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Obama: We "Underestimated" ISIS; Interview with Congressman Ed Royce; The 2011 Assassination Attempt at the White House

Aired September 29, 2014 - 08:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. Welcome back to NEW DAY. It's Monday, September 29, 8:00 in the East.

And if you've been wondering how ISIS was able to rise so quickly, well, the president may have just given you an answer. In a stunning admission, President Obama acknowledged U.S. intelligence agencies underestimated the terror organization and overestimated the will of the Iraqi army to fight it. Now, many in the intel community disagree with what the president said in this "60 Minutes" interview last night. All of this comes as coalition airstrikes continue to pound ISIS targets in Iraq and northern Syria.

This morning, a new poll CNN/ORC poll shows three quarters of the American people support the strikes but fewer support the commander- in-chief ordering them.

We're covering this from all angles.

First, Michelle Kosinski live from the White House.

Good morning, Michelle.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Chris.

While we're seeing more airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, we're hearing the president now openly talking about how the U.S. underestimated ISIS in the past and overestimated ability of locals to fight it. But that is exactly what continues to worry some here in this country.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STEVE KROFT, CBS NEWS: Mr. President --

KOSINSKI (voice-over): Speaking on CBS' "60 Minutes", President Obama acknowledging what the U.S. head of intelligence has said -- that the government absolutely underestimated ISIS.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They were able to reconstitute themselves and take advantage of that chaos, and attract foreign fighters who believed in their jihadist nonsense and traveled everywhere from Europe, to the United States, to Australia, to other parts of the Muslim world, converging on Syria.

KOSINSKI: The U.S. and Arab allies continue hitting ISIS from the air in both Syria and Iraq through the weekend. ISIS still managed an advance in Syria near the Turkish border. Yet, Turkey is still not a military partner in this fight. Some European countries have joined the coalition but won't touch Syria.

The U.S. is still leading this.

OBAMA: That's always the case. America leads. We are the indispensable nation. We have capacity nobody else has. Our military is the best in the history of the world. And when trouble comes up anywhere in the world, they don't call Beijing. They don't call Moscow. They call us. That's how we roll. And that's what makes us America.

KOSINSKI: So, how do Americans feel about this? A new CNN/ORC poll released just this morning shows 73 percent approve the airstrikes. But about the same amount feel the U.S. will likely have to send ground troops. And fewer, 61 percent, are confident the U.S. will succeed in its goal of degrading and destroying ISIS.

There was bipartisan support for the mission, but now bipartisan concern over what the end game will look like, whether Congress should have debated and voted on the plan, whether U.S. boots will end up on that volatile ground if no one else steps up.

REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: We have no choice. These are barbarians. They intend to kill us. If we don't destroy them first, we're going to pay the price.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KOSINSKI: Also interesting in that poll, we're seeing more Americans now than just a few weeks ago, saying that they approve of how things are going in this country, approve of how President Obama is handling ISIS. But those numbers are still very low, less than half. Well, slightly more than half of Americans, 51 percent, say they don't trust President Obama as commander-in-chief -- Chris.

CUOMO: None of that helped by how confusing this situation is. And it's still not quite clear what the U.S. is doing over there.

Michelle Kosinski, thank you very much for the reporting.

Michaela?

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: Now to troops that are actually waging the war right now on the ground. The Pentagon now says it hit targets in a Kurdish area of Syria that was under siege by ISIS.

But the question is, has the U.S. been doing enough to help the Kurds as battles rage on the ground?

Let's turn to our Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr.

Good morning, Barbara.

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Michaela.

These U.S. airstrikes near the border with Turkey. This is the area where ISIS is making its latest advance deep in northern Syria against Syrian Kurds. Many of them by the thousands are trying to escape across the boarder into Turkey raising the question why not more airstrikes to help defend the Kurds?

I've spoken to U.S. defense officials about that this morning and what they say is they do not have the mission to defend the Syrian Kurds in particular. The U.S. mission in Syria is to degrade and destroy ISIS. That is where it stands right now. And unless the president gives an additional mission, they'll be sticking with the orders they have.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel talking late last week about what is going on in northern Syria and in talking about the mission there. There are some hints that the Turks may get involved, nothing definite yet. But, of course, this fighting, this latest fighting now right up against the Turkish border, an important NATO ally. U.S. engaging in a number of airstrikes around Syria against ISIS targets trying to put ISIS back on its heels. But even the Pentagon will tell you airstrikes are not the full answer -- Michaela.

PEREIRA: Yes, our Arwa Damon there on the ground, right at the border, showing how intense the situation is and how it changes by the moment.

Barbara Starr, thanks so much.

STARR: Sure.

PEREIRA: Chris?

CUOMO: The American people agree, right, Mick? Seventy-plus percent say that troops from the U.S. likely to be necessary in the fight against ISIS.

So, let's get some perspective, Congressman Ed Royce. He is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs, joining us now.

Chairman, nice to meet you. Thank you for being with us on NEW DAY.

Let me get reactions from you on two big points out of the interview with the president. The first one, let's play some sound about his feelings about intelligence lapses.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: Well, I think our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: A lot of people on the intel community pushing become on that. What's your take?

REP. ED ROYCE (R-CA), CHAIRMAN, HOUSE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE: Well, I happen to know that in Baghdad, the request was made from our embassy for strikes early on against ISIS as they were coming over the border. And this wasn't unknown by the administration. Myself and others also made requests for the use of drones to hit those units as they were going city by city.

They were open targets out on the open road. The administration decided not to do it. And as a consequence, you had 16 cities fall. The last one to fall was Mosul in which the central bank was taken over by ISIS.

So, yes, if the advice early on had been taken in terms of power and, you know -- certainly recruiting capability of ISIS, I think we could have done more to retard, to degrade, to slow their advance.

CUOMO: Intelligence failure, political failure on the part of the White House?

ROYCE: Well, I think that was political failure. Early on, his former secretary of state Hillary Clinton had urged action on some of this in that region, certainly Petraeus, as did his secretary of defense. This had to do with arming those that could have been a counterweight in the region.

Now, this takes us to the interesting question of whether or not we're going to arm the Kurds with weapons they need to defend themselves or the Yazidis or the Christians.

CUOMO: What's your take?

ROYCE: I think -- I think we need to circumvent Baghdad. Do not be differential to government in Baghdad but instead insist that the weapons needed to defend those religious people and other religious authorities get into their hands. If you allow Baghdad to exercise this veto, they will not allow those weapons to be transferred to those ethnic minorities.

CUOMO: But how do you not respect the sovereignty of the Iraqi government that you just helped put in place --

ROYCE: Yes.

CUOMO: -- hoping it will improve the situation.

ROYCE: Because the time comes when you just have to lead and be insistent on a course of action that is going to stop the ISIS advance. And what we have found is if we do not push on the government in Baghdad and if we don't assert -- we're going to do it legislatively. Frankly, Democrats and Republicans in Congress want to see the Kurds armed. They want to see the Christians armed.

Why do we feel that way? Because A, we're not supportive of the idea of putting 82nd Airborne in there. We think these people should be allowed to defend themselves. We think a good amount of this was malfeasance on the part of the government in Baghdad in terms of not allowing these local forces to have the weapons they need to defend themselves.

CUOMO: But this gets tricky, because if you want to circumvent the Iraqi government on the one hand, but you know that you need the Iraqi government to create the kind of political change to allow the Sunnis to have some control so you don't have the next ISIS, you can't undermine the same government you want to be strong enough to help us out?

ROYCE: But that goes back to Petraeus -- General Petraeus' original point of why we should have spent, kept a small contingent force in Baghdad itself, to have that leverage.

We've lost that leverage. So, now, we have to make the most of a difficult equation here which you've outlined very effectively there. But at the end of the day, if they continue to lose ground, if minorities continue to be slaughtered, you're left with the question, if United States can give them the capability to defend themselves and if they're killing ISIS troops, and if you don't have leadership in Baghdad right now to find a way to do that, then we're going to have to step in and do exactly what I suggested.

CUOMO: Dire consequences. Tee up the next big headline I want you to comment on. Please play the sound from the interview about whether or not we're at war.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KROFT: Are you saying that this is not really a war?

OBAMA: Well, what I'm saying is that we are assisting Iraq in a very real battle that's taking place on their soil with their troops. But we are providing air support, and it is in our interest to do that because ISIL represents a hybrid of not just a terrorist network but one with territorial ambitions, and some of the strategy and tactics of an army. This is not America against ISIL.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: Do you agree or are we at war?

ROYCE: Well, in the first instance, fatwas have been handed down basically by ISIL against the United States, where they say they're at war with us.

But, clearly, what we're trying to do is put together an international coalition so that we keep the focus on the fact this is not just the United States. This is the Gulf States, this is Jordan, this is every country in the region. Every ethnic group in the region that is, in fact, threatened directly by these beheadings and mass murders.

And so, I understand the strategy in terms of insisting that this is an international coalition. But at the same time, clearly they've declared war on the United States and Europe. And that's the reality from ISIL's perspective. CUOMO: Right, but forget about them, because they're not supposed to

be driving this game. It's supposed to be about the Arabs. They're not driving the game. So, now, it's about the U.S., that means it's you who's driving the game. If it is really war, no matter what the president says, of course, he's got a great mind and may be accurate but impractical on some level.

That's Congress's job to declare war. If you guys are going to arm Yazidis, why don't you just come back, meet, debate and make on strong decision about what you want to do in the situation?

ROYCE: We will come back and meet and debate. And, indeed, the speaker of the House indicated that if the president asked for -- he is the commander-in-chief -- if he asks for authorization of force, what you're calling for, Congress will bring that up. What Congress has done as we know is pass an authorization for the specific requests the president made. That was bipartisan. It was passed by a large margin.

So, to some extent, we attempt to do this with one voice when we're engaged in foreign policy. And given that fact, it is incumbent upon the commander-in-chief to lay out the strategy he wants. And so far as he's done that, we have given him those tools.

CUOMO: But you don't need the president to make a decision about whether or not you wanted to declare war or not. That's a constitutional -- it's your power.

ROYCE: We do not need the president. But we're not dealing here with a government, a foreign government. We're dealing with something which is a terrorist network. And in the past, when we've dealt with a terrorist network, let's look at the actions we've taken in Yemen, for example, or in the mountains of Pakistan against al Qaeda, this is a larger extension of al Qaeda, in a way, it's a new metamorphosis.

I mean, it's -- they use the Internet as their caliphate to recruit. But it's the same ideology and it's the same fealty to the same notion of eventually having the caliphate. It's just that they don't want to wait. They want it right now.

So, when you're dealing with this kind of threat, what's the best strategy? We're going to debate this when we go back. I've got Democrats and Republicans on my committee that all have views on this. We're going to see if we can come to another conclusion besides the one we reached already with the authorization we already passed.

And if we need to expand the scope, we'll do it. But where we don't want this to go is with 82nd Airborne being deployed into that region. And I think that's pretty clear. That's a bipartisan position that we don't want to see us do that if the alternative -- we've got a real alternative to go back to my original point.

Arm the Kurds, arm the Christians, arm the Yazidis, arm those Sunnis who want to resist ISIS. It is their battle. Give them the tools and air support that we should be providing. CUOMO: Chairman, it's a plan. Meet on it, debate it, vote on it,

because that's the leadership people need. Appreciate you being on the show.

ROYCE: Chris, thank you.

CUOMO: I want one people to know about the chairman. He is on Wednesday holding a hearing into the situation of Sergeant Andrew Tahmooressi who is being held in Mexico. He's still there. We're following that story. Thank you for holding the hearing.

ROYCE: Thank you, Chris.

CUOMO: We'll be following that as well.

ROYCE: Very good.

CUOMO: A lot of news this morning. Right to Christine.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: All right. Thanks, Chris.

Let's take a look at what's happening this morning. We're going to begin this morning in Hong Kong. Tens of thousands of protesters remain on the streets of the financial hub. Riot police pulled back from the demonstrations and are now urging people to leave, but demonstrators have shown no sign of letting up accusing police of heavy-handed tactics. Student led demonstrations began over frustrations with Beijing's attempt to interfere with local elections.

In Chicago, the FAA now says it will take weeks to get the city's fire damaged air traffic control center back online. Weeks. Officials hope to return it to full service by October 13th. About 3,600 flights have been delayed or cancel since Friday at O'Hare and at Midway, after an air traffic employee apparently set the fire before a suicide attempt.

The search for more victims of a deadly volcano eruption in Central Japan, that search has been suspended because of dangerous gases in the air. At least 36 were killed by Saturday's sudden eruption. Police say there could be two dozen more bodies on Mount Ontake. Ash from the volcano has already forced airlines to divert from the flights from area 125 miles west of Tokyo.

And what a memorable regular season finale from Major League Baseball. Derek Jeter driving in a run, final at bat. Jeter was removed from the game with Boston Red Sox fans chanting his name.

And take a look at this remarkable catch by the Washington Nationals rookie Steve Souza. It saved a no hitter for pitcher Jordan Zimmerman on the final out of the game. It's the first no hitter ever thrown by a Nationals pitcher.

But, back to Boston. Wow, they were so welcoming and so great for Derek Jeter. Their rival for all those years.

PEREIRA: Is that why John Berman is not here today? ROMANS: He's mourning the Derek Jeter retiring?

PEREIRA: As a Red Sox fan, it's highly unlikely.

ROMANS: I thought it was really classy.

PEREIRA: Beautiful to see.

ROMANS: Classy end to a 20-year career.

CUOMO: Berman has picked an interesting time to be unusually objective about Derek Jeter.

ROMANS: You know what, Andy Scholes told me that I did not know? This is the first time since 1993 neither the Red Sox nor Yankees --

CUOMO: Yes, yes.

ROMANS: Neither are in post-season contention. Thanks for pointing that out, Christine. It's very nice.

The hard bite of news.

PEREIRA: Speaking of news, long before last week's fence jumper incident, there was a quite scary lapse in White House security some three years ago. Shots fired at the White House. Did the Secret Service even know about it? We're going to speak with "The Washington Post" writer whose story has everybody talking about how this could happen.

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PEREIRA: This morning, new revelations on how the Secret Service nearly missed a 2011 assassination attempt on the president's family, reportedly took four days since the Secret Service realized the building had been hit by shots that were fired from the perimeter. This new details, of course, come on the heels of the fence jumper making his way into the White House.

Secret Service Director Julia Pierson will face tough questioning from a special House committee tomorrow. This morning, the Secret Service is defending the way it handled the situation.

I want to discuss all of this with Carol Leonnig. She's "The Washington Post" reporter who wrote the story on the 2011 shooting.

Thanks for joining me this morning Carol.

CAROL LEONNIG, THE WASHINGTON POST: Glad to be here, Michaela.

PEREIRA: First of all, let's get you to give us a sense of your reporting on how something so serious like this, shots fired into the White House, could go essentially undetected for four days, or at least unreported for four days.

LEONNIG: So, when I first heard about this, Michaela, in the last maybe year and a half of writing about the Secret Service, I knew it had been covered in a very sort of small way. I knew that there had been shots fired at the White House in 2011 and it took a few days to happen. But I was curious when I heard clues about sort of what happened behind the scenes. I wanted to know a lot more.

As I learned more, I found it fascinating about how the service responded to this. Essentially, the service initially decided in basically a few hours time that that sleepy Friday night, Veterans Day weekend, the shootout in the Constitution Avenue had been in their minds a shootout between two gangsters in cars who happened to have their argument on the National Mall.

That seemed like an unlikely thing to happen, but that's what they concluded. That there was no evidence connecting this shooting to the White House.

But, actually, what happened a man who was very troubled, increasingly paranoid 21-year-old, had pulled out the gun out of his car, pointed it out his passenger side window, pulled up onto Constitution Avenue and shot at least seven to eight rounds from a semiautomatic rifle. He hit the White House seven times. He hit most importantly the second floor of the family's residence while Sasha was home.

PEREIRA: And Sasha was the only one home at the time. President and first lady were traveling. Malia there was concerned because she was due to arrive any moment.

I want to let you know that we've gotten a response from them. They're obviously are responding to your article in the paper. They have taken issue with some of the reporting. I want to give you a chance to respond to push back.

LEONNIG: Sure.

PEREIRA: They say -- they call the night an uncertain situation. And they argue that they responded accordingly. Apparently, they say a witness told them shots had been fire at another vehicle. They took the fact your reporting said the Secret Service did nothing the night of the incident. They insist that they initiated a protective sweep around the outer perimeter of the White House, they found no suspect, injured persons or property damage.

What's your reaction to that?

LEONNIG: Well, I think it's absolutely true that the Secret Service looked around the perimeter. Our story says they were searching for casings on Constitution Avenue. I do think the Secret Service was doing things behind the scenes. I know they were from looking at records.

But this is really about -- you know, they had officers on the scene, one in particular, who said she heard gunshots. She was pretty sure she knew what kind of gun it was because of her training. And she heard the sound of debris falling overhead from the Truman balcony.

If you have an officer on the scene who experiences that, you would think that would surface to the leadership and that that would be part of the investigation. But, actually, none of the Secret Service officers on duty that night were interviewed until the usher found a bullet on the balcony four days later.

PEREIRA: And then also made a point of at thing the first lady who hadn't been told at that point.

Look, I want to talk about the Secret Service director Julia Pierson. We know she's going to testify before a special committee on Tuesday. She was brought if in after the 2012 scandal involving Secret Service guys. Brought in to bust up what was perceived as an old boy's network.

Is there a sense -- do you get a sense from your reporting that she has done what she set out to do, what she was tasked to do?

LEONNIG: Well, morale is pretty low at the Secret Service. The staffing problems that had plagued the agency when she arrived and low morale haven't been really addressed. I think her job is a really hard one. I wish her well. I don't hear from the people that I talk to inside the agency that things are improving in any drastic way.

And as for breaking up the old boy's network, certainly she's a woman. She's had a storied career at the service. She was one of the top recommendations of the previous director. She was a mentee, essentially, of the previous director.

So, there are people who say she's an insider, part of this whole culture. It's not a big change.

PEREIRA: What do you think it is going to take to change things inside the Secret Service? We had an author on a moment ago telling us he thinks it's going to take an assassination attempt which is a terrifying thought.

LEONNIG: I really hope it doesn't come to that. Here's what I hear from people inside and also former agents who think that the highest duty that they were ever called to was to protect the president. They feel this agency is a little stuck in the mud, that it is reactive instead of proactive. Not creative, not modernizing, throws bodies at a body instead of thoughtful solutions. That it is becoming increasingly political.

PEREIRA: Carol --

LEONNIG: I'm sorry --

PEREIRA: I'm so sorry. We've got to wrap it up there for now. I'd love to talk to you further about this, a really intriguing article, the national reporter, "Washington Post", and the writer of the article. Thanks so much, Carol Leonnig. We appreciate your time.

LEONNIG: Thank you, Michael.

PEREIRA: What might the White House look like with Rand Paul in office? Quite a question. New articles takes a closer look at the possible 2016 Republican presidential run and whether his father's politics could hurt his chance. We'll get an interesting perspective from the author of that very article.

Stay with us.

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