Return to Transcripts main page

Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

President Obama Nominates New Joint Chiefs Chairman; ISIS Claims Shooting; Recognizing Radicals. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired May 05, 2015 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00] BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: From typhoon relief in the Philippines to fighting Ebola in west Africa and strengthening our security alliances from Europe to Asia and every step that you have been critical to our processes and I have valued not only your counsel, but your friendships.

At the same time, Marty and Sandy have helped to guide our forces through difficult fiscal times, especially sequestration. They've stayed focused on readiness and training and modernization and today there are also more opportunities for women in our armed forces who are tackling the outrage of sexual assault, which has no place in our ranks. We've made progress in large part because leaders like Marty and Sandy have made sure we're recruiting and training and equipping and retain the best fighting force on the planet. I look forward to honoring Marty and Sandy and thanking them more fully to their extraordinary contributions to our nation.

There are other things we're going to miss. We're going to miss Marty's incomparable singing voice. He will not be singing today. But I'm going to put my request in early for a final number at your farewell. But on behalf of myself, our entire national security team and our armed forces, thank you. And to Deanie and to Mary, we are grateful for your family's service.

My choice for the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Joe Dunford, is one of the most admired officers in our military. A native of Boston, Joe is the very definition of Boston strong. The son of a retired Boston police officer and Marine veteran of Korea, Joe followed in his father's footsteps and has distinguished himself through nearly 40 years of military service. He's commanded Marines in the field from the platoon level to a Marine expeditionary force. During the invasion of Iraq, he led Marines in the charge to Baghdad.

Given his combat experience, I was proud to nominate Joe as the commander of American coalition forces in Afghanistan. I've had a chance to work with him. I have been extraordinarily impressed by Joe from the situation room where he helped to shape our enduring commitment to Afghanistan, to my visit last year to Baghram where I saw his leadership firsthand.

I know Joe. I trust him. He's already proven his ability to give me his unvarnished military advice based on his experience on the ground. Under his steady hand, we've achieved key milestones, including the transition to Afghan responsibility for security, historic Afghan elections and the drawdown of U.S. forces, setting the stage for our combat mission there.

Joe's a proven leader of our joint force, including our troops in Afghanistan, who he served Christmas dinner to. He's one of our military's most highly regarded strategic thinkers. He's known and respected by our allies, by members of Congress on both side of the aisle, and b colleagues across our government. He's also tireless. His staff has been known to carry around a voice recorder to keep up with his commands and new ideas.

He just began his service as commandant of his believed Marine Corps. So, Joe, I appreciate your willingness to take on this new assignment. I think the only downside in my book is, as a White Sox fan, there is yet another Red Sox fan who I'm going to have to be dealing with. And I want to thank you and your wife Ellen for your continued service.

In General Paul Selva, we have a vice chairman with 35 years of military service as both a pilot and a commander. As leader of air mobility command, he earned a reputation as a force for change and innovation. I understand that when it was time to deliver the final C- 17 to the Air Force, Paul went to the cockpit and helped fly it himself. As head of transportation command, he's been committed to the partnerships that are a core principal of our national security strategy, whether it's supplying our joint force around the world, in operations large and small, to supporting and keeping safe our diplomats and embassy personnel overseas.

Paul also served as Secretary of State Clinton's military adviser for the first years of my presidency, so he grasps the strategic environment in which our forces operate. He understands that our military, as powerful as it is, is one tool that must be used in concert with all the elements of our national power. I should note that as a graduate of the Air Force Academy, Paul is especially grateful to the academy because it's there that he met his wife Ricki, who also served in the Air Force.

Paul and Ricki, thank you, both, for taking on this next chapter of your service together.

[12:05:07] Joe, Paul, we continue to call on our armed forces to meet a range of challenges. We have to keep training Afghan forces and remain relentless against al Qaeda. We have to push back against ISIL and strengthen forces in Syria and build moderate opposition in Syria. We have to stand united with our allies in Europe and keep rebalancing our posture as a Pacific power.

We have to keep investing in new capabilities to meet growing threats, including cyber attacks. So as commander in chief, I'll be looking to you for your honest military advice as we meet these challenges. As we do, we're also going to keep working with Congress on a more responsible approach to defense spending, including reforms in the department so we can preserve the readiness of our all-volunteer force, keep faith with our troops and our military families and care for our wounded warriors. This work we have to do together as a nation.

Again, to Joe, to Paul, to your families, on behalf of the American people, we thank you for your continued service to our nation. I urge our friends in the Senate, I know I won't have a problem with Jack Reed, who's sitting right here, to confirm these remarkable leaders without delay so we can stay focused on the work that unites us all as Americans, keeping our military strong, our nation secure, our citizens safe. Thank you very much.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: So there you have it. Get used to that face. That is General Joseph Dunford. He is going to replace the now familiar General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who after four years is stepping aside and making way for a new leader. No words from him, just the commander in chief. You can see they've had a good relationship up until now. We'll continue to watch this story because while it looks like it's a fait accompli, there is always that Senate confirmation. That's still live ahead.

Hello, everyone. I'm Ashleigh Banfield. Thanks so much for being with us and welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

We're covering a lot of news today and this starts it off. A lot of words come to mind regarding the two Arizona Muslims who opened fire outside of the Prophet Mohammed cartoon contest in Texas. ISIS calls the men soldiers and brothers. The group that calls itself Islamic State today claimed responsibility for that failed attack on an event that was designed to offend and was more than prepared for the trouble. Both shooters were shot dead by a police officer really before they did much than just reach the parking lot. Earlier, one of them had tweeted both men's allegiance to the terror group's leader and prayed to be accepted as, quote, "mujahedeen," holy warriors.

But today it is far from clear that American born Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi were directed by ISIS leaders abroad or had even been in touch with them. Our live coverage this hour stretches from Beirut to Phoenix to the Dallas suburb of Garland, coincidentally the birthplace of one of the attackers. And I want to start overseas with CNN's Nick Paton Walsh.

Nick, it's sort of a complicated idea to hear a terror group taking responsibility for something that was so incredibly failed. These people did nothing but get themselves killed.

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, but they did, in the minds of those who follow ISIS, show the potential for that ISIS ideology or branding to reach across and affiliate itself with attacks on the U.S. homeland.

Now, we know very little about whether there were any connections between ISIS leadership and those two gunmen in Garland, Texas, apart from a tweet, as you mentioned, that they put out before the attack. And then today, ISIS, on their official radio station, (INAUDIBLE), thought to be broadcasting out of northern Iraq, a pretty sparse statement in which they refer to two men as soldiers of the caliphate, as brothers, described what we learned from reading the mass media, that they were killed in an exchange of fire which wounded a security guard. But they go on to offer a stark warning against the United States saying that the defenders of the cross, the U.S. will have future attacks that are harsh and worse. The future is just around the corner.

That fits into a lot of ISIS hyperbole here, but it is missing this statement, those key intimate details you might think they'd have about the lives of those attackers, foreknowledge of the planning, that would provide evidence to investigators that they knew something was afoot before it happened. But it's key for the FBI and counterterror officials to assess if there is a chain of command between ISIS leadership and these two men because that's something they could potentially interdict in the future or they could be looking at potentially the more complex, chilling alternative here that these are simply lone wolves, drawn to ISIS ideology on the Internet, who carried this out without instructions.

[12:10:14] BANFIELD: All right, Nick, thank you for that, live from Beirut.

And I want to go to Phoenix now where Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi were sharing an apartment and also belonged to the same mosque. And friends and family are now absolutely mystified, they say, by their actions. My CNN colleague Kyung Lah is there.

Kyung, you just heard Nick Paton Walsh say that ISIS is calling these guys soldiers of the caliphate, although they don't see to know much else or anything really about them. And you've been talking to people who are close to these men. What are you finding out?

KYUNG LAH, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, let's start with Elton Simpson. He's the one we know most about. And we've recently come across these yearbook photos. And I want you to take a look at these because they really show what a typical American upbringing he had. The pictures show that he's an avid athlete. He was the captain of his basketball team in high school. He grew up in a typical suburban community here in Phoenix. He seemed to have a very typical life in high school. Investigators are now tracing his path, trying to figure out how he went from this to a life of radicalism and violence.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAH (voice-over): Neighbors in their apartment complex saw nothing outwardly alarming from the two roommates, except one of the men, Elton Simpson, put his car up for sale.

ARIEL WHITLOCK, NEIGHBOR: I'm getting goose bumps thinking about it right now.

LAH: Ariel Whitlock exchanged texts with Simpson.

WHITLOCK: You don't think like maybe he's just going to go plot something and you're giving the money to help him go plot something.

LAH: But he changed his mind, instead driving it to Texas. Shortly before opening fire, Simpson tweeted an oath of allegiance to Amirul Mu'mineen, a pseudonym for the leader of ISIS. But the first clues date back to a 2011 arrest, talking to an FBI informant over years court records show Simpson wanted to go to Somalia to fight, recorded on wiretaps saying, "if you get shot or you get killed, it's heaven straight away. Heaven, that's what we here for, so why not take that route?"

Nadir Soofi was the other gunman. A pizza shop owner and father to a young son says his mosque president. A Pakistani source with knowledge of the family tells CNN, when his parents divorced, he moved to Pakistan with his father, where he attended a prestigious private school in Islamabad. Soofi's grandmother tells CNN affiliate KPRC that he never felt persecuted for his religious beliefs and blames the other gunmen for instigating the crime.

SHIRLEY DROMGOOLE, SOOFI'S GRANDMOTHER: Whoever he was with talked him into it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's how you feel about it?

DROMGOOLE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, sir.

DROMGOOLE: There's no other way it would have happened.

LAH: Their plan, so secret that mosque President Usama Shami spent years with both men at services and never saw either as a threat.

USAMA SHAMI, PRES., ISLAMIC COMMUNITY CTR. OF PHOENIX: When that happens, it's just - it shocks you, you know, that - you know, how good did you know these people? That's a question that people ask themselves.

LAH: A question Elton Simpson's family is also asking. In a statement released Monday night, they write, "just like everyone in our beautiful country, we are struggling to understand how this could happen."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAH: There is a lot of confusion in that statement and you can hear it through those words. A family struggling to understand and that is really felt across this community, Ashleigh. A lot of people wondering, were the clues there and did they just miss them?

Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Our Kyung Lah reporting live for us, thank you for that.

Now to the scene of the foiled attack, Garland, Texas. That's where my colleague, CNN's Ed Lavandera is standing by and has been working this story since it started.

So, Ed, these two men certainly aren't going to be able to provide much information. They can't be integrated. They are dead. But the investigation is still very robust. What are they finding out and where is it taking them?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, a lot of the heavy lifting and the focus is really on the planning and how the stages and how it brought them to this point, this civic center here in Garland, Texas. We can show you now that much of this road has now opened up to traffic once again. Where you see those orange cones, that was the entrance into the civic center and that is where everything came to a halt. The two gunmen were brought down by the security officers that were on the perimeter of this building.

And, Ashleigh, as you can see, they didn't even make it into the parking lot of the building. A good at least 200 yards away. That's the way this situation here was designed, given the controversial nature of what was happening here Sunday night and the cartoon contest, they knew it was going to be controversial, they had planned for months the security precautions around that and that's why you saw that initial layer of security on the perimeter of the building. There was also a SWAT team in the back of the building that reacted as well as soon as the shots were fired. But much of the focus now is on what exactly brought these two men here and how it was all planned.

Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Well, let's hope they left a very robust online presence to help investigators out. Ed Lavandera live for us in Garland, Texas, thank you for that.

[12:15:07] Coming up next, ISIS inspired or simply randomly homegrown terror? Or was the Texas attack something in between. How worried should we be about more of these and should we expect the next one to be much worse?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: I think it's fair to say we can all be thankful the terror attack on Sunday in a convention hall in a Dallas suburb was stopped before it really even got started. The gunmen will never again pose a threat to anyone, but today there are still a lot of questions out there. Were Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi acting on any orders from ISIS or were they simply trying to impress ISIS leaders they kind of read about?

Joining me with some insights are CNN counterterrorism analyst and former CIA official Phil Mudd, and also Michael Weiss, who's a fellow at the Institute of Modern Russia and he's also the co-author of "ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror."

So first to you, Michael, if I could, why would a group of ISIS want to jump out in front of all of this and say, it was us.

MICHAEL WEISS, CO-AUTHOR, "ISIS: INSIDE THE ARMY OF TERROR": Yes.

BANFIELD: It's our stupid, bad, bungled, dumb, cannon fodder plan? What does that gain them?

WEISS: We'll take it in the other direction. So this Keystone Cops sort of abortive terrorist attack takes place. It's interrupted. The two guys are shot. But they leave a paper trail of saying, we want to be mujahedeen. We pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, the commander of the faithful. If ISIS were to then repudiate them and say, sorry, we don't accept morons into the ranks of the holy caliphate, that would put a damper on further recruitment.

[12:20:17] BANFIELD: How about just don't say anything?

WEISS: Well, they have -

BANFIELD: How about just don't claim the bad ones?

WEISS: Oh, they have - they have to say something because they can't just pretend this didn't happen. I mean, look, there's another (INAUDIBLE) component to this or subtext if you like. We were all talking about an abortive potential terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Even though it went miserably wrong from the ISIS point of view, the fact that we're sitting here talking about it, the fact that ISIS is saying, you see, this is what we've always said, we will do it again, it will be ten times worse, it will be successful, that's the goal. They want to control the western news cycle about how they're portrayed.

BANFIELD: So -

WEISS: So they're trying to spin it and give it the best possible gloss that they can.

BANFIELD: So, Phil Mudd, jump in on this conversation because -

PHIL MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: Yes.

BANFIELD: Quite frankly, it would seem to me that a lot of the lone wolf activity that we've been talking about for the last year or so has been a lot of bungling fools, idiots, who seem to have an online presence and not a whole lot more. So if ISIS is looking to scare the living daylights out of all of us, should we really be so scared of these morons?

MUDD: Well, look, from their perspective, let me start with it, I agree with Michael, this was not a bungled plot. If you're ISIS, you want people to start to believe. People who are on the fringes of Islam who believe in their - their method of violence. You want those people to start to believe, I have a personal responsibility to carry this fight forward. And regardless of whether my attack succeeds or not, I've got to get out there and do something like this because otherwise I'm a coward.

So you look at this as a bungled plot in Texas. I look at this and say, this is going to lead other people to say, wow, I'm embarrassed that I haven't done anything like this. I've never met an ISIS person, but I want to carry something out. This was not bungled. It was a plot that didn't succeed. And that's a different question.

BANFIELD: So I'm just going to - well, I'm going to take the counter- point here. I mean to me a bungled plot is two guys who aimed to do harm -

MUDD: Yes.

BANFIELD: Took lead in the head before they affected anything - MUDD: Yes.

BANFIELD: And ultimately - I'll get you in on this, Michael - how does that help recruitment because now anybody who's out there seeing this thinks, wait a minute, is this what's in store for me when I try to be a holy hero?

WEISS: Yes.

BANFIELD: Am I really just this cannon fodder?

WEISS: Well, let me give you an example a little further away from home. There was an Australian teenager who went off to join ISIS. And there was a big deal made about his recruitment and his radicalization. He had a blog talking about his experience being converted by the brothers into the sort of jihadist mode. He died in a suicide bombing in Iraq that was completely another damp - busted flush, whatever you want to call it. Did not have his name written into the stars as a great Salahadin (ph) warrior. In his mind, though, he became a martyr. He did his holy service. He did his duty. And in the minds of the ISIS guys, this is exactly the model you should replicate.

Remember, it doesn't matter - the propaganda is, it doesn't matter what happens here on the temporal plane, it's what happens in the afterlife that counts. And again, here we have two American-born or we suspect American-born, you know, Muslims in the United States who are radicalized, who are inspired. Again, they didn't go over to Raqqah or Mosul and get, you know, terrorism training. They were just inspired by ISIS ideology and propaganda. And, yes, I mean, this didn't go according to their plan. But still, I mean, if you're in Texas, you're scared now that people could be blowing you up or taking assault rifle into a school or something.

BANFIELD: Phil Mudd, I want to just ask you about some that some of the folks who knew these two described them as. And Kyung Lah was great in her reporting. She said they were gentle and normal. And I guess my question to you is, for those who are responsible for doing homegrown surveillance on people who could be radicalized to the point of becoming lone wolves, how on earth is anyone supposed to follow or even put surveillance, very expensive surveillance, on people who are gentle and normal. If they're not screaming it from a mosque and raising red flags, how are you supposed to defend against this?

MUDD: Boy, we talk a lot about community involvement. I think it's important periodically, I've seen cases where somebody strips off from the community. Those are the people you want to watch. It's not necessarily that the community says that's a bad guy. They just say, something odd is going on.

More often, though, and I've seen this across America, for example, kids, first generation kids from Somali families in Minneapolis going over to Somali to fight 10 years ago, the moms didn't know, the parents didn't know. So I think this is pretty common to see these cases where somebody emotionally can compartmentalize what they're doing. They persuaded. And it's important that there are two of them. They're persuading each other, convincing each other that this is right and they're telling each other we can't let on to the rest of the community because they'll call the feds. Pretty common. And as you say, if you're trying to find these people, you've got to look potentially for a digital trail. Communication on Facebook, communication with ISIS guys, because without a digital trail, two guys in a basement, you're not going to find them in America.

BANFIELD: Well, sometimes the very thing that makes them powerful and the social media is their Achilles heel as well because they leave a nice little digital trail for investigators.

WEISS: Yes, that's right.

BANFIELD: Phil Mudd, thank you. Michael Weiss, thank you. Always good to have you come back, both of you.

WEISS: Thank you.

BANFIELD: Appreciate it.

[12:25:022] People at his mosque, as you heard, described one of these Garland, Texas, gunmen as nice and gentle, calling it a real shocker that he would do such a thing. So how do you spot the potential terrorist? Phil just addressed it. But next up, I'm going to ask a reformed jihadists his opinion.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BANFIELD: So it's an opportune question to ask, how do you know a radicalized terrorist when you see one? Could you be working next to one? Is it a next door neighbor? Because people who knew Elton Simpson, was one of the men killed in the Texas cartoon contest attack, say that he was a good guy, that they never expected anything like this from him. So I guess you never know. Or do you?

Mubin Shaikh joins me now live from Toronto. He himself is a former jihadist and former counterterrorism operative.

Mubin, what's great about this opportunity to talk to you is that you've just returned from a seminar in Abu Dhabi called "Inside the Mind of a Jihadist." So help me out here. If the person is not seething foam from his fangs, how are you supposed to know that the guy is plotting, that he's dangerous and that you need to make a call to the FBI?

MUBIN SHAIKH, FORMER JIHADIST: Well, first of all, it's very difficult to know exactly who's going to do what and at what time. I mean some people deliberately hide the signs and others they generally don't advertise that these are the views or this is what they believe. There are signs that you can look at, but you can't take only one sign by itself. You have to look at a totality of things, sudden change in religious practice, declaring, of course, loyalty, publicly declaring loyalty to ISIS, saying that I give my (INAUDIBLE) to so-and-so. That's a pretty strong indicator.

[12:30:05] Of course, the hateful rhetoric that you hear on Twitter, I mean that's all the time. The U.K. has a term now called spontaneous violent extremists who, I mean