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President Obama's Winning Streak; Cyber Threats; ISIS Leaders Killed in Airstrike

Aired December 18, 2014 - 15:00   ET

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


CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And then the question of human rights. Even Human Rights Watch says that this remains a repressive regime. But the fact of the matter is that practically everybody acknowledges what President Obama said, that 50 years of these punitive attempts, the embargo, punitive measures to try to change the regime's habits, simply haven't worked. So, try a different tack.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: OK. Christiane Amanpour, thank you very much with the first Castro to speak out here on CNN. Thank you.

AMANPOUR: Thank you.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BALDWIN: Here we go, hour two. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Breaking news here on CNN, major development in the war against ISIS. We got some information from a senior military official telling us that three senior leaders of the terror group have died in U.S. strikes in Iraq. Those dead include a man considered to have been the right-hand man, if you will, in Iraq of the leader, the ISIS leader Omar al-Baghdadi.

With more on this, I want to bring in our chief national security correspondent, Jim Sciutto.

Jim, tell me -- tell me more about these three leaders.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, we have just been learning this a short time ago. These leaders described to me as two top-level leaders, one mid-level.

One that you mentioned, he is Haji Mutazz. He was Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi -- this is the head of ISIS -- his deputy in Iraq, as well the military emir in Iraq, considered say -- call him the military commander in Iraq for ISIS, a man named Abd al-Basit, also killed, and in addition to that ISIS' emir for the city of Mosul, which is their stronghold, the city that they took over from Iraqi control a few months ago as they swept through the country.

This took place in multiple airstrikes, I'm told, over recent weeks, but it's only now that they were able to confirm conclusively, including by monitoring communications among ISIS fighters, that these three are now indeed dead. So, something of a victory for the air campaign. We know that they

have been targeting command-and-control. And this is described to me by a senior military official as having an effect on command-and- control, but they do know that that effect can be short-lived, that their -- that commanders, when they are killed, they are replaced.

And they would expect the same to happen here.

BALDWIN: Just so I can correct myself, I said Omar al-Baghdadi, but isn't it Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi? That's who we are speaking about who is ultimately the leader of ISIS, yes?

SCIUTTO: That is exactly right.

BALDWIN: OK.

SCIUTTO: We were showing some pictures of him a short time ago giving a sermon.

BALDWIN: Let me follow up too with the news about the troop levels, right, the troop levels that President Obama mentioned just yesterday and their role here in this ongoing war.

SCIUTTO: That's right.

So you will remember that a few weeks ago the president authorized an additional 1,500 U.S. troops to go to Iraq. Well, yesterday, the secretary of defense, Chuck Hagel, he signed their deployment orders for 1,300 of them. So, they are on their way. They will be going there and I'm told by February of 2015, just, well, a little -- two months away, less than two months away, that 3,000 troops will be on the ground.

That's the upper limit, in effect, of what the president has ordered. But keep this in mind. Until very recently, all of those American troops, the military advisers, the folks doing train and assist, they were confined largely to Baghdad and to Irbil, relative pockets, oases of safety in Iraq.

But now over time they're going to be more forward-deployed, including I'm told now that there are some 300 U.S. troops at a base, the Al- Assad base in Anbar province outside of Baghdad in a province that is largely controlled by ISIS. These troops are no longer going to be behind the lines inside the big cities. Over time they're going to be deployed at a dozen some-odd training bases and bases around the country.

Not combat troops, but much closer to combat -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK. So we have that. I have to ask you though -- I would be remiss if I didn't -- about what's happening with North Korea. Right? The United States is set to accuse North Korea of cyber- terrorism. We're hearing this announcement will come later today blaming hackers working for North Korea for the attack on Sony Pictures. U.S. officials believe the attack was ordered directly by leadership

in North Korea in retaliation for this comedy, this Seth Rogen-James Franco film supposed to come out Christmas Day, "The Interview." The crux of this is ultimately ends with assassination the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un.

Now, the cyber-attack was coupled with an online threat of a 9/11- style attack. That is what in part drove the country's biggest theater chains and ultimately Sony Pictures itself to cancel the movie before it was even in theaters and reaction was swift.

You had actor Rob Lowe has a big part in this film tweeting that the hackers won -- quote, unquote -- "an utter and complete victory." Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich jumping on Twitter as well declaring America has lost its first cyber-war and calling this a dangerous precedent.

And there are broader implications for the entire business community. President Obama's top economic adviser called on companies this morning to invest in cyber-security. Jim, you're still with me. Are you surprised that North Korea was able to make this major corporation cave in so quickly if in fact it is North Korea?

SCIUTTO: You know, it's interesting. We have been talking about for years and U.S. officials have been alarmed at the prospect that North Korea can build a missile with a range that would hit the U.S. and that they could shrink a nuclear device to get on the top of that missile to potentially reach the West Coast of the U.S.

That's been a great concern. To our knowledge, to date, they don't have that ability. But yet, in this month, North Korea was able to carry out an attack, in effect, on the U.S. homeland that targets a major American movie studio. It cost that movie studio millions of dollars.

And it struck fear in the hearts at least if not of moviegoers, but of movie theater owners, enough that they canceled the airing of this film. That's a real and successful and consequential cyber-attack on U.S. soil, arguably, a cyber-terror attack, although the White House isn't calling it that.

It's a reminder of the real threat of cyber-attacks today, but it also shows that North Korea has greater capability than frankly the U.S. was aware of. They did not believe they could carry out a sophisticated attack like this. It's something we should not fool ourselves. This is a new era. U.S. companies have already been under attack from Chinese companies for years.

U.S. businesses, U.S. government departments in cyber-attacks. This is a new era. It's very difficult to defend against. We saw that with this attack in recent weeks.

BALDWIN: Let me talk a little bit more about that. Jim Sciutto, my thanks.

We reached out to a filmmaker who is definitely no stranger to controversy, Michael Moore, "Bowling for Columbine," "Sicko," "Fahrenheit 9/11."

Michael Moore, this is what he told us. I quote him. "Before the release of 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' both the studio and myself, plus some theaters received numerous threats warning us not to show it." It goes on: "None of this deterred any of us from releasing 'Fahrenheit 9/11.' We just hired more security" -- Michael Moore

Michael Moore's film didn't take on the issue of killing a foreign dictator, like Seth Rogen does in "The Interview," so will the cyber- attack on Sony impact other films and other studios?

David Edelstein, he is the chief film critic of the "New York Magazine" who I get to sit next to now.

It's such a pleasure meeting you.

DAVID EDELSTEIN, "NEW YORK MAGAZINE": Hello.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Thank you so much. I'm a total fan of your work.

EDELSTEIN: Thank you.

BALDWIN: So I had heard you were saying you were kicking yourself for turning down the opportunity to see this film, what, last week.

EDELSTEIN: I was supposed to see it last week. But I was going to the premiere tonight, which I thought would be a lot more fun and I...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: That was bold.

EDELSTEIN: I wrote to Sony, my P.R. contact yesterday, and I said, so, we're still on, plus one? And he said -- "No," I believe was his exact quote.

(CROSSTALK)

EDELSTEIN: So, alas.

BALDWIN: Do you think that this is about the threat, which is really I think what makes this so different from other hacks, the remember 9/11 threat to moviegoers, or is this more about the business?

EDELSTEIN: Well, I mean, it's about both. Nobody wants -- first of all, there's a lot of business going on in the holiday movie season and no multiplex is going to want to play ""The Interview"" if people are not just going to not see "The Interview," but also not see "Annie" and "Into the Woods" and "Selma" and all the other studios' big movies.

No one is going to want to take that risk. Other than that, I don't really know. I love the idea -- I'm a punk. I came of age with the punks. I love sticking a middle finger up at mad totalitarian dictators.

BALDWIN: So, then you don't approve of this?

EDELSTEIN: This is an honorable thing that American pop culture has been doing for 60, 70, 80 years, earlier than that, and to me it's tragic that we're not going to be able to do that in this case.

Now, one doesn't necessarily do it when they have nukes. And, by the way, none of this is to say I'm talking about our Dear Leader, Kim Jong-un, who is a wise...

BALDWIN: Don't think he's watching.

EDELSTEIN: ... and celestial being who descended from on high to make all our lives better. This is purely abstract here when I talk about mad totalitarian idiot dictators.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Back to the proverbial middle finger.

EDELSTEIN: Yes, middle finger, yes.

BALDWIN: So, because they're not sticking it to them by yanking this film, how does this affect -- we already saw the news with Steve Carell's Pyongyang film. How does this -- does this have other theaters, other screenwriters and other studios running scared?

EDELSTEIN: Totally.

They were running scared. Hollywood has always run scared. There are all sorts of stories of the Chinese, which is a huge market for Hollywood studios now more and more and more. It's going to be like 75 percent, 80 percent of the market will be Asia.

BALDWIN: Wow.

EDELSTEIN: They have already been trimming back a lot of...

BALDWIN: Because they have those audiences in mind.

(CROSSTALK)

EDELSTEIN: ... that might be offensive.

In fact, in the case of "The Interview," the chairman -- by the way, everybody is talking about an American cyber-attack. This is the North Korean sticking it to the Japanese.

Sony is a Japanese -- country.

BALDWIN: Iconic brand.

EDELSTEIN: And the North Koreans don't really like the Japanese. but in any case, the chairman of Sony did in fact say can you tone down Kim Jong-un's death? His face was supposed to melt and blood was supposed to explode all over the place and his hair was on fire. And they kind of did a compromise cut where there was just flames over his face.

But they were always going tone it down for the Asian market and then they just decided, no, we're not going to release it in Asia. So, really, up until a few days ago, it only had a United States release.

BALDWIN: Before I let you go, just final words of wisdom. As someone who has covered film for years and years, what do you think?

EDELSTEIN: I'm a little brokenhearted. And I hope it doesn't rebound on the "South Park," guys who made "Team America: World Police," in which Kim Jong Il gets shot to pieces in an outrageous -- and "South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut," when Saddam Hussein was the gay lover of Satan in his own lifetime.

I hope this doesn't have a chill on American political satire. I fear it will and I am despondent about that. And, of course, none of this applies to Kim Jong-un, who is a great leader.

BALDWIN: Of course, fabulous, wonderful.

EDELSTEIN: Thank you so much.

BALDWIN: David Edelstein, thank you. Appreciate it.

EDELSTEIN: Thank you. Thank you.

BALDWIN: Ahead, Newt Gingrich says America on this story just lost its first cyber-war. Is he right? Do you agree with him? Plus, more on the cyber-warriors, the secret cyber-warriors, nearly 2,000 of them. We only know this because a defector is speaking to CNN about some of these secrets. He's next.

And a climate deal, Cuba, immigration, Putin in trouble, low gas prices, huh, President Obama's agenda on a winning streak just weeks after his party was crushed. What's next on the list? You're watching CNN's special coverage. Stay here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: This is a North Korean government video of obviously a rocket launch.

This is the kind of warfare the world has worried North Korea would use one day, but a defector says North Korea has already been launching attacks not at the skies, but online. U.S. and South Korean sources say the Sony hack is all part of this.

Who are the soldiers on this cyber-front line, if you will? They belong to a shadow government network and they are calling themselves Bureau 121. This is according to Jang Se-yul. He's the man who escaped the nation seven years ago and he tells CNN there are 1,800 cyber-warriors placed around the world hacking and attacking North Korea's perceived enemies.

Jang says this -- quote -- "The silent war, the cyber-war, has already begun without a single bullet fired."

Let turn now to the author of "Cybersecurity and Cyberwar: What Everyone Needs to Know." Peter Singer is the senior fellow at the New America Foundation.

Peter, welcome.

PETER SINGER, NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION: Thanks for having me.

BALDWIN: As an expert in all of this, in cyber-terrorism, do you think it was the appropriate move for Sony to yank "The Interview" from theaters?

SINGER: No, it was an utter cave-in. And the danger is that this changes something that had been basically a hack.

We're using phrases like act of war, cyber-terrorism, and everybody needs to take a chill pill here. This is not the same as an actual act of war. It's as much an act of war as when North Korea described making the movie an act of war.

Wars involve actual acts of violence. So do terrorism, including cyber-terrorism, according to the FBI definition of it. It was a hack. There was lots of embarrassing things that came out about Sony, but the difference is that there's a difference between that, the ability to steal embarrassing e-mail from a not-so-well-protected computer network, and then the online threat that was made of actual violence, which was basically them saying we will create 9/11-style events for any theater and any individual who watches this movie, which is there's a different capability between stealing e-mail and causing 18,000 9/11s simultaneously.

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Right. And they say when you look at the rhetoric that comes from North Korea all the time, it's just total bluster. But then you could argue on Sony's behalf, maybe they just didn't want to take a chance.

That said, a lot of people agree with you that they totally caved. Let me focus on the present. What should movie companies be doing now in reaction to these threats and the actual hacking of Sony Pictures? Because, today, it would be Sony. Tomorrow, it could be my parent company, Time Warner, Paramount. Who knows who could be next.

SINGER: See, that's the problem with the cave. It changed it from being just a hack that mattered to them to now they in essence rewarded and incentivized attacks on everything else, and not just movie studios, but frankly any major corporation.

We have a combination of needs here. Companies need to start taking cyber-security seriously, but in a much different way than apparently Sony approached it. Remember, this is a company that's been repeatedly hacked going back to at least 2005. But the point is, once you get inside the network, you can't have open access to anything and everything. They have been posting everything from confidential e-mails to financial information to scripts. This stuff shouldn't -- they shouldn't have gotten the keys to the kingdom when they were on the inside and that's just bad cyber-security and then you get to again the response to it, which is, you can either the British mentality of keep calm and carry on or you can react with hysteria and then fold like a cheap card table.

We have chosen category two. Which of these responses incentivizes more attackers to come after you?

BALDWIN: The million-dollar question and problem at hand.

Peter Singer, thank you so much.

Just ahead, President Obama's agenda here really on a winning streak in the weeks since his party was crushed in the midterms. What's next in the final quarter in office?

And one of his moves, a surprising deal with Cuba, getting all kinds of reaction from both sides. but we will get personal. I will be speaking live with singer and actress Christina Milian, along with her Cuban-American mother. Stay right here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: When Democrats took their midterm shellacking, lost control of the Senate, there were folks writing off the last two years of Barack Obama's term in office.

But here we are some six weeks later and you have this historic deal with Cuba, the climate deal, immigration, economy on the upswing, low gas prices, and Putin is in trouble. And this has galvanized the idea that maybe the president isn't done yet.

Douglas Brinkley, presidential historian, we always love talking to Doug Brinkley, joins me live from Austin, Texas.

Mr. Brinkley, nice to see you.

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Thanks for having me on, Brooke.

BALDWIN: So we just ran through sort of the recent wins. How strong is this case that Barack Obama is in fact turning things around vs., say, the notion that this is merely a blip on the radar and perhaps the notion that we, the media, just create a new narrative?

BRINKLEY: Well, he's really had quite a week, hasn't he?

I think one of the things you touched on that is key is whether after that airliner was shot down by Russia and we have had invasion by Putin in Ukraine, many people thought the president didn't do enough. But if those economic sanctions are really working, that's a big plus for this president and obviously this gambit in Cuba I think is a big plus. The fact that he has a partner to work with in Pope Francis -- Ronald

Reagan dealt as a close ally with Margaret Thatcher and Helmut Kohl. You don't see Obama having an international ally that he's been very close to and now suddenly Pope Francis working with the president, I think that bodes very well for him too.

But in the end, it's going to depend on what the economy is like in his last day in office, I think, how historians will judge him.

BALDWIN: Let's go back, though, Doug, to the Russian point, because you were pointing out -- somebody earlier called it the adventures in Ukraine. It was Christiane Amanpour.

Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea and essentially said to Obama, deal with it. Putin essentially invaded Ukraine. Obama responded. You pointed out the sanctions. And people were saying at the time Putin equals strong and Obama equals weak. And now Putin is bogged down in Ukraine. His economy is like totally tanking. Is this the notion now that Obama is wiping the floor with Putin or is that a tad overblown?

BRINKLEY: Well, maybe a tad overblown, but it's looking like this.

Look, one of the problems is we live in a very fast media age and people want instant gratification and action. Economic sanctions take a while. But if these work and it shows that he really had an effective, vigorous response to isolate Putin, I don't know what businesses want to invest in Russia right now.

They would be very foolhardy. And then he went to China and had a successful trip and surprised everybody with that climate deal. And this is a president that is really starting to lean on the climate issue, which in history might be one of the great ones of our time. So, his track record -- anybody who called him a lame-duck president certainly has to admit they're wrong.

BALDWIN: Let me quote finally here Rush Limbaugh. Let me quote Rush Limbaugh. And this is what he said.

This is what he said after the Cuban announcement. It's -- quote -- "just the beginning. This is just a teaser, an appetizer for what is on tap the next two years."

The president has gone big on net neutrality. You mentioned China and climate change, immigration, Cuba yesterday, and this is just since the midterms. What else, crystal ball time, what else might we see?

BRINKLEY: A rejection of the Keystone pipeline. If that ever comes to his desk, there will be a veto. He may become an environmental hero for doing it because it's one of the big issues of our time.

And I think that you will see him really trying to reach out in foreign affairs more and more, traveling, cutting deals with China any way he can. He is going to be also an executive power president, signing things, to big national monuments in the West. Just last week, he put Bristol Bay in Alaska off-limits for development. So, I think you're going to see his environmental record, both with

climate and here at home, be really upgraded on his list of priorities.

BALDWIN: Douglas Brinkley, always a pleasure. Thank you so much.

BRINKLEY: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Speaking of Cuba, rum, cigars, anyone? Not so fast. Restrictions, yes, they are eased between the U.S. and Cuba, but what does this trade do between the two countries? That's a tad trickier.

And well-known performer Christina Milian might have a thing or two to say about that. Hear it for yourself when the recording artist and actress joins me live next.

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