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Wolf

Obama Given List of Military Options for ISIS; Interview with Scott Rigell; CDC Worker Exposed to Ebola in West Africa; Who are Peshmerga?; Will Obama Go Further After Giving Authority for Surveillance Flights over Syria?

Aired August 27, 2014 - 13:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. I'm Wolf Blitzer, reporting from Washington.

The Pentagon has provided President Obama with a list of military options for going after ISIS fighters, including ISIS strongholds inside Syria. For now, content with airstrikes inside Iraq while Iraqi soldiers, Kurdish fighters, try to retake territory on the ground.

Republican Congressman Scott Rigell of Virginia is on the House Armed Services Committee. He's joining now from Virginia Beach.

Thanks very much for joining us lots to discuss.

Let's get to this sensitive issue of authorization. The president has authorized surveillance flights over Syria. Do you expect the U.S. will end up striking ISIS positions not only in Iraq but in Syria as well?

REP. SCOTT RIGELL, R-VIRGINIA: Wolf, thank you. There's every reason to believe that the president will escalate his initiative there and the use of military force. I have this high privilege to represent the district that has the highest concentration men and women in the country, active duty and retired. Meeting my fiduciary responsibility to them and their families, it's clear to me our president, President Obama, must, and really should, adhere to the War Powers Resolution, and his track record in this area is not good. We go back to Libya in 2011, I actually led an amendment that would have defunded the Operation Odyssey Dawn, the military action we took in Libya because he should have received specific authorization as is required. It's not the king's army. But he did not do so. Last year, as he began to indicate that he was going to launch military operations against Syria, Barbara Lee and I led an effort to really, you know, slow that down.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: So let me interrupt, Congressman. You want a formal resolution to come up for a vote in the House and the Senate authorizing the president to launch airstrikes against ISIS targets in Syria before he undertakes such mission? Is that what you're saying? RIGELL: Absolutely, Wolf. This is not only by view, but at least 105

members of Congress have signed on to a letter that was initiated by Congresswoman Barbara Lee and me that says essentially what you just said there. This is not personal to the president. This is bipartisan. The important benefit we would gain from adherence to the war power resolution, which is the law of the land, is that the American people's representatives, Senators and those of us who serve in the House, would engage in this critical debate. Time is available to us to walk through that debate. Now, if the president had to take action overnight to stop an attack or to respond to one that had occurred, the War Powers Resolution provides for that, and I would support and, indeed, applaud the decision by the president to take action --

(CROSSTALK)

RIGELL: -- but that's not the case.

BLITZER: What about ISIS beheading an American citizen? Does that justify the U.S. responding?

RIGELL: Wolf, this is a level of horror that we, with a Western mind, our mind-set here as Americans, we really can't wrap around that level of immorality. I would caution us, though, against pivoting foreign policy off any event, however horrific it might be, like this. Now, it must be factored into the equation. Our deepest sympathy goes to the family. The justice needs to be brought to the individual who did that. But that said, we cannot allow our foreign policy to pivot around one incident, as horrible as it is. Now, in the overall equation, we will factor it in.

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Let me interrupt one more time. I apologize for interrupting. If the U.S. were to launch drone strikes with hellfire missiles to target and kill ISIS leaders who were responsible for killing that American, would that require congressional authorization, a roll call vote in the House?

RIGELL: Well, I appreciate the specificity of your question. I believe if we have specific information on the individual and the leaders who planned that, and that information was absolutely certain, then in this hypothetical that you've given me -- which I don't like to wander in too much -- but in that hypothetical, I'd say that that would be supported. But the overall point of continuous engagement in this region, again, it is not the king's army, the nation would benefit. I think, Wolf, it would be a sign of strength and not of weakness for the president to bring his case before the American people as is really required under our Constitution and legislation, and to work through this, both in the House and the Senate.

BLITZER: A lot of people, though, are concerned, I know, in the administration, that if they were to go to the House and Senate for such a vote, the president might not get the majority vote he would be seeking. Do you think he would? RIGELL: Well, is this not, then, the will of the people? That's the

point. Do we really believe in we, the people? Look, I'm not an isolationist, nor am I a pacifist. My advocacy for the War Powers Resolution adheres there too. I'm not saying under no circumstances will we apply American force here. I do believe we've got to wrestle with these deep underlying issues. Now, look, if we roll back the tape to Operation Odyssey Dawn in Libya, what do we have there now? It pains me to say what we have there. It's a cauldron of confusion. And there's no stable government there. Now it's really off the radar because you only have so much bandwidth and time that it can't be reported properly in the press. But Libya itself is dysfunctional now.

BLITZER: Yes.

RIGELL: And yet we launched over, well, 221 tomahawk missiles into this country. And the president didn't receive authorization for that.

BLITZER: Yes, I remember --

(CROSSTALK)

RIGELL: That's not the --

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: I remember those tomahawk cruise missiles, the other military actions wound up costing the American taxpayer more than $1 billion. The Libyan government never reimbursed the U.S. for any of those funds. You're absolutely right. You see the chaos that's unfolding in Libya today. It's a disaster. As bad as Moammar Gadhafi may have been, there are a lot of experts who are saying what's going on in Libya right now is as bad or worse.

We'll continue this conversation down the road.

Scott Rigell, the congressman from Virginia --

RIGELL: Thank you.

BLITZER: -- thanks very much.

We're learning now a major development. Potentially, a CDC employee who's possibly been exposed to Ebola. We're getting a live report coming in. Disturbing, indeed. Stand by.

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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BLITZER: The breaking news involving the Ebola crisis in West Africa, the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in Atlanta, says one of its staff members working in that region may have been exposed to Ebola.

Let's bring in our senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen.

What are you hearing from the CDC, Elizabeth?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, what I'm hearing is this employee was working in Sierra Leone and ended up -- they were working next to, within three feet of an international health worker who was sick, had symptoms, and later it turned out that person had Ebola. The CDC employee is completely fine, has no symptoms at all, but it was time for this person to come home. They put the CDC employee in a private chartered flight from Sierra Leone to Atlanta. This employee landed this morning. And this employee has to take their temperature twice a day just to make sure they don't get sick.

It's interesting, while they're here in Atlanta, there's no restrictions. This employee can go to work, can go out, can do whatever they want.

BLITZER: Is that -- shouldn't they err on the side of caution maybe? Because sometimes it takes a while for symptoms to develop, right?

COHEN: Wolf, I think that's a question a lot of people will be asking. Here's the reasoning behind it. You're not contagious with Ebola until you're actively sick. This person is not sick and had what is considered to be a very low-risk exposure. They were just working near the person. They weren't taking care of them or anything like that. So if this person starts to get sick, if this person spikes a temperature, then, yes, I'm sure, immediately, this person will be quarantined. They'll be vigilant about that. But at the moment, this person isn't sick so there's no reason to think this person has Ebola and certainly this person is not contagious because they're not sick.

BLITZER: Let's hope this person is just fine.

And you'll update us, of course, as we go along.

Elizabeth Cohen, thanks very much.

COHEN: Thank you.

BLITZER: Up next, a very different story we're following. Peshmerga fighters in northern Iraq get U.S. help in retaking a strategic dam in ISIS. Who are the Peshmerga? Can they get the job done on the ground? A spokesman for Peshmerga is standing by.

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BLITZER: U.S. airstrikes in Iraq against ISIS are credited with helping Iraqi and Kurdish forces to retake some strategic locations, including the dam in Mosul. Those Kurdish fighters are known as the Peshmerga. They are aligned with the semi-autonomous region known as Kurdistan. They have historically been great warriors, very courageous, but are they large enough to stop ISIS?

A senior British military observer doesn't think so, telling "The Daily Beast," "The Peshmerga are doing their best but they're not the element they were. There was an element of Gad's army with the bulk veterans from guerrilla warfare from 20 to 30 years ago.

Brigadier General Hazhar Ismail is the spokesman for Peshmerga in Erbil. Here's joining us from Erbil in northern Iraq.

General, thanks very much for joining us.

Are you losing ground or --

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: -- gaining ground against the ISIS forces in Kurdistan and northern Iraq?

BRIG. GEN. HAZHAR ISMAIL, PESHMERGA SPOKESMAN: Initially, we lose ground but now we are gaining ground after we received an airstrike, help and support from our friends, the U.S., and support, with ammunition. It's very little, but it helped us a lot. So now, day by day, we are gaining ground, and we have a plan to re-control and defeat our enemy, our common enemy, the international enemy, is, and all the area, to save the area from is. You know they are threatening the civilian people. They killed many peoples in Sinjar, in Sinjar Mountain. They kill Christian, Yazidi, Kurd, Arab. There is no difference. So we have a plan with help and support with our friend, the U.S., and some countries.

BLITZER: So what do you need from the United States right now? I know the United States has launched some airstrikes. Have you received weapons, tanked, armored personnel carriers, other sophisticated from the United States?

ISMAIL: Yes. We received some weapons from the United States. But, you know, it's not enough, very little. Unfortunately, the Iraqi government to solve the problems instead to help us to defeat our enemy, to fight our enemy, they are creating a problem. You know, they said, you know, airspace, we have to control airspace. Every shipment has to go -- we have to check, you know, to see. They are, you know, losing time. You know, about that, we need help and support from U.S. and other countries to tell Baghdad you have to help and support Kurdish forces and to be able to defeat the enemy. For a week, we did not receive anything from U.S. or from other countries. The problem, Baghdad. So we need U.S. and other countries to tell Baghdad, you have to solve some bad policies you're created in the past. It is a good chance to solve the problems now.

BLITZER: Basically, what you're saying is you don't want the U.S. government to go through the government in Iraq, in Baghdad, through the Iraqi military, to go through them and then provide weapons to the Peshmerga, the Kurdish fighters? You want the U.S. to do it directly? It doesn't look like they're ready to make that decision. Yet you say you've received only a little bit of weapons from the United States, is that right, Brigadier General?

ISMAIL: Yes, we receive -- it was good, you know, it helped us a lot to stop ISIS and to re-control the area. But believe me, it's not enough, because we have a very long border with ISIS. We have 1,050 kilometer border with ISIS. We're fighting terrorist country, not terrorist organization or small group. So we need to have weapons, ammunition, equipment, everything as army. We are part of Iraqi defense system, but unfortunately, they did nothing for us, with budget, with training, with weapons, with ammunition, with everything. So even for eight years, they did not pay the Peshmerga forces even $1.

BLITZER: Even the Iraqi military, it was trained and financed and equipped by the United States. As soon as they got some threats from ISIS, the Iraqi military in northern Iraq simply abandoned their positions and handed over, in effect, a lot of U.S. military equipment to ISIS in Mosul and elsewhere.

Brigadier General Ismail, thanks so much for joining us. We're going to continue to watch what's going on with the Peshmerga, the Kurdish forces in the north.

Other news we're following, some very hard choices. Once again, the president faces a national security crisis, while worrying about political support up on Capitol Hill. Ron Brownstein standing by to discuss.

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BLITZER: President Obama's weighing several options on how to take on the terror group ISIS. A U.S. official says he's already authorized reconnaissance flights over Syria. The question now, will he go further, give the OK to conduct actual airstrikes inside Syria to target ISIS fighters on the ground?

Let's bring in our senior political analyst, Ron Brownstein.

Ron, the president has a tough decision. Does he seek formal congressional authorization for launching U.S. airstrikes in Syria or does he just notify Congress that he's doing it?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLICE ANALYST: It is a tough call. The controlling force and attitudes about American intervention in the Middle East in the last few years has clearly been the public disillusionment. That seeded a reluctance for further intervention. This could be different, however. The idea of striking ISIS across the Syrian border could be different for several reasons. One, we have the precedent. I think the public gets the precedent from Afghanistan of allowing terror groups to consolidate their hold on territory. And obviously the murder of Foley crystallizes the danger this kind of organization could pose to the heartland. In that way, I think the politics could be different, but it would still be a crap shoot going to Congress.

BLITZER: He might get the votes in the Senate, but in the House, he might not. There probably would be a bunch of Democrats remembering their vote in favor of the invasion of Iraq in 2003 who might be reluctant to vote in favor of another war resolution.

BROWNSTEIN: You have this edge of each party coming together in effect against the center potential. It's an uncertain decision to go there. On the other hand, this is different than I think the last year when we were looking at airstrikes in Syria aimed at the, you know, supporting the rebels there. This is more about domestic U.S. security. It may be tougher for members to take a vote against striking back against the forces that executed in this horrible fashion an American.

BLITZER: Is there any -- what's your sense, if he asks for such a vote? He would need to do a major address to the American public, maybe go up to Capitol Hill. Would he get a yes or no?

BROWNSTEIN: You can't predict anything but I think in the Senate he would get a yes and in the House it would be close. In the end, I think it would be tough to vote no for striking back against ISIS. Again, not guaranteed, but stronger position than he was a year ago on Syria.

BLITZER: We know he's weighing this option right now, even as we speak. We'll see when he makes up his mind what the decision will be.

Ron Brownstein, thanks very much for joining us.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.

BLITZER: That's it for me this hour. I'll be back 5:00 p.m. eastern in "The Situation Room," another two-hour addition. In the meantime, thanks very much for watching.

NEWSROOM with Brooke Baldwin starts right now.