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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

Iraqi Military Gearing Up for Big Battle; Obama Calls on Arab Countries to Counter Extremism; Rebels Take Key Rail Hub in Ukraine; Bill O'Reilly's "Brian Williams" Problem; Wal-Mart Raises Wages

Aired February 20, 2015 - 05:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: A surprising reveal from the Pentagon. Iraq's military planning to try to take back a key city in Iraq from ISIS this spring. What is the strategy behind revealing the plan ahead of time?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Ukraine marking one year since the bloodiest day of the uprising in Kiev. That as officials try to hold this tenuous cease-fire together in the dangerous eastern part of that country. Will rebel forces push for more territory? We are live on the ground.

ROMANS: An arrest in the deadly road rage case. A 19-year-old suspect now accused of shooting his neighbor. The victim's husband venting outrage, saying his wife had tried to help her accused killer.

Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.

BERMAN: I'm John Berman. About 30 minutes past the hour. Great to see you this morning.

And new this morning, the Pentagon is talking about plans held by the Iraqi military to try to force ISIS out of Iraq's second largest city, Mosul. U.S. officials tell CNN some 20,000 to 25,000 Iraqi troops could be committed to retaking Mosul or trying to just months from now. One of the unanswered questions, a big one, is whether any American troops might be involved.

CNN's Ian Lee is following the events for us. Good morning, Ian.

IAN LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John. And this attack is supposed to take place in the next two to three months, April or Nay. No specific date yet. As you said, 20,000 to 25,000 troops Iraqi troops will be involved, including five brigades that have been trained by the United States.

We know the Kurdish Peshmerga, already strangling Mosul on three different sides, will hold a defensive line to make sure no supplies come in and no one escapes. We know Iraqi tribal forces will be involved, Iraqi special forces, as well as Mosul police, on the advance into there. They will have support from coalition air strikes. The ambassador to the United States, the Iraqi ambassador, said they still need more sophisticated weapons before this assault can take place.

U.S. officials giving the reason why they're letting everyone know right now, saying that it shows Iraq's commitment to retaking the city. But we also know that, when you have all these different factors involved, it's hard to keep a large-scale assault a secret for long.

Now, to the big question, will U.S. forces be involved? So far, there's no decision. They could be advisors on the front line calling in the air strikes that they're going to need, and expect the battle for Mosul to be very bloody. ISIS is a very battle hardened, a very committed force there. We know they are well versed in roadside bombs and booby traps. They've had time to dig in. So don't expect this to be a very easy battle even though they're going to be vastly outnumbered by some estimates. And if they are bogged down, it has been reported that U.S. troops could be there to call in these air strikes. John.

BERMAN: Of course there are key questions about the sentiment of the population, the largely Sunni population, in Mosul as well. Ian Lee covering this for us, thanks so much.

ROMANS: New this morning, Turkey says it has reached agreement with the United States to train and equipped moderate Syrian rebels. Turkey's foreign minister announcing the two countries would begin training hundreds of rebels early next month. The U.S. says the rebels will be fighting ISIS, while Turkey insists that Syria's Assad regime will also be a target.

BERMAN: President Obama walking something of a fine line on the final day of his summit on violent extremism. Those are his words. The president called on Islamic nations to work harder to undercut the root causes of terrorism. At the same time, the president again pushed back against identifying that terrorism strictly as Islamic.

Senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta has the latest from Washington.

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JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: John and Christine, he didn't use the words Islamic terrorism or extremism but Presient Obama called on Muslim and Arab nations to start doing a better job of pushing back on what he repeatedly called lies from al Qaeda and ISIS in a speech at his Countering Violent Extremism Summit to hundreds of world leaders at the State Department. The president said the U.S.- led coalition would continue pounding ISIS with air strikes, but he argued the Islamic world must take aim at the underlying reasons for radicalism, from income inequality to the lack of democratic freedoms. Of course, it should be noted many of the countries where those problems exist also happen to be members of the president's coalition against ISIS. Still, the president did prod those Muslim partners to develop a more effective counter message to the terrorists, who are now all over social media.

Here's what the president had to say. BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: None of us, I think,

should be immune from criticism in terms of specific policies. But the notion that the West is at war with Islam is an ugly lie. And all of us, regardless of our faith, have a responsibility to reject it.

ACOSTA: Now all week, critics pounced on the president's refusal to use the term "Islamic terrorism" or variations of that phrase. And as soon as the president wrapped up his remarks today, Arizona Republican Senator John McCain jumped in on Twitter, saying the notion that radical Islam is not at war with the west is an ugly lie, using the president's words there. The White House had hoped to make great strides this week in communicating an inclusive message to the Islamic world, but it's a message had to battle against this debate over semantics that the president seemed determined to have. John and Christine?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right, thanks, Jim, for that.

This morning, pro-Russian rebels maintain control of the crucial rail hub of Debaltseve in eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian government calls the rebels' battle for the city a breach of the cease-fire they agreed to just last week. The question this morning, will the separatists put down their arms now they have Debaltseve or will they try to grab more territory?

For the latest, I want to bring in senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh, live from Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. And, Nick, there's a cease-fire is in effect here and this town fell, this important rail hub fell. Does that embolden the rebels to try to take more territory?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Without a doubt. Certainly, they are better equipping, they're better training in some ways, which NATO and Ukraine say is because they are effectively the Russian army in disguise.

It was in evidence when we were in the town. You could see how quickly they vanquished Ukrainian forces. So much Ukrainian armor left, frankly, lying in the streets in ruins. And the violence has continued yesterday. The cease-fire ushered in the silence over Donetsk from the early hours of Sunday but that was broken yesterday. Heavy shelling, which the separatists are now saying on their news agency, one woman was killed in here in the city itself.

But Debaltseve was the key test of the cease-fire. The rebels consider it to be an exception to the cease-fire. The fighting continued around it. Now they have it. Those on the ground are talking about continuing the fight elsewhere, taking all of Donetsk. Joking even taking Kiev. I mean, it's a very messy situation because you have thousands of armed men with very effective equipment all on the frontline of this stage. Where do they go next?

This is still technically a truce. None of the world leaders who signed up to it have said that it has failed. But the violence has not stopped. This could have been the bloodiest period, possibly, for the Ukrainian military since this conflict since it began. We don't know the full extent of their losses. We have initial figures but they were encircled and heavily shelled for potentially ten days or so. It could have been a very bloody town indeed and we've seen the destruction that shelling wrought upon it.

But, today, Christine, is a year since the unrest began in Maidan, in central Kiev, where we saw ourselves dozens of protesters shot dead by what looked like police marksmen at the time. I can't imagine Ukraine could possibly have imagined then that it would be here right now. Back to you.

ROMANS: Absolutely. Nick Paton Walsh for us this morning. He's in Donetsk. Thanks, Nick.

BERMAN: Breaking overnight, the government of Venezuela has arrested the mayor of that country's capital, Caracas. A Venezuelan military source confirms to CNN that intelligence agents arrested Mayor Antonio Ledezma and raided his offices because of his alleged involvement in a coup against President Nicolas Maduro. In a televised address, Maduro accused the United States of involvement in that alleged coup, but a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department calls those claims just baseless, false.

Now, this arrest comes on the one-year anniversary of anti-government demonstrations that rocked Venezuela. Those demonstrations led to the arrest of another opposition leader, Leopoldo Lopez. Overnight, former president Bill Clinton tweeted a call for the release of Lopez and other political prisoners in Venezuela without delay.

ROMANS: Police in Las Vegas arresting a suspect in a road rage incident that left a mother of four dead. 19-year-old Erich Nowsch taken into custody after a brief standoff with police at his house, just one street away from the home of victim Tammy Meyers. Meyers' husband Robert emotionally overcome during the standoff, lashed out at the media for he felt blaming his wife and son for escalating the confrontation with her accused killer.

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ROBERT MEYERS, HUSBAND OF VICTIM TAMMY MEYERS: Are you happy? You made my wife look like an animal, and my son. There's the animal -- a block away! Are you happy!?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: After Nowsch's arrest, Robert Meyers spoke out, revealing his wife knew the suspect from a local park and had tried to help him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MEYERS: My wife's spent countless hours at that park, consoling this boy. And he's probably watching this right now and I know he's got to feel bad, because she was really good to him. She fed him. She gave him money. She told him to pull his pants up and to be a man.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Las Vegas police continuing to look for a second suspect, but they now believe Nowsch was the shooter.

BERMAN: Fox News host Bill O'Reilly is defending himself on what is being called his Brian Williams problem. Left-leaning publication "Mother Jones" is accusing O'Reilly of being less than honest about his reporting from Argentina for CBS during the 1982 Falklands Islands War, especially claims that he served in the warzone. O'Reilly was never actually in or on the Falklands Islands. Few reporters were. O'Reilly was in Argentina, covering protests that took place, apparently, after the war.

ROMANS: And he says he covered the war. He said all reporters do this. You cover the war. You cover the Middle East. You cover a war. You put it on your resume that you covered the war. He wasn't in the Falklands; most reporters weren't. They were covering it from the mainland.

BERMAN: The issue is if you cover the war from the warzone. And that's where the discrepancy seems to be. "Mother Jones" has posted all of his reporting on the internet. Check it out. The article's -- Bill O'Reilly calls the article's author a liar. And of course, O'Reilly, as you point, said he never actually said he served in or on the Falklands.

ROMANS: All right, 39 minutes past the hour. Let's get an EARLY START on your money. European shares are mostly lower here. U.S. stock futures aren't moving much.

So much hinges on Greece. Eurozone finance ministers are in Brussels; they're trying to hammer out a debt deal by the end of the day. Yesterday, Greece requested a six-month extension of its current bailout program, but Germany shot down the offer. The impasse has been yanking the markets around for weeks. Yesterday, U.S. stocks closed mostly lower after talks broke down.

Another factor in the dip -- Wal-Mart. The stock fell 3 percent on news it will raise wages for 500,000 workers. $9 an hour will be the starting pay. Wal-Mart has been praised for low prices and pilloried for low wages for so long. Now, it's becoming -- trying to become, rather, a leader in sort of -- the labor market is tightening too. You want to keep turnover low? You raise wages in America. Will other retailers follow suit? That's the next big question.

BERMAN: About 20 minutes till the hour right now. The American Sniper murder trial wraps up this morning as startling testimony reveals the accused killer's state of mind the day he allegedly shot the two victims. Well, we know he shot the two victims. Was it murder? We're going to talk about the closing arguments on the way. That's next.

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ROMANS: The defense rests its case in the so-called American sniper murder trial without putting defendant Eddie Ray Routh on the stand. The final defense witness was psychiatrist who said Routh showed signs of psychosis in the weeks before he killed Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield. Prosecutors plan to call their own medical witnesses as rebuttal witnesses today.

CNN's Ed Lavandera following the trial for us.

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ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Christine and John, the defense team has rested in the "American Sniper" trial. And Eddie Ray Routh will not testify.

The defense's last witness was their own medical expert -- a psychiatrist who spent six hours last year interviewing Eddie Ray Routh. In the interview, he says that Routh talked about pigs taking over the world. He felt that some of his coworkers at some point were cannibals. He also talked about how he thought Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield were half human, half pigs out to get him. The prosecution will take advantage of one thing that this expert witness said, and that is the statement from Routh that said as soon as I did it -- he was talking about killing Kyle and Littlefield -- I realized I had made a mistake.

Prosecutors are not done. They have two of their own medical experts that are expected to testify today. And then it will head to closing arguments which could come as early as next week -- Christine and John.

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ROMANS: All right, Ed Lavandera. Thanks, Ed.

BERMAN: Want to take a look at what is coming up on "NEW DAY". Chris Cuomo joins us now. Good morning, Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR, "NEW DAY": Hello, my brother and sister. We're going to pick up on what Ed was talking about. This is a really critical day to assess the defense strategy in the Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield murder case going on. So we're going to really break it down with a couple experts here and let you see -- insanity is very difficult. And this is an unusual case in that there are so many things that don't have to matter to the trial that will. Who the victims were, what they are trying to do, how they knew this man. PTS. What we do with our veterans. It's a lot of external stuff for this jury to process. And we say, well, they have to stick to the facts and the law. Rarely happens. We'll take you through it.

There is war out of the news (sic). In Iraq, the U.S. is preparing to take on ISIS. And it's not just anywhere; it's in Mosul. It's the second biggest city. ISIS has held it for a long time. It's got big symbolism. So we're going to show you how this works, why they're flagging their plans so early from the coalition side, and what it might take to take the city down. U.S. ground troops -- we've been worried about them. Don't they have to be part of the equation here? We're hearing, yes, kind of. We will get into what that means, because it's a big concern back here. There is also chaos overnight in Venezuela. The mayor of the biggest

city was arrested for allegedly plotting a coup. Strong opinions there. We're also going to take on the O'Reilly situation now. Bill O'Reilly entering territory only held before by Brian Williams. What did he say about what he covered in the Falklands? Was he there? Was he at war? Was he not? We'll take that on and people can judge it as they like.

BERMAN: The question is, in the Falklands or on the Falklands? Because they could be very different things, Chris Cuomo. All right, looking forward to that. Thanks so much.

ROMANS: Tens of millions of people waking up to bone-chilling cold this morning. Look at look at what the cold is doing to Niagara Falls. More of these incredible images next.

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ROMANS: The cold snap freezing in the eastern U.S. is not breaking yet. Subzero temperatures invading 30 states from Wisconsin to Alabama. Freeze warnings even posted in Florida! Check out the pictures of Niagara Falls. It's so cold, the famous waterfalls are nearly iced over. That' where we find CNN's Ryan Young.

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RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Christine and John, usually cold temperatures have tourists running in another direction. Here, people are running to see the natural beauty of Niagara Falls. Just take a look at this frozen palace. In fact, that's the American side.

As we trace along this here, you can see the solid blocks of ice. And many people have been asking if the water has stopped flowing. No, it hasn't. In fact, if you look over here on the Canadian side, you can see that constant flow of water. More than 20 million gallons rushes over the side. And that is causing people from all over to see the wonder of the world.

Now, this area hasn't had a day over freezing in quite some time. In fact, if you look here, you can see everything on the side is encased in ice. It is very cold here. It is very cold here. But it hasn't stopped people from showing up. In fact, we're seeing dozens of folks show up just to take pictures and selfies and enjoy this wonderful view as the colors keep changing -- Christine and John.

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ROMANS: All right. Ryan, thanks so much for that.

52 minutes past the hour. The FDA issuing a warning about a deadly superbug. Health officials say improperly cleaned medical scopes inserted down the throat may be infecting patients with a deadly, drug-resistant bacteria. The warning comes after California hospital officials warned several people, including who died who were infected with this superbug CRE. 180 exposed. This is linked to improperly sterilized scopes at UCLA Medical Center. They're apologizing and investigating.

Will it be "Birdman" or "Boyhood" for Best Picture? Or will the surprise blockbuster "American Sniper" be the spoiler? This year's Oscar race coming right down to the wire? CNN all over it. Sunday night, Don Lemon and Michaela Pereira will host the special "HOLLYWOOD'S BIGGEST NIGHT" live from the red carpet, 6:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.

Wal-Mart giving half a million employees a raise. What this means in the battle for higher wages. Next.

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ROMANS: Let's get an EARLY START on your money this Friday morning. Greece accounts for just 2 percent of Europe's economy, but its debt drama is having an outsized influence still. European shares mostly lower, U.S. stock futures basically static here, awaiting resolution of Greece and whether it will default. Now, this morning, eurozone finance ministers are huddled in Brussels racing to finish a deal for Greece by the end of the day. Greece's request for a six-month extension of its current plan was rejected by Germany.

Gas prices are pretty low right now but drivers don't think it will last. A new report from the Consumer Federation of America find drivers expect gas prices to rise by almost 50 percent in the next two years to $3.20 a gallon. In the next five years, hey, drivers think they're going to be paying close to $4 a gallon. That means drivers want more fuel efficient vehicles. 86 percent surveyed said gas mileage is important in the next car.

Half a million Wal-Mart employees are getting a raise. Starting in April, workers will get at least $9 an hour starting salary. That's $1.75 above the federal minimum. In 2016, Wal-Mart will have fixed schedules for more employees. It's important for people working more than one job. These changes will cost Wal-Mart $1 billion in the next year. But it could help the company attract and keep good workers. The labor market is tightening. You got to pay to keep your good workers from leaving. Shares fell 3 percent yesterday.

A lot of news to cover, including Pentagon officials revealing this plan to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul from ISIS. "NEW DAY" has that and more starting now.