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Boko Haram Pledges Allegiance to ISIS; Dempsey Arrives in Iraq; The New Apple Watch; Clinton to Address E-Mail Controversy in Next 48 Hours; Co-Creator of "The Simpsons" Passes Away; Handwritten Letter of Michelangelo Stolen in the Vatican

Aired March 09, 2015 - 15:30   ET

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

ANA CABRERA, CNN ANCHOR: First, I want to get your take on this move, this so-called allegiance by Boko Haram. What is their motivation?

J. PETER PHAM, ATLANTIC COUNCIL: Well, Ana, this is a marriage, if you will, that has been in the makes for some time.

The two have been courting each other. There have been shout-outs in social media and in their video productions. So, this is a long time in coming. And, right now, the timing is perfect for both groups.

Boko Haram, for the first time in its history, is facing serious military pressure from Nigeria and other African countries that is whittling back the territory that it has managed to seize and hold for so long. ISIS is facing pressure from the Kurdish forces, as well as Iraqi government forces backed by Iran. So they're both needing a propaganda boost of fill up of some kind and this expansion of ISIS into the heart of Africa provides at to the just that right time.

CABRERA: I think it's really interesting that this is not the first time though that Boko Haram is tried to align with other terrorist organizations, previously tried to align with Al Qaeda. But you say Boko Haram and ISIS seem to be a better fit?

PHAM: They are because Boko Haram's indiscriminate brutal strategy has horrified even surprising as that may be, even some of the Al Qaeda affiliates in Africa, which have put their distance between themselves and Boko Haram. So Boko Haram pathological leader Abubakar Shekau is kidnapping of the school girls which made him infamous in the rest of the world but his slaughtered tens of thousands of Nigerians indiscriminate. And the film we have videos of executions. This is stuff right out of ISIS' playbook.

CABRERA: What about the power struggle with the two men at the helm of each of these organizations, I mean, could they really work together?

PHAM: Well, distance, I think will keep them from being at each other's throats. And for the moment, ISIS has the upper hand. Boko Haram is the one that's making the formal submission or allegiance to it. Now in the short term, Ana, this is not going to have immediate impact other than the propaganda that the Hugh derived from it. The real question is whether in the long-term as affiliate of ISIS, Boko Haram might become a place that foreign fighters, many of whom in Libya, other places in North Africa who are finding it harder to get to Syria and Iraq might choose to flock to instead.

CABRERA: That's an interesting thought, for sure. J. Peter Pham, thank you so much for your time.

PHAM: Thanks for having me.

CABRERA: Now, as I'm speaking to you, President Obama's top military adviser is on the ground in Iraq. This is General Martin Dempsey, the chair, the joint chief of staff. He just arrived today. And as you know, Iraq is trying to regain control of Tikrit, which ISIS overtook in June. Tikrit is the birthplace of over throne dictator Saddam Hussein.

And as General Dempsey, hits the ground there some pretty good news to celebrate hours ago, Iraq forces just said they liberated another city from ISIS.

Senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman is live in Baghdad for us. And Ben, before we get to General Dempsey, tell us about this win by Iraqi forces.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, these are Iraqi forces. We were with them today as they were launching this attack on the town of Al Alim, which is just east of Tikrit. And it appears that yet again they've been able to drive ISIS out of that area. And really, they've made a pretty impressive progress and basically three days they were able to take a stretch of about 50 miles of road leading to the eastern side of Tikrit. And what we saw today, we saw cars smoldering that had been hit by Iraqi aircraft. ISIS, one car, a truck that seemed to have a gun on the back was hit by an air strike. We saw three charred bodies around it.

ISIS has lit these oil fires around Tikrit in an attempt to make those air strikes more difficult. But they're going ahead as it is and when we were at the front line today, Ana, we did -- I did have an opportunity to actually speak to some of these Iranian advisers who are on the ground. They told me in broken Arabic that they were here to help the Iraqi army and it's task to defeat ISIS. And in fact, we heard words of praise from the commanders there on the frontlines for Iran saying that these -- that the Iraqis deeply thank Iran for its help and one commander told me it's better to have four Iranian advisers at the front line than 400 American advisers sitting in the green zone here in Baghdad. Ana.

CABRERA: Wow, that is really telling about the region and the dynamics there. I also am curious to hear more about what General Dempsey plans to do. What is his goal of this visit to Iraq?

WEDEMAN: I think more than anything else it's to perhaps remind that the Iraqis, that the Americans are indeed in the coalition itself an important part of this war. There's been a lot of talk during the Tikrit operation about the fact that there has been no coalition air cover for the forces going into there, and a lot of criticism but at the same time there have been hundreds, I think more than 2,000 coalition strikes on target in Iraq and Syria. The United States has a large training program here. They've either already trained or in the process of training more than 5,000 Iraqi troops.

And of course, the Americans are looking beyond Tikrit and they're looking at Mosul which is Iraq's second largest city, and they're eager to focus Iraqi officials' attention on that city, which of course, is much larger than Tikrit. It's going to be a much bigger effort to try to drive ISIS out of that city. So I think that's probably top on their -- high on the agenda of General Dempsey as he's meeting here with the Iraqi officials. Ana.

CABRERA: Right. Mosul is where we've heard ISIS go in and raid the banks and get all that money and get all that equipment where the soldiers put their arms down and fled. So looks like all eyes are on that city in terms of focusing for it. Ben Wedeman, thank you so much for the update.

All right. Let's talk about Apple. You've probably heard about the brand new product unveiled just moments ago. This new Apple watch, we'll show you how it works. And we'll talk about whether Tim Cook's first big product on his watch will be a hit. Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: Last hour, Apple CEO Tim Cook dished up some new details about the company's much anticipated Apple watch. The next tier device is Apple's first new product line in five years. It's also the first since Cook took over as CEO after Steve Jobs died back in 2011. And we got a sneak peek at the watch in September, of course, but gadget lovers, the whole world over had been anxiously waiting for more details. And today we got them! That wait ended. The most excited techie may be Tim Cook himself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIM COOK, APPLE INC. CEO: Apple watch is the most personal device we have ever created. It's not just with you, it's on you. With the built in speaker and microphone, you can receive calls on your watch! I have been wanting to do this since I was five years old! [ applause ] The day is finally here!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Not quite sure how that's going to work if you're holding up your arm to your ear all the time. But CNN's Dan Simon joining for me from San Francisco, also with us Roger Cheng the executive editor at CNET. Dan, let's start with you what were some of those other details revealed today?

DAN SIMON, CNN SILICON VALLEY CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all, Ana, I just got to play with one for several minutes. I tried it on and actually got to use that phone call feature. I can see how that can come in handy. Especially when it comes to short phone calls. But that was pretty neat.

I can tell you that one of the things that won me over was the ability to use your smart watch or the Apple watch as a room key at your hotel room. They partnered with Starwood hotels for their first round of apps. And so literally, you can walk up to your hotel room, point your watch at the door, and boom it opens! There's also an innovative app from Uber in terms of calling for your car.

But I think what everybody really wants to know if one of this is going to be available to go on sale and what's it's going to cost? So we can tell you that preorders are coming up -- sorry about that. This is live television. Preorders coming on April 10th, and you'll be able to buy one on April 24th.

Now what's it's going to cost, Ana? The entry-level version is going to go for $349 that's the aluminum version. Then there's a steel version for $549 and then the most expensive one is 10,000 that's for 18 karat gold. Ana.

CABRERA: Wow! $10,000 that's crazy! Thanks, Dan.

Roger, we know Samsung got out first.

ROGER CHENG, CNET EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Yes.

CABRERA: They got out with the first smart watch. Yet, that didn't really talk off. So how big a risk is this for Tim Cook and Apple?

CHENG: You know, it's not that big of a risk. For Apple, it's something, they absolutely needed to do. I mean, this is the company that still need to prove that there's a magical left there. Especially Tim Cook, because, you know, he's more of operations guy and not a product innovator. Having a part like this is really important.

CABRERA: Why do we need an Apple watch though?

CHENG: That, I think, the question that they've been trying to answer. I think the industry is trying to answer that. Because wearable is supposedly the hot market but no one has found a great use for it. I think, examples like the Starwood hotels, the ability to pay with the watch, open your car with it. I think, those are some of the features that might start turning heads. But it's still while it's still up in the air now.

CABRERA: But no GPS.

CHENG: No GPS though.

CABRERA: So how much could that hurt in terms of paying, you know, $300 up to $10,000 for this?

CHENG: You know, the GPS thing is more of a, I guess that's the fitness, it's more for hard core runners. And this seems to be more of like a lifestyle device. And for those --

CABRERA: For fashion, for --

CHENG: For fashion. Someone spending $10,000 or $15,000 on something like this. The lack of GPS is runner -- it's a status symbol, right.

CABRERA: Yes. I guess so. Well have to wait and see how successful it is. But thank you so much for offering your insight. We appreciate it.

Roger Cheng and Dan Simons, reporting.

Just ahead, we have rare letters from the man who painted the Sistine chapel offered up for sale. The only problem here is they were actually stolen years ago and now this is a ransom demand.

Plus, just into CNN we're learning when Hillary Clinton will address the e-mail controversy. That is though the right and the left piling on.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: It looks like Hillary Clinton has decided to speak out to explain why she used a private e-mail account in a home e-mail server while she was Secretary of State. We have it just in to CNN, a source telling us, Clinton could address this controversy in the next 48 hours.

CNN Chief Political Correspondent Gloria Borger, joining me now. Gloria, I know, you're talking to these sources, what more do you know?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, our own Brianna Keiler and Dan Merica said this morning that Hillary Clinton would address this controversy sometime soon. I just spoke with an additional source close to the Hillary Clinton camp who said that she may address it as soonest within 48 hours, all though the source refused to specify a date or time certain.

What we do know, Ana, is that the Clinton camp is really beginning to feel the heat from some people within their own party who came out over the weekend, like Senator Diane Feinstein and Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, today, coming out and saying, look, you know, she -- let's let her clear the air. She's got to do that and that so far the attempts through a tweet or other explanations via the state department or even the president have not really sort of explained this issue.

So my source says when the -- again, this is someone in the Clinton camp close to those people said, that look, when the explanation comes out it will be what the source called completely innocent.

CABRERA: Do you know more about how she's planning to frame all of this?

BORGER: No, we don't. We don't. I mean, the beginning of an explanation seems to be emerging if you put all the pieces together from my reporting as well as Brianna and Dan's reporting. What seems to be emerging is an explanation that there were two kinds of e-mail at the State Department, a classified e-mail and unclassified e-mail. Now, the question is whether Hillary Clinton's personal server has

anything to do with either of those other two e-mail accounts. My source says, that you know, a lot of times Hillary Clinton was traveling, the blackberry would not allow her to be on a classified e- mail chain because of course it's so antiquated you can't do it over the blackberry and that's probably something government needs to work on. So their explanation is that she used the classified system whenever it was appropriate for her to do so. So stay tuned for a forthcoming explanation from Hillary Clinton and her team.

CABRERA: It just seems like the waters get more muddy as opposed to becoming clearer. Hopefully we'll have more answers soon.

BORGER: Well, and this is why -- but this is why it -- her fellow Democrats are saying, look, it's time to just explain this. Because very often the simplest explanation is the easiest one to understand and the truest one to understand. So Democrats are saying to her, just tell the story as it played out.

CABRERA: Exactly. Thank you, Gloria Borger, we appreciate that.

BORGER: Sure.

CABRERA: Up next, handwritten letters from renaissance artist Michelangelo, stolen years ago could now be resurfacing. We'll tell you about a ransom offer of the Vatican got. Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CABRERA: Hollywood is mourning the loss of the co-creator of the landmark FOX TV series "The Simpsons." Sam Simon passed away in his Los Angeles home. He had been diagnosed with terminal colon cancer. His terrible (ph) group, the Sam Simon foundation announced just passing on the social media pages. Simon was a nine-time Emmy winner, who is also a writer for the sitcom "Taxi", "Cheers", and "It's Garry Shandling's Show'. He was just 59.

Four hundred fifty years after his death, renaissance artist Michelangelo appears to be the subject of a ransom case. The Vatican reportedly investigating a demand of more than 100,000 dollars for the return of letters, handwritten by the man who sculpted the David.

Now these letters were apparently taken nearly two decades ago. A Vatican Officials says, the letters went missing in 1997 but the Vatican never went public. The letters are priceless in part because they were penned by Michelangelo himself, which is the departure from his normal practice of dictating to an assistant.

Joining me now to discuss, CNN Senior Vatican Analyst and Author of "Francis Miracle" John Allen. Interesting, John. Are there any suspects right now?

JOHN ALLEN, CNN SENIOR VATICAN ANALYST: Apparently not, or if there are they have not been identified publicly. What we know is that this story originally broke in a Roman newspaper over the weekend called "il Messaggero". Which reported that a former Vatican employee, that's about all we know, is this is apparently a former Vatican employee somehow got his or her hands on these letters. And now as you say, almost two decades after the fact is trying to get paid off.

We should say that the Vatican has said publicly at least, steadfastly that it has no intention of paying for the return of these letters because of course the thefts of these kinds of documents is a crime and it doesn't want in this case, at least it doesn't want crime to pay.

CABRERA: Does anybody know why this demand is coming, again, two decades after the theft happened?

ALLEN: No. I mean that is to say, you know, presumably, these documents per lane (ph) in the late '90s have been sitting around some place. And whoever took them, was -- maybe they were part of somebody's rainy day fund. You know, if every -- if anything got terribly dire, they would go back to the Vatican and try to get a paycheck to bring these things back.

I will say this, this is one of those stories that perfectly illustrate a couple of seamier side of the internal culture of the Vatican. I mean, one is never air your dirty laundry in public and an issue say that the Vatican has only now acknowledged the theft to these letters two decades ago. And on the other is on the inside the system runs much more on trust than it's does on vigilance. I mean, you have to ask the question, how in the world could presumably a fairly low level Vatican employee make off with letters written by Michelangelo himself.

I think the answer is, once you're on the inside, there's relatively little in terms of internal control to prevent these kinds of thing. Now Pope Francis was elected on a reform mandate to pretty (ph) clean up the Vatican's management act. I suspect this is one aspect that it's now going to be getting a look by his team.

CABRERA: Finally, what do you know about the content of the letters?

ALLEN: Well we don't know much except that they were apparently stolen from the library of the La Fabrica de San Teorto which is the office inside the basilica of St. Peter's that actually oversees day to day management of the basilica. They did not come of the Vatican secret achieves or in the other hall deck (ph) which would suggest these are probably letters that have to do with the design of St. Peter's' Basilica. Remember, Michelangelo was brought in and he was the guy who conceived the cupola that is that magnificent dome that sits atop St. Peter's Basilica. And so presumably these letters had to do with some aspects of the design of the construction. In any case, these are original letters by Michelangelo. As you say, that are absolutely priceless.

CABRERA: Wow! John Allen, thank you so much for sharing with us. We appreciate it.

That's going to do it for me. Thank you so much for joining me. Hope your week is off to a great start on this Monday. We have "THE LEAD" with Jack Tapper, starting right now.