Return to Transcripts main page

Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Russia Launches Airstrikes; Afghan Forces Fight Taliban. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired September 30, 2015 - 12:00   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:00:15] ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, I'm Ashleigh Banfield, and welcome to LEGAL VIEW.

We begin with two breaking stories in the Middle East. First, Russia has launched its first air strike in Syria. And here's what we know about it. The bombs hit near the western city of Homs, which is not considered an ISIS stronghold. An Obama administration official is telling CNN that ISIS was not the target. This as Russia's foreign minister says the strikes were launched after a request by Syrian President Bashar al Assad.

In the meantime, our other breaking story is in Afghanistan. Thousands of people running from their homes in the northern city of Kunduz. Afghan forces struggling to try to retake a key city there from the Taliban militants. U.S. forces have conducted air strikes and NATO special forces are also assisting, but a shortage of ground troops is what's a problem here. We're told at least 43 people have been killed in the fighting, more than 300 others have been wounded.

I want to bring in our experts now to discuss both of these breaking stories, CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr. And let's start with Syria and the Russian strike. What's the reaction from U.S. officials, Barbara?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Ashleigh.

A lot of consternation at the Pentagon, but let me begin with this. Our own Oren Lieberman in Israel now reporting that the Israeli government was notified by the Russians shortly before the air strikes. The Israelis told by the Russians that they were about to conduct bombing runs inside Syria. Of course, the Israelis keep close watch over that portion of the eastern Mediterranean. The Israelis wants to know everything that is in the air for their own security.

We are now told that it was eight Russian warplanes that took off bombing a number of targets in western central Syria. This is an area that is not an ISIS area, as you just said. This is an area where anti-Assad, anti-regime militias are battling the Assad government. So this goes to what the Pentagon had been worried about, what the U.S. had been worried about for days, that the Russian military buildup was really aimed at the Russians supporting Assad and propping him up and keeping him in power, exactly what the Obama administration did not want to see.

But deeper than that even, the Pentagon not very happy this morning. It was just a couple of days ago, of course, that President Obama and President Putin said the two militaries would sit down and have talks, technical talks, about how they would de-conflict their operations over Syrian air space. And, instead, a Russian general essentially went and banged on the door of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad this morning and said, get out of Syrian air space, we're about to bomb. That was the extent of the Russian discussion about de-confliction. And the U.S. very much making the point U.S. pilots are still in the air.

Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: And just to be, you know, clear for our viewers, de- confliction, the issue of not running into one another while fighting in the same territory. This, a critical problem between the Americans, the coalition forces and the Russians.

Let me skip over for a moment. I'm going to have a lot more conversation about this issue in Syria. Clearly this is a massive development today, Barbara. But then, again, in Afghanistan, I don't think a lot of people were expecting to hear that the Taliban were taking cities, least of all a city like Kunduz. And the descriptions that are coming in, I mean it is almost like a ghost town according to our sources, people running for their lives, people dying in the streets, anybody else who's there literally locking themselves indoors. Tell me what's happening with regard to the American response to this.

STARR: Well, there has been another air strike near the airport. We are told that the U.S. - a U.S. warplane bombed a target near the Kunduz Airport because coalition forces, which are not Afghans under the military definition there, so it's either U.S. or other coalition forces, were at risk from the Taliban advance.

Now, some officials are saying that the Afghans are finally in recent hours making some progress, getting key portions of the city back under control. If that proves to be something that Afghans can hold on to, nonetheless, some 6,000 Afghan civilians on the run from the Taliban. The Taliban digging into civilian areas of the city. More than 100 people killed or wounded. It's beginning to sound an awful lot like when ISIS takes over in Iraq. So the problem is getting enough Afghan forces up there into this remote area of northern Afghanistan to get security back under control and hold on to it. That is always the challenge, holding on to it.

[12:05:06] But again, for U.S. troops, what's the implication? Some 10,000 U.S. troops are in Afghanistan. Most of them were scheduled to come home sometime next year. But, look, if the Taliban can make these kinds of advances, it's going to raise some serious questions about whether the Afghan security forces really are ready to handle it all on their own.

Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: And maybe - maybe more importantly at this juncture, though, right now, you just mentioned that coalition forces were concerned that they were at risk from the Taliban advance. What about those Americans? Are they at risk at this point, Barbara?

STARR: Well, what you have in Afghanistan, in places like this, are small teams of U.S. special operations forces who are out there indeed helping advise and assist Afghan forces. You don't have those large U.S. combat brigades, battalions, you know, hundreds of troops at a time anymore. So absolutely this is very difficult, very dangerous work.

But what they do have is the ability to do what apparently they did, which is call in the airstrikes when they feel they are at risk and push the Taliban back. But it's still the fundamental question of the Afghans being able to get security under control and keep it under their control.

BANFIELD: All right.

STARR: So the Taliban don't keep popping up, like they did here.

Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Yes. Barbara Starr, thank you for that reporting. We'll continue to touch base with you throughout the hour as well and CNN's continued reporting too. Barbara Starr at the Pentagon.

In the last hour, Senator John McCain addressed the Russian air strike on Syria while speaking on the Senate floor. Have a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: Russian's intervention in Syria will prolong and complicate this horrific war, and the main beneficiary will be ISIL, which has fed off of the ethnic and sectarian divisions fostered by the Assad regime. It is tragic. It is tragic, my fellow Americans, that we have reached this point, a Syrian conflict that has killed more than 200,000 people, created the worst refugee crisis in Europe since World War II, spawned a terrorist army of tens of thousands, and now created a platform for a Russian autocrat to join with an Iranian theocrat to prop up a Syrian dictator.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: Those words just spoken in the last little while by Senator John McCain.

With me to discuss this now, CNN military analyst, retired Major General James "Spider" Marks, and CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruikshank.

Paul, first to you. The Russian defense ministry spokesperson, who was releasing sort of the information of the air strikes, is suggesting on the official record that they were going after ISIS military equipment, communications centers, vehicles and ammunition in Homs. What's wrong with this picture?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Well, ISIS isn't thought to have a significant presence in Homs, so we'll have to see who exactly they were targeting?

BANFIELD: Who does?

CRUICKSHANK: Other groups, other rebel groups, it's possible the Russians were targeting them. They're trying to shore up the Assad regime. And it's other groups, not ISIS, which are the biggest threat to the Assad regime.

BANFIELD: And what about the notion that this is only about 60 miles away from the Russian port Tartuse (ph). I'm trying to remember the name of it but -

MAJ. GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Lokia (ph).

BANFIELD: The significance of this possibly being a corridor for the Russians to establish some kind of a foothold in Syria, is that so off base?

CRUICKSHANK: Well, they're trying to protect their interest there. They do have this very important naval presence. A naval presence on the Mediterranean over there.

BANFIELD: Tartuse (ph) (INAUDIBLE) Tartuse (ph).

CRUICKSHANK: So the last thing they want is for the Assad regime to crumble. And so this is one of their calculations here, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: So, you know, Barbara has been reporting all morning this lunatic story of a general who just marched into the embassy in Baghdad to announce, you've got one hour, Americans, to either get your warplanes out of Syria or risk, you know, what we don't want, and the de-confliction issue becomes massive. The de-confliction being, we may run into one another in the sky. I thought that sounded crazy. But you're a general. You've been on the ground. Have you seen this kind of notification before? Is this odd?

MARKS: No, it - it really depends. But I tell you, Ashleigh, this is not unusual for the Russians. First of all, there's very little delegation of authorities and responsibilities down to some of those lower levels, like the captains and the majors, who really make things happen. And so for a general officer to come in and say and to assert, declare, this is what we're going to do, you guys get in line, and then depart, do an about face and depart really is not surprising. I would assume there were probably some diplomatic communication, maybe not, but that by itself is not surprising. What is surprising is that what we haven't been able to do yet is draw a line, an air de- confliction line at the very tactical level, as you've described, so things don't fly into each other, where they leave from one piece of air space and then fly over into another.

[12:10:01] BANFIELD: But the Americans did not capitulate. MARKS: No.

BANFIELD: They did not suggest, you know what, we'll clear the air for you for your one hour of air strikes. So reasonably thinking, coalition fighters may have been in the sky, may have been targeting and one arm might not have known what the other arm was doing.

MARKS: Probably didn't. Probably did not other than what was - you were able to assess while your - you know, actually in a mission. There was no de-confliction that took place in advance. There was no sharing of intelligence. There was no command and control.

BANFIELD: Let me interrupt you for -

MARKS: Sure.

BANFIELD: Only for this. The secretary, John Kerry, who's speaking live right now at the United Nations. Let's listen in.

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: Areas where ISIL and al Qaeda affiliated targets are now operating - are not operating. Strikes of that kind would question Russia's real intentions fighting ISIL or protecting the Assad regime. Now, we have informed Russia that we are prepared to hold these de-confliction talks as early as possible, this week. But let me be clear, the United States and the coalition will continue our ongoing air operations, as we have from the very beginning. We have conducted a number of strikes against ISIL targets in Syria over the past 24 hours, including just an hour ago, and these strikes will continue.

Let me be clear, the coalition that we have built more than 60 countries' strong has been taking on ISIL for more than a year by liberating Sinjar Mountain, liberating Kobani, liberating Tikrit, where now more than 100,000 residents have been able to return to their homes and resume their lives, defending Mosul dam, defending Haditha, protecting Baghdad, rescuing endangered minorities, killing ISIL leaders and facilitators and taking away the entire northern border of Syria for ISIL east of the Euphrates River. At the same time, we have mounted a comprehensive campaign to cut terrorist financing, curb recruitment of foreign fighters and expose the lies that ISIL is perpetrating.

Today as we speak, south of Kirkuk, Kurdish Peshmerga are heroically liberating villages from ISIL under the cover of coalition air strikes. In addition, we continue to admire the courage and the resilience that has been demonstrated for four long years of struggle by the legitimate opposition to Assad.

Let me remind this council that coalition air operations are ground in well-established military procedures, firmly based in international law, and the requests of neighboring states for collective self- defense under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter. That foundation has not changed, and we will continue our mission with the full sanction of international law.

Pursuant to these procedures in Syria over the past year, the coalition is now conducted nearly 3,000 air strikes against ISIL targets and we are now in position with France, Australia, Canada, Turkey and other coalition partners joining the campaign to dramatically accelerate our efforts. This is what we will do.

Over the coming weeks we will be continuing our flights out of Incirlik Base in Turkey to apply constant pressure on strategic areas held by ISIL in northwest Syria. We will also be sustaining our support to anti-ISIL fighters in northeast Syria. These efforts will put greater pressure on ISIL's operational areas and we will ensure through precision air strikes that ISIL leaders do not have any sanctuary anywhere on the ground in Syria.

So ISIL will soon face increasing pressure from multiple directions across the battlefield in Syria and Iraq. But as we have said from the start, and as the Geneva Communique codified, this fight cannot be won in the military sphere. It will require a political solution to the crisis of Syria. One thing is certain, the vast majority of states around this table know that the ISIL forces, ISIL itself, cannot be defeated as long as Bashar al Assad remains president of Syria. It cannot happen by definition of the lines of this battle. It cannot happen because of who has lined up with whom, and because of the nature of these protagonists.

And the reason for that is defined in the beginning by how this fight, itself, began. This fight began when young people, young Syrians, looking for a future, wanting nothing more than opportunity and jobs and education, when they went out to demonstrate for the future, and to claim the aspirations of young people, and Assad sent his thugs out to beat them up. The parents were outraged by the fact that their children. demonstrating peacefully. were beaten up, and they went out with their kids, and they were met with bullets.

[12:15:21] That is how this whole thing began, people in the country looking for a future who were instead met with repression, with torture, with gassing, with barrel bombs. Assad will never be accepted by those that he has harmed. Never possible to become a legitimate leader in the future. Never possible to lead a reconciliation nor a unification of a country. That could not happen until he makes clear his willingness to actually heal the nation, end the war, and decline to be part of the long term future.

Today, we must be focused in finding a solution that will stop the killing and lay the groundwork for a government that the Syrian people, themselves, can support. We know that the terrorists can neither unite the country nor govern it. We know that Assad can neither unite the country nor govern it. Neither extreme offers the solution that we need and want.

What is more, our ability to develop a credible international political process would be a farce from the beginning, incredible enough that it won't stop people from fighting if it were perceived as a way to extend or strengthen Assad's hold on power. As President Obama said on Monday, the United States is prepared to work with any nation, including Russia and Iran, to resolve the conflict, but we must recognize that there cannot be, after so much bloodshed, so much carnage, a simple return to the pre-war status quo. My colleagues, the government of Russia has argued that we must

support Assad in order to defeat ISIL. But the reality is that Assad has rarely chosen himself to fight ISIL. As the terrorists made inroads throughout large swathes of Syria and Iraq, raping, enslaving and murdering civilians along the way, the Syrian regime didn't try to stop them. Instead, it focused all of its military power on moderate opposition groups who were fighting for a voice in Syria.

Make no mistake, the answer to the Syrian civil war cannot be found in a military alliance with Assad, but I am convinced that it can be found. It can be found through a broadly supportive diplomatic initiative aimed at a negotiated political transition, a transition that has been accepted by the Security Council, accepted by participants of the Perm 5 (ph), consistent with the Geneva communique which would unite all Syrians who reject dictatorship and terrorism and want to build a stable and united society.

So in conclusion, I call on all concerned governments, including Russia, including Syria, to support a U.N. initiative to broker a political transition. Further delay is unconscionable. The opportunity is before us. And if we can succeed in marginalizing the terrorists in Syria and in bringing that country together, we can, all of us together, do exactly what this was set up to do, the Security Council and this institution, we could strike a huge blow against violent extremism, not only in Syria, also in Iraq, across the Middle East and around the world, and nothing would be more in keeping with the high purpose for which this council was created 70 years ago, and nothing would better serve the interests of the people that all of us represent. I hope that we can achieve that.

Thank you.

BANFIELD: The United States Secretary of State John Kerry at the Security Council meeting of the United Nations saying quite definitively, ISIS cannot be defeated with President Assad at the helm in Syria. Pretty significant words and more coming from the secretary of state. After the break, the chief international correspondent of CNN, Christiane Amanpour, is going to weigh in with the perspective and significance of what you just heard.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:23:16] BANFIELD: With one hour's notice, literally one hour's notice, the Americans were told by a Russian general in Baghdad, clear the skies, clear your aircraft out of Syria, we're starting air strikes in that country. Ostensibly the announcement as to go after ISIL, but do you see that star at home, that's effectively where those air strikes happened, an area where ISIL is not known to operate. The secretary of state, John Kerry, just a few moments ago at the National Security Council meeting at the United Nations saying this about the air strike.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: If Russia's recent actions and those now ongoing reflect a genuine commitment to defeat that organization, then we are prepared to welcome those efforts, and to find a way to de-conflict our operation and thereby multiply the military pressure on ISIL and affiliated groups. But we must not, and will not be confused in our fight against ISIL with support for Assad. Moreover, we have also made clear that we would have grave concerns should Russia strike areas where ISIL and al Qaeda-affiliated targets are now operating - are not operating.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: The secretary of state just moments ago.

Joining me now to try to hash out the significance of these comments, Christiane Amanpour, the chief international correspondent of CNN and host of "Amanpour" on CNN International.

It's not like I haven't heard this tough rhetoric before or variations of it, but there is significance to this today. The Russians have taken over the leadership of the Security Council for the month of September. Is there any coincidence to this, specifically with what's happened today?

[12:25:00] CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ashleigh, it is really quite dramatic. You know, from day one of the new Russian plan for Syria, they have come out of the box and they have struck targets that everybody is saying, including members of the Obama administration telling CNN, that this is not a strategic strike against ISIS, but more likely against the anti-Assad, including the moderate opposition, including those who have been supported, armed and trained by the United States. That is what an administration official is telling CNN. It is also what the Syrian opposition is telling us. They're telling us and they're telling other reporters that the Russians are killing our people, you've got to help us. That is what's happening right now.

So, to confirm what the suspicions amongst American military and political officials, including the secular (ph), the head of NATO, about what Russia is doing inside Syria, (INAUDIBLE) General Philip Breedlove said that he doesn't see any of the Syrian - the Russian movements into Syria pertaining to ISIS. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PHILIP BREEDLOVE, NATO SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER: We see some very sophisticated air defenses going into these airfields. We see some very sophisticated air to air aircraft going into these airfields. I have not seen ISIL flying any airplanes that require SA-15s or SA-22s. I have not seen ISIL flying any airplanes that require sophisticated air-to-air capabilities. These very sophisticated air defense capabilities are not about ISIL, they're about something else.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Wow. Well, Ashleigh, that couldn't be clearer. I don't know about you, General Marks -

MARKS: Oh, absolutely. AMANPOUR: That could not be clearer. What Russia is doing is not going after ISIS. Russia is going in to prop up Assad despite the very vehement condemnation, the vehement condemnation of Assad by the secretary of state, by President Obama. Russia is going in to prop up that regime.

BANFIELD: So the first concern that comes to mind with anti-aircraft installations now being moved in by the Russians is, who are they pointing those at?

MARKS: I would say that they are probably pointing - their story will be, it's there to provide area denial in case somebody were to come after their aircraft that were on the ground in advance of a mission. That's the story that they would use. Clearly what this does is this puts a bubble over their capabilities to act with complete impunity and to conduct air operations with support from the ground were they in anticipation of something else coming after them.

BANFIELD: While asking at the same time for, you know, conversation about de-confliction, pointing guns up to the sky.

Paul Cruickshank, what kind of air assault capacity do the rebels have? I'm not talking ISIS, I'm talking rebels.

AMANPOUR: Nothing.

CRUICKSHANK: Well, as Christiane says -

AMANPOUR: Sorry.

BANFIELD: Who are they pointing the guns at then? IF they're not pointing them at the rebels and they're not pointing those air - anti- aircraft batteries at - at - at ISIS, isn't the coalition the only sets of planes in the sky?

CRUICKSHANK: Well, it certainly sort of raises that possibility. I think one of the biggest possible unintended consequences of this Russian intervention may be a surge in anger across the Muslim world. There's a lot of raw feeling still about the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan, about Russian atrocities in Chechnya. Now the Russians are going in to prop up Assad. I think you could see a surge in the number of foreign fighters. Already a House committee yesterday saying 25,000 foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq. Those numbers may now spike. This could really play into the hands of ISIS and other terrorist groups.

BANFIELD: We're now - we're not being told that the secretary of defense, clearly at this is all - a lot of moving parts, the secretary of defense, Ash Carter, plans to take to the podium and address the public at 2:00 p.m.

AMANPOUR: Just before he does, Ashleigh, if he's not on, just another thing about this de-confliction. The U.S. may have got one hour notice. France, which is also fighting, you know, firing from fighter jets over Syria, got no notice. Only Israel and the United States got notice. BANFIELD: Israel and the United States.

AMANPOUR: The other coalition members did not.

MARKS: They were wise to notify Israel.

AMANPOUR: Yes.

MARKS: Israel will abide none of this.

AMANPOUR: Yes. Yes.

MARKS: If there was any intent that seemed threatening to the Israelis, every - they would go - they would go after it.

BANFIELD: Aircraft they don't recognize next door, right?

MARKS: Absolutely.

BANFIELD: And Homs is not far from the Israeli border.

MARKS: Not at all. No, (INAUDIBLE).

AMANPOUR: And, Ashleigh, the tragedy of this is, despite again the heroic rhetoric from the president and from the secretary of state about, you know, Assad's, you know, wrongdoings, which include, obviously, 250,000 deaths, hundreds of millions of people like that, refugees leaving, you know, they have said, well, we could only stand up five moderate rebels to fight on the ground. And they say, well, look, that shows that you're all wrong, all you critic are wrong.

Well, the truth of the matter is, that those rebels have told CNN that the reason why there are so few of them being trained up is because the United States refuses to train those who want to go after Assad, and will only train those who will only fight ISIL. So two very conflicting, strategic desires amongst the rebels and the U.S.

BANFIELD: Yes. And very significant.

[12:30:09] MARKS: And it drives up your recruitment pool real quickly.

BANFIELD: And you have made this point, it not only