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U.K. Raises Terror Threat Level to Severe; White House Plans to Fight ISIS in Place; Russia Denies Ukraine Invasion; Obama versus Cameron's Response

Aired August 29, 2014 - 13:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Hi there, I'm Brianna Keilar in Washington, Wolf Blitzer is on assignment today.

The terror threat poised by ISIS, its poisonous ideology and its brutal tactics, well, raising alarm bells all over the world. Britain is raising its threat level to severe. Prime Minister David Cameron warning just hours ago that ISIS poses a danger deeper and greater than the country has ever known.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID CAMERON, PRIME MINISTER, BRITAIN: We need to tackle that ideology of extremism head on, at root, before it takes the form of violence and terror. That means challenging the thinking of extremist ideologues, identifying the groups in this country that push an extremist agenda and countering them by empowering the overwhelming majority who believe in British values of democracy, the rule of law and respect for minorities.

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KEILAR: The Department of Homeland Security says, quote, "It is unaware of any specific credible threat to the U.S. homeland from ISIL, which is another name for ISIS, and the White House says it's working with its allies in watching the situation closely.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY; For a number of months now, we have been monitoring those individuals that have western passports, that are citizens of western countries, other than the United States or in Europe, who have made the decision to travel to Syria or that broader region, taken up arms alongside ISIL. They pose a threat because they are -- they've received military training. They are now battle hardened. And they've demonstrated a willingness to risk their lives for their cause.

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KEILAR: All this after a string of unsettling developments. Reporters from "Foreign Policy Magazine" gained access to what they're calling the ISIS laptop of doom. Buried inside hidden files of the computer found in Syria were videos of Osama Bin Laden, bomb-making manuals and a treasure trove of other documents, including plans to unleash a biological weapons attack.

Also raising concerns, a report in "The Washington Post" about slain American journalist, James Foley. The paper citing unnamed sources familiar with the treatment of abducted westerners say that Foley was water boarded by his ISIS captors. At least three other hostages were also reportedly subjected to the same torture.

We are covering the ISIS threat from all angles. Let's first head to London, though. Our Karl Penhaul is there. So, Karl, severe, this is the second highest level in the British warning system. It means that they believe an attack is highly likely. Tell us a little bit about how they made this decision. Why they're doing this now?

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, Brianna. In fact, it's the highest threat alert that British has issued in the last three years. It means that a terror attack could be highly likely. But Prime Minister David Cameron went on to specify that there is no specific intelligence that any threat is imminent.

Now, when asked, why now then? He referred to the fact that intelligence services believe more than 500 Britains are now in Syria or the Iraqi region fighting for Jihadi groups there. And that really, especially in the wake of the James Foley execution and the suspicion that his execution or one of his executioners may have been British, that is what is driving this alert.

Now, of course, the idea that British Jihadists are fighting in Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan is nothing new. That has been going on for years. But certainly, nothing more than that seems to be at the core of this. Prime Minister Cameron did go on to say that he has a number of measures in mind, both to fight radical Islam abroad and also on the home front back in Britain. What he's looking at doing in Britain.

And he said he would give more details to parliament next week. Perhaps travel bans for individuals suspected of trying to travel to join Jihadi groups, possibly also withdrawing some of their passports. What he did also spell out was that this could be a long drawn-out fight. In his words, he said this could be a generational battle that could take years or even decades -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Yes, and you heard him there, Karl, really managing those expectations by saying that. He was also talking really tough here. How do you think, though, that's going to play out on the streets?

PENHAUL: He certainly was playing tough. These are tough fighting words. Obviously, a lot of the measures that he's got to get through to tackle the problem may have to go through parliament. He also, later on in the speech, referred to the fact that it was a duty of those people living in Britain to adhere to British values. He didn't take questions on what those British values specifically were that he had in mind.

But that may not play out that well on the British street, especially in multicultural communities in some of British's largest cities. A lot of British Muslims may see that as a suggestion that it could be an attack on their clothing, the kind of clothing. Are they going to be allowed to wear veils on the streets of British or do they have to adhere to a British set of clothing? Will they be able to carry on in the way that they do right now with their beliefs, with their religious beliefs? All that up for debate.

That said, with some of the people I was talking to over the last few days in east London, British born and bred, white folk, were saying that they do fear this multicultural Britain because they don't like the fact that some Britains now may speak another international language in their corner store. They don't like, perhaps, the fact that women are walking down street in veils. So, those words by Cameron may go down well on some fronts. But the question is, now, is this going to be an attack on the multicultural value of some British cities -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Karl Penhaul in London for us. Thank you. And Britain raising its terror alert level coincide with ominous writings from Al Qaeda. The British newspaper "The Telegraph" reports that Al Qaeda in Arabian Peninsula has published an English language manual on how to make car bombs and even suggested potential targets, including the Sandhurst Royal Military Academy, Thames House, MI-5 (ph), department stores, even New York City's Times Square and Las Vegas casinos.

Let's bring in Tara Maller, an expert on the Middle East, and a research fellow at the New America Foundation, and also CNN Law Enforcement Analyst, Tom Fuentes, A former FBI assistant director.

I want to start with you, Tom. This decision, we know it's been made. You heard Karl say this is the highest threat level in, what, three years. What goes into a decision like this? And are we write to be so alarmed by it?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, I think, Brianna, a big part of this is that Britain, like the U.S. and other western European countries, have been watching the growth of ISIS and fearing that, well, OK, they're fighting battles in Syria. They're fighting with other terror groups like Al Nusra in Syria.

And then, they're going into Iraq to fight against the Shia major -- you know, led Iraqis under Maliki. Now, they come to realize that they have 500 of their own citizens have joined. And the U.S. realizes at least 100 from the United States have traveled there to join the Jihad. And they're realizing that those citizens can come back because the travel into Syria and into Iraq really is not trackable. If they go to Turkey, they can sneak in. But they could --

KEILAR: It's so porous.

FUENTES: But they could go -- it's so porous.

KEILAR: Yes.

FUENTES: They could go to Greece and charter a boat and go across the Mediterranean and land on the shores of Syria. No one will ever know. When they come home, it won't be in their passport that they visited Syria or Iraq. And that's the threat.

KEILAR: So -- and that's the concern that there's no way to track. And it -- I mean, obviously, we know some of these people, right, Tara, are being monitored. But, at the same time, how can the U.S., how can Britain, how can European nations monitor all of them and not have someone slip through the cracks?

TARA MALLER, FELLOW, NEW AMERICAN FOUNDATION: Exactly. And on something like this where you see the threat level go up, there is probably some type of reporting, some type of concern. And what analysts are doing is they're looking at three things. They're looking at, what are potential targets? They're looking at, what are potential tactics that can be used on these targets? And then, that's just the desire side of the equation, what are the groups they want to try to target? But then, they have look at the capability. So, do these groups, do these individuals have the capabilities to actually carry out the attacks that they may have the desire to do? So, even though we see documents, like the ones found on the laptop or the one that you just mentioned previously, those show the desire to go after certain target. But the real question then becomes, do these groups or these actors who are concerned about tracking, have the capabilities to do or carry out these actual plans?

KEILAR: So, aspiration obviously different than capabilities. But you said there has probably been some reporting. So, we don't know what that is then is what you're saying. Might we never know what has spurred this?

MALLER: Exactly. And they haven't raised it to the highest level which would be imminent and that would probably be more specific intel (ph). But, for example, if you look back to 911, there was a presidential daily brief about planes hitting buildings before. Now, that was not specific intelligence. That was not a specific attack. But there may have the same types of generic reporting about types of plans that groups want to do. That doesn't mean they know a time. That doesn't mean there's a location. It doesn't even mean there's a specific operational plan.

But it could be, again, just speculating, reporting of that nature that leaves a country in this case, Britain, to raise their threat level, or it could be a fact that there's a lot in the news lately about foreign fighters going back and forth and, you know, the British voice on the video of James Foley. So, there's, obviously, domestic political concerns --

KEILAR: Yes.

MALLER: -- that if they were not to raise it and something were to happen that they were negligent.

KEILAR: I want to -- I want to ask you guys about this manual on car bombs that was posted by Al Qaeda. This is what "The Telegraph" has reported. It suggests potential targets so that speaks sort of to what you're saying, right? Something more general even if it's not very specific. Do you think this is an attempt, Tom, by Al Qaeda -- is this P.R., in a way? Is this Al Qaeda saying, OK, everyone's talking about ISIS. Hey, remember us?

FUENTES: Well, that could be. The competition among the terror groups. But Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula centered in Yemen have been putting out inspirational Jihadi messages for a long time, back when Al Awlaki (ph) was still alive. And they started publishing "Inspire Magazine" which just released its 12th in May.

KEILAR: It's still going strong.

FUENTES: And if you -- if you go back through the 12 issues, they list dozens of ways to kill people without having to shoot a gun or make a bomb or anything sophisticated. They talk about -- take a car and drive it up on the sidewalk in Washington, D.C. at lunchtime and you'll mow down a lot of people and kill them and chances are you'll kill senators and congressmen. Take -- hijack a tanker truck and drive it into an elementary school. Hijack a train -- or, I mean, derail a train. There's so many things that they've listed over the 12 issues that require no special training and no travel to Syria or Iraq to learn how to do it. Just do it right here and if you're inspired, go forward.

MALLER: And that's a really important point. We worry about this mass casualty attacks. We worry about the black swan events that might be low probability but very high impact. But at the end of the day, there can be lone wolf actors, mass shootings. These are events that the -- terrorism aside, that can be carried out by teenagers, small groups, individuals. So, events like that are things that the intelligence community and law enforcement have to also watch out for --

FUENTES: Yes.

MALLER: -- which are not the catastrophic mass casualty, high funded --

KEILAR: Yes.

MALLER: -- terror attack we think of.

KEILAR: They consider them to be probably more likely. Tara Maller, Tom Fuentes, thank you so much to both of you.

And ahead this hour, President Obama facing a laundry list of foreign policy challenges. How well is he handling the challenges? We will get some insight from Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger.

And up next, we will also go live to Russia as leaders there downplay any involvement in Ukraine and question whether the west is making the whole thing up.

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KEILAR: To the crisis in Ukraine now and the Russian denials of activity by their troops. The U.S. and NATO both say there is evidence of Russian troops and heavy armor in southeastern Ukraine. Russia says it's all a western lie. Here was NATO's response this morning. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERS FOGH RASMUSSEN, NATO SECRETARY GENERAL: Despite Moscow's hollow denials, it is now clear that Russian troops and equipment have illegally crossed the border into eastern and southeastern Ukraine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Our Matthew Chance is live for us from Moscow.

Matthew, there's video evidence, there's satellite images, separatist leaders are admitting that Russian troops are fighting with them. How is the kremlin still denying involvement here?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it denied it all along and there's been more than that evidence that you just mentioned. I mean for some months now there's been mounting evidence that Russian forces are taking part in combat operations inside Ukraine. Just a few days ago, Ukraine paraded 10 Russian paratroopers it had actually captured and detained inside Ukraine on Ukrainian television. The explanation from the kremlin then was that they'd slipped over the border by accident after patrolling the frontier.

Now, today, the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, again, keeping to that kremlin line, saying that any kind of evidence or any kind of suggestion that Russian forces are taking part in combat operation inside Ukraine are purely conjecture. Take a listen to his explanation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SERGEY LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER (through translator): From the very beginning of the crisis, we have been blamed for everything. There have been reports that there are photographs from space showing movements of Russian troops. But as it turned out, it was computer games and the images were taken from there. And the latest allegations are more or less the same kind.

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CHANCE: All right, well, the pro-Russian rebel commanders in eastern Ukraine have given an even less plausible, arguably less plausible explanation for the presence of Russian troops. They're saying that there are several thousands of them fighting alongside Ukrainian rebels against government forces in eastern Ukraine. But they're saying they're Russian soldiers who are on leave of absence from the Russian military and are simply taking their vacation time to fight alongside, in many cases, die alongside the rebels in eastern Ukraine, Brianna.

KEILAR: Yes, that's a very odd explanation there.

President Putin, Matthew, he has referred to the rebels as the militia of new Russia. Why does this matter, this choice of words? CHANCE: Well, new Russia or Naviracia (ph), as they say in Russian, is

the Russian term for that area of eastern and southern Ukraine, which was traditionally part of the Russian empire in the czarist (ph) times. It was named that then. And, of course, using that term sort of puts forward a Russian claim on the territory. And, indeed, that's what the real concern is at the moment. That while this is kind of a thin veil of deniability been placed over the presence of Russian troops taking part or not inside eastern Ukraine and in southern Ukraine as well, what's actually happening behind that veil is that Russia may be tightening its grip, increasing its presence in that area to eventually annex it.

Now, it did that in Crimea a few months ago at the start of these hostilities back in March. And one of the worries is that it may also be doing something similar in those eastern and southern areas of Ukraine as well.

KEILAR: All right, Matthew, thank you so much.

Well, Ukraine and Russia, Iraq and ISIS, no shortage of foreign policy challenges for President Obama. But his no strategy comment about ISIS in Syria is raising concerns. Chief political analyst Gloria Borger will be joining me to talk about that and more.

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KEILAR: Britain raises its threat level in response to the danger posed by the terrorist group ISIS. Prime Minister David Cameron today called ISIS the greatest and deepest threat to U.K. security the country has ever known. Cameron's comments come on the heels of President Obama saying he doesn't have a strategy yet for dealing with ISIS militants in Syria. The White House was in overdrive again today trying to clarify what the president meant.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: He was asked a very specific question about whether or not the president would seek congressional authorization before ordering any sort of military action in Syria. And the point the president made was that that's - that's putting the cart before the horse. The president hasn't yet laid out its specific plan for military action in Syria. And the reason for that is simply that the Pentagon is still developing that plan. And he's still reviewing it. and it would be putting the car before the horse to talk about what sort of congressional authorization would be required for a plan that hasn't even been put in place yet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Do Prime Minister Cameron's actions perhaps put more pressure on President Obama to lay out a plan? I want to bring in chief political analyst Gloria Borger to talk about this.

I mean, first off, can we kind of talk about the differing leadership styles in a way just between two press conferences, we see Cameron today, President Obama yesterday.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: There was no ambiguity at all in what Cameron said. He said that ISIS was a direct national security threat to the U.K. What the president has said, particularly, I think, most recent in an interview with Tom Friedman in "The New York Times' he said, we have a strategic interest in pushing back ISIS. So I think you see the different styles there. The president is less willing to come sort of straight on and say it. He seems, as a result, less decisive, of course less direct, more conflicted.

KEILAR: Yes.

BORGER: You see the president in conflict.

KEILAR: But it's different too, right, because, I mean, the U.S., there obviously are some people with American passports who are participating in ISIS.

BORGER: Right. Right.

KEILAR: There are many more in Britain.

BORGER: Sure.

KEILAR: It is clearly a bigger issue for them.

BORGER: More of an issue for Britain.

KEILAR: Yes.

BORGER: But one would argue, if, God forbid, there were an attack on Britain, it would be an attack on everyone.

KEILAR: Yes.

BORGER: There would be a NATO issue, et cetera, et cetera.

So, look, I think what you see in the president is somebody who sort of wants to put the brakes on. He didn't want to occur what occurred to him a year ago when he had the red line in Syria and we were all saying he was going to use military strikes, et cetera, et cetera. He walked right up to the red line, then pulled back. That was not a great political moment for him.

KEILAR: No.

BORGER: So I think he doesn't want to see a repeat of that. So he kind of wants to put the brakes on and say, I'll tell you when I'm ready, but I don't have all the information yet. As a result, though, people are asking question, why aren't you ready? This isn't a surprise.

KEILAR: Well, sure. That was very clear yesterday that was obviously his goal, to tap the brakes on this idea -

BORGER: Yes. KEILAR: That somehow it's imminent, the U.S. is going to expand air strikes into Syria. But saying those words, we don't have a strategy yet, it doesn't inspire confidence, right? That's not necessarily -

BORGER: It doesn't.

KEILAR: Well, you know, how much damage did he do with that?

BORGER: Well, look, I think, since we've been talking about it nonstop for the last 24 hours, or almost 24 hours, it does do him political damage. You could argue, though, that if you look at the polls, people are with him. They don't want to use force. They don't want boots on the ground. So his point is, and you talk to senior administration officials they'll say, you know, the president wants to be deliberative about this. He doesn't want to rush ahead. However, what people want is leadership --

KEILAR: Yes.

BORGER: From the president. They don't want to see the conflicts -- they don't want to see it play out like Shakespeare, you know.

KEILAR: Yes. And they don't want - so they don't want boots on the ground -

BORGER: Right.

KEILAR: And yet a lot of Americans were very supportive of those recent U.S. air strikes in Iraq. And there's this poll coming from "USA Today," Pew Research -

BORGER: Right.

KEILAR: And it says that a lot of people aren't satisfied with the president's approach to foreign policy, like you just said. You had 54 percent of people saying his approach is not tough enough. Fifty-four percent is kind of tricky for the administration, right?

BORGER: Sure. It's very hard.

KEILAR: So how do they navigate these muddy waters of what Americans want and don't want?

BORGER: Well, because - well, there are a couple of things going on here. First of all, I think Americans are conflicted. They want somebody who's a strong leader. They want somebody they know who's decisive and who's in charge. But on the other hand, they don't want to go to war, OK?

KEILAR: Yes.

BORGER: So they don't want to put boots on the ground. So when they say President Obama isn't tough enough, what they're saying there is that we don't really know what you think. We need to know what you think. And lots of times with polling on foreign policy over the years, you'll find that when a president comes out and gives a speech and says, these are our options, this is the national security threat, my job is to protect the people of the United States, this is what we have to do, public opinion tends to follow a leader and a president. And so, you know, I think they have to consider all of that. And I would argue that what they're trying to do is come up with the right solution and trying not to look at those -- at those polls because they're very, very changeable.

KEILAR: Yes, very much. All right, interesting. Great conversation. Gloria Borger, thank you.

BORGER: Thanks. My next door neighbor here.

KEILAR: That's right, I know.

Well, just ahead, we're going to have more on the ISIS threat and President Obama's response. Should he get authorization from Congress to go after ISIS in Syria? We're going to ask a senior member of the House Intelligence Committee.

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