darkest night, it's the terror on the faces of those victims in the early hours of the siege which will live with him for the rest of his life.

PARKER: The thing that probably keeps going through my mind the most is the look of just anguish on those faces of those people being forced to stand in that window. But matched with that, the sheer courage of those police officers and, you know, the nonstop stories and the info I was getting from the sniper, who was telling us how and what to do different things.

And then to see the way they sort of went in with sort of no fear for their own safety to get people out, I'm never going to forget that.

NARRATOR: Tonight, Greg's back with his wife and kids. He knows better than anyone just how lucky he is.

PARKER: I love Sydney, born and bred. I don't think anyone will let, you know, the lunatic that we saw harm our way of life. It's a beautiful city, great people, multicultural society and a great country. To me, it's the best country in the world and always will be.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Coming up: Is the Russian economy on the verge of collapse? Some markets around the world sent reeling today after Russian President Vladimir Putin raised interest rates by a whopping 60 percent. Why is all of this happening now?

And President Obama just a short time ago making a move that could make it worse for Vladimir Putin. We're back after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Right now, here is your overlooked story of the day.

You know the whole deal with interest rates, right? The Fed gets together. We know when it happens. They sit around, they deliberate, we wait. And then they publish this super official statement that says we either kept the rate the same or maybe we bumped it up or down just a little, like a quarter-point jump.

And that is news. A half-a-point, my goodness, practically an earthquake. You're with me. So, let me take you to Russia. Overnight in Moscow, the Fed there, while everyone was asleep, Russia's central bank nearly doubled the rate there. They took it from 10 percent to 17 percent in the dark of night.

Let me cut to the chase. This rather screams of a problem. How big of a problem? Well, for one thing, that whole dark of the night, desperate gambit by the Russian central bank, it didn't work. It failed to stop the ongoing crash of the ruble, which is eroding Russians' assets.

You might just say that overnight Russia's economy went from having like a bad cold to pneumonia. And what is Vladimir Putin going to do about that?

With me now live from Moscow, CNN's Matthew Chance.

And, Matt, we know that "The Moscow Times" is calling it black Tuesday. We have even read suggestions of panicked buying there, people spending their rubles before they lose more worth. Tell me what you're seeing.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL NARRATOR: Yes, I mean, I'm not seeing panicked buying, although we are seeing signs of deep concern here. We have been to a supermarket earlier today. People are stocking up on imported goods like tea and coffee.

They're likely to get much more expensive because they have to buy them with dollars, and dollars are so much more costly now after this devaluation of the Russian ruble. Yes, it was an extreme measure the central bank adopted, raising the key interest rate six-and-a-half points to 17 percent in attempt to stem any panic and to encourage Russians to keep their rubles in the bank, not to change them for dollars. I mean, the rubles been in decline for several weeks now. But it

really has accelerated. The trouble is, it didn't work, and one of the reasons for that is that it didn't address the underlying issues, the low oil price and the international sanctions, which are still biting the Russian economy.

BALDWIN: OK. Tea and coffee for now. Matthew Chance, thank you in Moscow.

I want to big-picture this here with Jim Clancy, CNN International.

And so, Clancy, we know Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea. Now he's been at war with Ukraine and that triggered those sanctions with which when you combine that with plummeting oil prices have crippled the ruble, and Putin's rating, at least the last time we checked, was at 87 percent.

Here you go. That was October, this is now, it's gotten worse. Do you think Putin should be worried about public support? Should the U.S. be worried that he might try to preserve that support?

JIM CLANCY, CNN NARRATOR: Well, you know, it's amazing. His nationalist populism has worked. Just today, Brooke, just today, he was named the politician of the year for, get this, the 15th time in a row. Somebody may be scapegoated.

Somebody may be thrown under the bus for this, but it isn't going to be Vladimir Putin. There's a couple of concerns. He will likely blame the Americans. You know, President Obama is set to sign another round of sanctions against Russia. Could be as early as this weekend that he goes ahead with that. At the same time, you know, there's moves that are being made by the Russians, military exercises.

He can continue to use things to distract the public's attention away from all of this or he could begin to have heads roll at the central bank. Even Dmitry Medvedev, the prime minister, could be blamed for some of the problem here. But as Matthew Chance pointed out, clearly, it isn't going to change the underlying causes, which is Russia's political action, and it is the price of oil -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: But, Jim Clancy, what about all of those, you know, rich oligarchs whose fortunes are most definitely taking a hit? What about the possibility that they get together and, I don't know, buy some people off and something happens to Putin? Just throwing it out there.

CLANCY: Yes. You get to be a rich oligarch in Russia today by being friends with Vladimir Putin, not by competing with him. And I think that oligarchs have shown that's what happens.

This is guy formally with the KGB. He knows how to keep his own house in order. He's going to continue with the populism. I think the real risk some people fear is he might do something on the international political stage to, you know, to bring attention away from Russians and a more painful economy. So that's one thing we're going to keep our eye on. BALDWIN: All right. Jim Clancy, good to see you. Thank you.

We have more on our breaking news here, a warning to moviegoers from hackers about this controversial comedy called "The Interview." But all of this is unfolding as former employees are now suing Sony over this hacking. Hear what they're claiming Sony ignored.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)