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Air Traffic Control Fire Halts Chicago Flights; Skepticism Lingers Regarding Arming Syrian Rebels; Britain To Vote On Joining ISIS Strikes

Aired September 26, 2014 - 10:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. We do begin with breaking news out of Chicago because this breaking news is affecting flights all over the country.

A fire at an FAA Air Traffic Control facility has brought all air traffic to a stop at Chicago's O'Hare and Midway Airports. Workers at the facility have been evacuated since 6:00 a.m. Central Time. At least one person was injured.

The FBI is currently on the scene investigating. The FAA says planes destined for Midway and O'Hare will not be allowed to depart until at least 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time.

Joining me now on the phone from Chicago is CNN's Ted Rowlands and from Charleston, South Carolina, CNN aviation analyst, Mary Schiavo. Ted, I want to start with you, 265 flights canceled at O'Hare. I bet it's really fun there this morning.

TED ROWLANDS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): And counting, Carol. Also at Midway, add that into the equation and it's a complete mess. You can imagine the look on everybody's faces at O'Hare as they stand in the rebooking lines at all of the different airline terminals and all the airlines, of course, got hit by this.

They didn't have the staff to handle this nightmare. Basically trying to rebook when you don't know when exactly flights will resume. The earliest, according to the FAA, is 11:00 Eastern, 10:00 Central. That's another hour here. It's just building and building and building.

As for that center in Aurora, Illinois, where it started. This is a fire, there were two injuries. One of them was a self-inflicted injury, apparently from an employee. It sounds like an a potential suicide attempt inside this facility about 40 miles away from Chicago, outside of Chicago and this is where the problem exists.

The FAA is going to plan "b," having other centers pick up the slack, but that's taking time and wearing on people's patience here at the airport.

COSTELLO: OK, well, that is a disturbing new development. Ted Rowlands, thank you very much.

Let's go to Mary Schiavo right now. You heard what Ted Rowlands said. You said last hour it took place in the bathroom in this air traffic control tower and now we hear Ted say something about suicide? What do you know?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, not much more than that. The first reports were that the fire emanated from a bathroom at the Aurora Center, which is not the -- not right at the airport.

This is what controls traffic going back and forth over and in and out of Chicago except at higher altitudes. So it wouldn't have been right on the airport property and the fire is supposedly emanating from the bathroom.

At first they thought it was a bathroom vent. A fan in the bathroom, but now apparently there are conflicting reports on what actually happened. But it did not emanate from the air traffic control equipment itself.

It wasn't a computer fire, it wasn't a screen fire, et cetera, but it's frustrating for the people so not only is this not something right on the airport, now it's really uncertain as to how soon they will be able to get out.

For flights in the air, they aren't allowed to take off unless they have a landing time at their destination. That's an FAA rule, flow control. So there won't be flights taking off unless they can actually land. So the folks most affected will be those right at O'Hare and Midway or those already diverted.

COSTELLO: Do I still have Ted Rowlands on the phone?

ROWLANDS: Yes, I'm here, Carol.

COSTELLO: Ted, tell us more about this suicide attempt that you heard about?

ROWLANDS: Well, apparently there were two injuries, one was a 50- year-old male who suffered smoke inhalation, an employee that had nothing to do with potentially the cause.

The other injury is also to a male and apparently this individual's injury is from a self-inflicted wound. That's what we're being told. We don't know what type of wound it is, but a self-inflicted wound.

And while there's no confirmation of it, there seems to be speculation that this individual may have been the cause of the fire and that's what we know at this point.

We're getting more information, but at this point, there's an individual who suffered a self-inflicted wound inside the Aurora facility. And that appears to be the cause of this fire.

COSTELLO: So, Mary, the FBI is on the scene in Aurora, Illinois, at this FAA facility. Is that standard operating procedure? SCHIAVO: It is. In this case, it's certainly justified. But even if they didn't have these kinds of details yet, the FBI does come into any kind of investigation where there's anything suspicious at all. It's very standard procedure.

And of course, if this is someone who's taken action, self-inflicted wounds, et cetera, the FBI has jurisdiction over the investigation. So it would be FBI first and they would be the primary agency to investigate and that's how it always works. They have these lines and roles down pat.

COSTELLO: All right, I'll let you two get back to reporting. Thank you so much, Ted Rowlands and Nary Schiavo.

It's a busy morning of developments in the war on ISIS. Right now British lawmakers are going toe to toe in a debate on whether to join the coalition's offensive.

They'll vote in a couple hours, but if approved, British warplanes would limit their strikes only to ISIS targets in Iraq, not Syria. Britain's prime minister says this is a matter of national security.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID CAMERON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: I believe, Mr. Speaker, it's also our duty to take part. This international operation is about protecting our people, too and protecting the streets of Britain should not be a task that we are prepared to entirely subcontract to other air forces of other countries. So it is right for us to act.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: We're going to hear more from London in just a few minutes. But first, day four from the air strikes, U.S. and Arab allies hammer ten targets in Iraq and Syria.

Our chief national correspondent, Jim Sciutto, is at the Pentagon. I'm just wondering about something, Jim. Britain wants to maybe participate in air strikes, but only over Iraq not in Syria and that goes for most western nations. Why is that?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: That's right. France same thing. Holland, Belgium, the other countries that have been joining. It's basically because they don't believe there's a legal basis for the strikes in Syria.

They're more comfortable with the legal backing for strikes inside Iraq. In Iraq, you have the government there requesting international help. That's much more clear.

In Syria, you don't have that. In fact, you have the government there -- the government of Assad, Bashar al-Assad, saying you need to ask our permission, which the U.S. and the Arab nations that are fighting alongside it did not.

Now, as a practical effect on the ground, doesn't have much of an effect because the U.S. and its Arab partners have enough firepower to handle the targets they have in Syria. But it does get at how broad this coalition is. Some of the countries involved are making distinctions that the U.S. and Arab partners are not.

COSTELLO: And what is the Pentagon saying at this point about the effectiveness of the air strikes? Because we know in Iraq there have been more than 200 air strikes. But there's no sense of any degrading of ISIS forces on the ground.

SCIUTTO: You know, it's a great question. I spoke to Rear Admiral John Kirby yesterday and I asked him that very question and he said well, they have with partners in their Iraqi forces on the ground taken back the Mosul Dam, that's a key piece of infrastructure.

It threatened Baghdad if ISIS decided to destroy it. That's one victory, one piece of ground taken back that the Pentagon is claiming, but when you look at the broader picture, ISIS still controls about as much of that country as it did six weeks ago when the strikes started and that gets at the weakness of air power.

You can do something, but you need ground forces that are capable of taking back and holding that ground and that's something we haven't seen yet in Iraq and certainly not in Syria. And Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is going to be speaking in this room early this afternoon. That's one question I'll press him on.

COSTELLO: We're going to be looking forward to that. Jim Sciutto, many thanks to you.

As coalition bombs continue to rain down on ISIS targets, the question of ground troop support in Syria may have taken a major step forward. Drew Griffin has more on an agreement Syrian rebel commanders are calling historic.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They gathered just across the border in Turkey, at least 20 leaders of mostly moderate rebel groups, hammering out an agreement in writing, an alliance that brings minority Christians, moderate Muslims, Kurds and others together for the first time in a unified front against ISIS and the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad.

ABDUL JABAR AKIDI, MILITARY COUNCIL OF ALEPPO, SYRIA (through translator): All the factions are unified to fight the regime in ISIS.

GRIFFIN: The deal facilitated by staff from the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Syrian emergency task force and finalized in a push by Illinois Congressman Adam Kinzinger.

REPRESENTATIVE ADAM KINZINGER (R), ILLINOIS: Bashar al-Assad is a protector of Christian minorities and he is not. He's a brutalizer of his people. It has created the situation that we see as ISIS today.

What you see today is this Christian minority group saying we want to have an alliance with the Free Syrian Army and it's the beginning of hopefully a long process that's very successful to bring in the Syrian people freedom.

GRIFFIN: Congress has been skeptical about funding Syrian rebels for fear U.S. made weapons and aid could fall into the wrong hands, perhaps future terrorists. Kinzinger admits in the ever changing allegiance and alliances battling both regime and ISIS fighters in Syria, he's still not sure whom to trust.

(on camera): Are these guys worthy of our trust and our money and our guns?

KINZINGER: That's a good question and that's what we need to find out.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I think this question has been answered.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Khalid Saleh, the spokesman for the National Coalition for Syria said Free Syria Army brigades have already been vetted, have received some aid and have been successful in striking back against ISIS and the Assad regime.

He complains the U.S. still doesn't understand what's happening in Syria. That you never get rid of ISIS until you get rid of the regime of Bashar al-Assad and the U.S., he says, should get serious about arming and supporting rebels trying to do just that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At the end, it's a question of why the limited support that these FSA brigades are receiving especially that they are vetted and trusted. We need to increase that flow.

GRIFFIN (on camera): And getting that flow 12 months from now could be much too late?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Those brigades might not be here and then I think the international community will have a much larger crisis on its hands.

GRIFFIN (voice-over): Several leaders told CNN the U.S.-led coalition airstrikes against ISIS and other terrorist strongholds in Syria are only half measures and in some cases actually hurting their cause.

They say there has been no coordination of the strikes and in some cases bombs have come dangerously close to what the U.S. should consider to be friendly forces. A strategy the rebel leaders believe so far has played right into the hands of Bashar al-Assad. Drew Griffin, CNN, Turkey.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Congressman Adam Kinzinger may have faith with those Syrian rebels, but there are plenty of American lawmakers who do not. Peter Welch of Vermont among them. He was among 85 House Democrats who said no to funding the Syrian rebels. Here's why.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REP. PETER WELCH (D), VERMONT: I do not believe that plan has any reasonable prospect of success. It's extremely difficult to have any confidence that we'll be able to find, quote, "moderate rebels," who will be vetted, trained, equipped and will go into that battle space and maintain loyalty to us as opposed to shifting their loyalties opportunistically.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Congressman Welch joins me now from Hanover, New Hampshire. Welcome, sir.

WELCH: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Thank you for being with us. Congressman, what do you make of sending those lawmakers to Turkey to meet with Syrian rebel commanders?

WELCH: Well, members of Congress can't negotiate, obviously. That's going to be the president. But I'd say two things. Number one, if the Syrian rebels get together and reach an agreement to work together, that's a positive and constructive thing.

By the way, that's much separate from the U.S. trying to train a proxy army. And that's what I voted against because I am really skeptical of our ability to vet, to maintain their loyalty and who do they work for.

So the Syrians doing this, the various factions, that's a good thing. Congress trying to build an army, we have recent experience in Iraq where we spend $35 billion training the Iraqi Army and at the first smell of gun powder they took off their uniforms and fled.

So there's not a lot of basis and experience in history to be optimistic about our ability to have a proxy force, particularly in a Syrian chaotic civil war.

COSTELLO: Let's talk about what happened within Iraq today. There was a terrible incident where ISIS sent in military vehicles that they stole from the Iraqi army inside those military vehicles they were packed with explosives.

They went into the middle of this group of soldiers and at least 300 of them were killed. Now, according to Colonel Francona, these Iraqi military men probably should have done some checks before allowing that convoy to come into their complex.

It's just another example of how inept the Iraqi army is. Do you have any hope that Americans will be able to adequately train the Iraqi army to effectively fight ISIS?

WELCH: Well, I'm a skeptic. The Iraqis have to do this themselves. Our soldiers and our taxpayers left Iraq in pretty good shape and they had to make a choice as to whether they wanted a civil society or a civil war and they haven't held it together in order to build that civil society. But I think the real question here, it's chaos there. The real question for America is, what is the national security interest that we want to protect? And I think there's two things.

One is we want to deny terrorists wherever they are a safe haven and that can be done with counterterrorism activities as the president is doing. Second, we want to do our level best to make certain none of the jihadist cans come with passports to Europe or to the United States.

And that's a homeland security challenge that's front and center on everybody's mind. But the idea that we're going to be able to micromanage the outcomes in that chaotic region, Libya, Egypt, in these two countries, Iraq and Syria, we're not going to be able to micromanage that.

We can be constructive and helpful when there is promising political developments and perhaps the judicious use of military power, but the bottom line here is our interest, denying safe havens and denying access to our homeland.

COSTELLO: Well, let me ask you this and going back to the Iraqi army. Americans are trying to help them become trained to effectively fight ISIS, but what they really need are commanders.

They need someone to lead them and they don't have that in the Iraqi army right now because all those people are a laugh, they split, they joined the other side.

So Colonel Francona, among others believe there will be a need for American boots on the ground, as in commanders, to lead these Iraqi forces to make this effective fighting machine.

LT. COL. RICK FRANCONA (RETIRED), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, that's a dead end approach and I'll tell you why. There's two reasons. They need commanders. The reason they don't have them is Maliki replaced competent Sunni commanders with his cronies.

So he doubled down in the sectarian division. But the second reason is that while American commanders know how to command and do a great job, the American people are not going to support the introduction of more ground forces in that region of the world.

And it's not just a question of being war-weary. It's a question of the American people coming to a sensible conclusion that the place is a mess and that the people there have to accept some responsibility for their own security future.

So it won't work and it won't have the support that the American people would have to provide in order for the U.S. to sustain any kind of extended ground operation in that region.

COSTELLO: When you come right down to it, Congressman -- I hear what you're saying about them being responsible for their own safety, but our safety is at risk, too, because of them. We need them to get it together so we can be safe and that's the biggest concern. FRANCONA: Well, that's exactly right, but let's define what it is we can realistically do. One, I think we can deny them safe havens. We don't want another Taliban situation that we had in Afghanistan. But that can be through judicious strikes and counterterrorism activities.

Second, we've got to protect the homeland. Then third we can play a constructive role with our allies and the president has been doing a good job building this coalition where we facilitate political developments on the ground that are ultimately essential.

Iraq is the key right now because they have a moment where if they can diminish the Sunni/Shi'a sectarian divide, bring the Sunnis into the government has General Petraeus did during the surge, the Sunnis had a future, that's how they saw it and they turned on al Qaeda and successfully ran them out of Anbar Province.

That's essentially what we need the Sunnis to be doing, seeing that they have a stake in the future to turn against ISIL. So we can play a role. But the primary responsibility for the civil society and the future of those countries has to come from those people.

COSTELLO: Congressman Welch, thank you so much for your insight. I appreciate it.

WELCH: Thank you.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, high stakes and hot tempers as America's closest allies debates whether to join the U.S.-led strikes on ISIS. With a vote just a couple hours away, we'll listen in on some of the heated arguments.

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COSTELLO: We have news this morning of another country joining the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS. Denmark has pledged sending seven F- 16 fighter jets to strike ISIS targets, but only in Iraq, not in Syria. The country's parliament still needs to approve this.

In London, British lawmakers are due to vote in an emergency action in just a couple of hours. If they agree to join the U.S.-led coalition, their airstrikes would be limited to Iraq, too, not Syria. Lawmakers are worried about the crisis deepening with or without Britain's involvement.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does he accept that without the Iraqi army being able to take and hold ground? There is a real risk that air strikes alone will not just prove in effective but could become counterproductive, especially if civilian casualties mount and especially if ISIL actually uses the fact that they've withstood the might of the west and still held its ground spins that story which it has so far managed to do?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I would disagree with my honorable friend on this basis that the air action already that's already taken place by the Americans and to a degree by the French has already made a difference. Lives have been saved, Christians, Yazidis and other minorities who would otherwise have been butcher has been saved by that action.

Quite rightly I'm not prepared to put our own combat troops on the ground. We should be working with the Iraqis, working with the Kurds so they become more effective, but we can't wait for that and allow minorities and others to be butchered and for the risk to our own country to increase without taking action.

Let me make progress on why I believe military action is necessary before taking further interventions. Frankly, without it, I don't believe there is a realistic prospect of degrading and defeating ISIL and we should be frank, there already is a military conflict taking place.

ISIL have taken territory. They're butchering people in Iraq. Iraqi, including Kurdish security forces, are already fighting ISIL. We have to decide if we're going to support them and that I believe we should.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Just like the United States, British lawmakers are worried about this war escalating to the point of requiring ground troops. We listened to some of that debate minutes ago. Here's more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If there's a consensus in here that we're going to soon be bombing Syria, the words don't mention "boots on the ground," but there's a consensus here that there will be boots on the ground. The only question being whose boots are they?

The Iraqi army is the most expensively trained and the most modernly equipped army in history. Hundreds of billions of dollars have been expended on the Iraqi army, which ran away leaving its equipment behind it.

ISIL itself is an imaginary army. A former defense secretary, no less, said we must bomb their bases. They don't have any bases. The territory they control is the size of Britain and yet there's only between 10,000 and 20,000 of them. Do the maths.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are ever so grateful for the lecture, but what is his solution to the problem?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, now I've gotten an extra minute thanks to you I'll be able to tell you. This will not be solved. Every matter will be made worse. Extremism will spread further and deeper around the world just like happened as a result of the last Iraq war.

The people outside can see it, but the fools in here who draw a big salary and big expenses cannot or will not see it like the honorable lady with her asinine intervention.

(END VIDEOTAPE) COSTELLO: Well, the measure would authorize only airstrikes in Iraq. Britain's foreign secretary says the possible of future expansion into Syria has not yet been ruled out. The vote in the British parliament expected to take place around 12:30 Eastern Time. We'll be right back.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIC HOLDER, ATTORNEY GENERAL: We are striving to eliminate mistrust and to build strong relationships between law enforcement officers and the communities that they serve so that we can defuse tensions that similar just under the surface in too many cities and towns across our great country and that too often give rise to tragic events like those that captured our national attention just last month in Ferguson, Missouri.

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COSTELLO: That was the U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder speaking before the Congressional Black Caucus about Ferguson, Missouri, where tensions again flared last night despite the videotaped apology from the police chief of Ferguson, Tom Jackson.