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Kerry Describes U.S. Strategy To Combat ISIS; Deputy Mayor ON Paris Attacks Victims; Obama Defends ISIS Strategy After Paris Attacks; D.C. Police Chief On ISIS Threat To Attack. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired November 17, 2015 - 07:30   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[07:30:03] JOHN KERRY, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: And I think we've done a very significantly increased effort of being able to penetrate and find out what's going on and act ahead of time. That, I think, now will only grow even more.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You've been here to offer condolences. What are you doing for the French? Any stepped up security, intelligence? And also your comments on the reports that it was actually a bomb that brought down the Russian jet.

KERRY: With respect to the French, we are working very closely with the French. We've had intelligence exchanges in the last days we are increasing the exchange of information. We are already planning some military activities.

We've helped the French with respect to their targeting that they've undertaken in the last few days in their increased strikes on Raqqah. There will be other things. President Hollande is coming to Washington to meet with President Obama.

We'll talk further about our joint plans. There's no question that there will be stepped up, increased cooperation, and joint military effort and other efforts between the United States and France.

AMANPOUR: And the bomb that brought down the Russian jet?

KERRY: You know, I guess what President Putin said is, there's evidence of explosives on the airplane and we've had some indicators of that for some period of time. It's been important for the Russians and the Egyptians to announce their conclusions because they are the formal investigators.

But I have no doubt that that will elicit a ferocious response from Russia also against Daesh. And we will make certain that we're all working in the same direction to destroy Daesh's ability to terrorize anywhere.

AMANPOUR: Secretary Kerry, thank you very much indeed.

KERRY: Thank you. Good to be with you.

(END VIDEOTAPE) ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Well, I mean, he sounds determined that they will be victorious.

AMANPOUR: He talks about, it's true, a year ago there wasn't this big coalition. A month ago there wasn't a political process. I thought it was fight significant that he said he hoped there would be a ceasefire in Syria within three to five weeks. That's quite telescope.

That's quite interesting. He said that every country now is stepping up efforts against ISIS and he listed it, as you heard, a huge number of countries in the region, Russia, Europe, trying to gear up to do more to defeat this.

He called it a fascist, a combination -- a dangerous cocktail of medieval and modern fascism and he talked about also trying to combat their ideology in all sorts of words that are not seen on a day-to-day basis.

CAMEROTA: Thanks so much for sharing your interview with us. Great to hear that. Thank you.

We have new information for you on the Paris attacks. Chris and I are here, obviously live. We want to tell you about the person who the investigators believed is behind it all. We have one of the city deputy mayors, coming up.

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[07:35:28]

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: We are here in Paris and we're learning that a U.S. assessment of the intelligence suggested that ISIS was developing more sophisticated attacks in the west. So how is so much crucial information missed? There's a lot going on to discuss.

We have one of the deputy mayors with us, Bernard. It's very good to have you, Mr. Deputy Mayor. Before we get to the politics and implications of what happens next, let's deal with what matters most, those who were affected.

There are still many people fighting for their lives in critical conditions in area hospitals. What can you tell us?

DR. BERNARD JOMIER, DEPUTY MAYOR OF PARIS: Yes. You know, during this Black Friday around 500 Parisian people were injured, around 250 are still are in hospital. What was incredible is it was terrible for to take in chart, within two hours around 500 people?

CAMEROTA: My gosh.

CUOMO: Two hours they took in 500, many are still fighting.

JOMIER: Some hospitals 30 people within one hour. It means one injured people each 2 minutes. It was very difficult. CAMEROTA: We can only imagine. Think about 250 of the injured are still in the hospital. I know you've spent the past three days going from hospital to hospital, six or eight different hospitals. Can you tell us about them? Their injuries, are they in critical condition? What's the status? We haven't heard enough about the injured people and the victims.

JOMIER: Yes. There was really, 90 percent of them were injured by bullets.

CAMEROTA: The 90 percent of them were injured by bullets.

JOMIER: Yes. We have an emergency plan. We never imagined that 500 Parisian people could be shot by gun. It's incredible. We faced, our hospital faced, our professionals were incredibly efficient.

Before we started with the plan, the emergency plan, professionals went to the hospital to provide care. It's incredible. In some hospital, seven, eight, 15 arrived at the same time.

The situation was very difficult that our hospital faced. They took charge and hopefully saved many lives. Unfortunately, 130 Parisians were killed.

CUOMO: We've been told to be careful of reporting about how many lives were lost because it's not known yet. There are so many fighting for lives, so fragile that that number could still change. Is that the reality?

JOMIER: Yes, yes, yes. At this hour, 132 people died. I hope no others. Some of them are sitting between life and death. They are fighting.

CAMEROTA: And so we know that you are involved in the health -- the deputy mayor of health. In terms of security for Paris, what do you think changes now? How is this city changing? We see police everywhere. How do you think the mayor will handle nothing like this happening?

JOMIER: The responsibility of the mayor elected is to protect our population. This is the first of our responsibility. And, of course, with government we will take all measures to protect our population, because these terrorists have an infinite imagination. You know?

We don't know if next time they want to target, to attack our school. We protect our population. We will not change our way of life. If you ask Parisian people today, they are sad but they're angry and they want to resist.

I tell you, next Friday at 9:00 p.m., I will go to a bar to show the terrorists that the Parisian people will not change our way of life. We love to go with friends to a bar. We love sport. We love to be together. We'll continue. That's our response.

CAMEROTA: We hear your resolution and we've heard it from the Parisians here as well. Thank you for being on with us. [07:40:01] CUOMO: The need is very great, as you heard, many are still fighting for their lives here. If you want to help the victims of the Paris terror attacks, you can do so, go to CNN.com/impact. You'll find all the information there.

CAMEROTA: President Obama defending his no boots on the ground strategy to fight ISIS. But can air strikes alone defeat the terrorists? General Wesley Clark has a theory on this. He joins us to break it down, next.

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CUOMO: We have breaking developments on two terror fronts here at this hour. First Russian officials confirm the Metrojet flight that went down in Sinai weeks ago was taken down by a homemade bomb.

Russian President Vladimir Putin now vowing in response out of vengeance to punish those responsible and the proof has already come. Impacting the situation in Syria, Russia has already started bombing ISIS targets there and letting the U.S. know in advance.

Here in Paris we're learning that a U.S. assessment that was done of what ISIS was capable of did lead them to the person who's now seen as the planner of what happened here on Friday's terror attacks. That he was already on the radar of U.S. Homeland Security.

France tried to take him out in a strike at an ISIS training camp last month but was obviously unsuccessful. President Obama is defending the U.S. strategy to fight ISIS while French President Hollande is urging a global coalition to stop the terror group by stepping up the measures to do so.

What will it take to defeat ISIS? Are air strikes enough? The consensus is no. What else is needed? Retired General Wesley Clark, former NATO supreme allied commander, joins us now. It's good to have you, General.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK, FORMER NATO SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER: Thank you.

CUOMO: Secretary Kerry just laid out the best solution, which is also perhaps the greatest challenge, getting the world to unite on all the different fronts necessary to take on Daesh.

[07:45:06] What do you think of that? How close are we to that solution, that capability of being united globally against ISIS?

CLARK: Well, we're probably at least weeks away and maybe months away. But unfortunately, for ISIS, the more they do, the sooner the world will unite against them to crush them. ISIS has no idea the power that it's provoking bringing down on itself.

Whereas it may have gotten away with what it considered a few nuisance strikes by the United States, perhaps, where we were striking at well-defined targets and doing our best to avoid collateral casualties. The action such as taking down the Russian airliner and especially the horrific tragedy in Spain, when the world comes against ISIS, we can cut off the flow of fresh fighters going into that region.

We can prevent ISIS from selling oil abroad or largely prevent it, and we can certainly bring military power to bear against ISIS. Let's be clear.

The major ground fighting has got to be done by the neighbors in the region and that means Turkey, Iraq. It means the Free Syrian Resistance Army. It means Saudi Arabia because they speak the language.

They can go in and they can actually identify the fighters. The United States, France, Britain, other western countries, perhaps Russia, can help.

But the actual on the ground fighting has to be done and then there has to be a structure for governance, for bringing normalcy back to these regions and that has to be thought through before the ground troops go in.

CUOMO: Let's discuss this, General, because this is often overlooked in the need for military might. You have points of ideology and practicality that you touched on. How important is it for this to come from the region, both in terms of definition and cultural ownership of what Islam is and is not, and of how to truly stabilize this region in a way that you can have success over time.

CLARK: I think you put your finger on the two points. You had -- it has to be defined by the rightful proponents of Islam. This is an ideology that we're fighting but it's also fighters. It's people fighting mixed amongst a population.

Unless there's wholesale slaughter of innocence, you have to be able to identify the fighters and go after the fighters. So that can't be done by western armies with the best of intent. The western armies can only shoot at those that shoot at them.

They can bomb identified targets, but they can't sort out men, women and children who are innocent from the ones who are actually fighting.

Think of it this way, the west can provide the firepower but the west cannot provide the on-the-ground leadership to sort this out. And afterwards, we've seen as we saw in Iraq, that you cannot put a western army in an occupying status and expect it to reconstruct a society.

Now in Syria, there are the vestiges of the Assad administration in most places, they have got to be preserved. Maybe not Bashar Al- Assad, he has to go. That's what President Obama called for.

The administrators, the people who service health and provide electric power and regulate traffic control and fix highways, all those people who have been paid by the Assad government, they have to stay and work. CUOMO: And that is what complicates this situation so much. In a vacuum of opportunity and services, extremism can take root. The peace is only as good as it is sustainable through the system that remains after the war on the ground.

That's the point you're making about what happens after the military aspect of this being just as important as the military aspect itself.

CLARK: It's more important.

CUOMO: General, as always, thank you for the perspective.

CLARK: Thank you.

CUOMO: Yes, sir. Understood. We'll be making that point going forward. Thank you for helping us do so.

We'll take a quick break. When we come back, ISIS is responding to the coalition against it by promising to do more terrible things. Promising in a new video to attack Washington, D.C., is it just talk? How could it happen? What is known in the United States about threats in the pipeline? Information ahead.

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[07:53:25]

CUOMO: What happened here in France reverberating all over the world, certainly back in the United States, not just in terms of sympathy and empathy but awareness.

Law enforcement in Washington D.C. is on heightened alert this morning because of the perceived threats from ISIS, a new video vowing to target the U.S. capital. Just how serious are authorities taking these threats and what can they actually do to prevent them.

Joining me now is Chief Cathy Lanier of the Metropolitan Police Department security Washington. Chief, thank you very much for joining us this morning. What have you been told about how specific and real and imminent any threats may be?

CHIEF CATHY LANIER, METROPOLITAN POLICE DEPARTMENT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: It doesn't matter what we're told, you know, when we're briefed on any kind of threat whatsoever, we take them all very seriously.

We've been in constant contact with federal partners and getting updated briefings. Everything is real to us. No matter the threat and how credible it is team we take it as credible and act that way.

CUOMO: I get that. But what I'm asking is that what have you been told in terms of areas that you are more sensitive to or capabilities that you are paying more attention to? Is there any preference that you have in terms of responding to what we've learned?

LANIER: Obviously the, you know, shift in attacks has been to more soft targets and more populated area where there's a different atmosphere and historically we looked at securing critical infrastructure and things like that.

But none of that can be left out. You have to have broad security that includes all of those potential targets and that is what makes it so important that you don't too narrowly focus on the last attack.

[07:55:09] I mean, really, it is being prepared for any eventualities so you can't focus too much on the last attack. But you have to take into consideration all of the details that we do know about the last attack.

CUOMO: What progress has been made in information sharing? Obviously the intelligence sharing is always so important in prevention. And in terms of community policing, the "see something, say something" initiatives put in place?

LANIER: Just in the last several years, we've made tremendous strides in terms of information coming in from the community. I think our communities are very, very sensitive in reporting things to the police and that is critical in this time.

But we also have a great relationship with our federal partners. We were in constant contact on Friday actually as the attacks were unfolding, phone calls and information going back and forth. And we've been doing this a long time now.

Unfortunately our wakeup call was more than ten years ago. So we have a lot of practice now and things just happen automatically.

CUOMO: And just to be thorough, has anything been detected? Anyone been detained because of recent threats?

LANIER: The community does increase sensitivity when something like this happens, so we've had significant up tic for calls and suspicious activity and packages and we respond accordingly. But that is exactly what we want from our community.

And I think that is the direction we want to keep going. The use of technology out here today in conjunction with the work in the community is going to be key for us to keeping the city safe.

CUOMO: Understood. But to this point you haven't had to make any arrests, nothing has been detected and foiled?

LANIER: There's been no arrests, no.

CUOMO: Chief, thank you very much. It is a big job. Appreciate you talking to us about it and good luck in the days ahead.

LANIER: Thanks, Chris.

CUOMO: All right, the home situation not just in Washington, D.C. but nationally, there is a dialogue going on about what else can be done to fight against terrorism? What should we do to prevent attacks like this including how we address refugees? These are big conversations with a lot of news informing them. Let's get right to it.

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JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: A one kilogram bomb brought down that plane.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Russian authorities now say it was a homemade bomb.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A mastermind who has ties directly to the leader of ISIS itself.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: None of the bombers identified so far in the Paris attacks had been on any U.S. watch list.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is this the new normal?

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: Absolutely not. No. This is not normal.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nearly half of the governors are saying they do not want Syrian refugees in their states.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Many of the refugees are the victims of terrorism themselves.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Muslims are suffering. They are being persecuted.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Has the global community really done enough to combat ISIS?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would anticipate that this is not the only operation that ISIL has in the pipeline.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: To our viewers in the United States and around the world you are watching NEW DAY. This is a special edition live from Paris. Michaela is in New York City. Chris and I are following new leads in the terror attacks here in Paris.

But we begin with breaking information about the different deadly ISIS attack, this one the Russian officials confirming that that Metrojet flight that crashed in the Sinai was brought down by what they call a homemade bomb.

CUOMO: The Russians promising vengeance and already delivering with strikes on ISIS targets in Syria following days of strikes by the French military as well. Russian President Vladimir Putin says he will find and punish who is responsible for this.

They put a $15 million reward on information leading to who is responsible. We have all angles of what's going on with Russian military, French military, the investigation here in Paris, the reverberations at home.

Let's start with Matthew Chance in Moscow with the big news of the morning. Matthew, they are now saying what brought down that plane.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That is right Chris. For the first time, we've got confirmation from the Russian of all people, that it was a terrorist attack. It was a bomb according to the Russian security services at the FSB, about a kilogram in weight, 2.2 lbs.

A homemade explosive device as it was described by the FSB chief. And that accounted for the fact that the debris from the fuselage of the Metrojet airline was spread across such a wide area of the Sinai desert and why investigators have been piecing together the debris over the past month.

Vladimir Putin, the Russian president very swift in his response, vowing first of all revenge against those who carried this out saying we will search for them everywhere.