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We Are Going to Defeat ISIS; White House Briefing Soon; Obama to Lay Out ISIS Plan Wednesday; Fragile Reconciliation Agreement; ISIS Atrocities

Aired September 08, 2014 - 13:00   ET

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

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Right now, a briefing is about to get underway at the White House as President Obama prepares to lay out the United States' strategy for taking on the terror group ISIS.

And right now, a new video from ISIS, the one showing the group's bloody overrun of a Syria air base, what it tells us about the military hardware ISIS now has in its possession.

And Presidents Clinton and Bush, 43, hanging out for a good cause and leaving the room in stitches. The one-liners from each that had everyone and each other laughing.

Welcome. I'm Brianna Keilar in today for Wolf Blitzer. President Obama gets ready to lay out his strategy for combating the terror group, ISIS, this week and that's certain to be a major topic at today's White House press briefing. It is scheduled to get underway any time now. We are keeping an eye on it, and we'll be taking you there live.

First, though, let's bring in White House Correspondent Michelle Kosinski as well as Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto and Senior Political Analyst Ron Brownstein. Michelle, to you first. The president, you know it's been a couple of weeks. He said he had no strategy yet and how to deal with ISIS in Syria, but, now, he's moving from that to preparing for a speech to the nation Wednesday to explain the ISIS game plan, as he put it. Here's what he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What I want people to understand, though, is that, over the course of months, we are going to be able to not just blunt the momentum of ISIL, we are going to systematically degrade their capabilities. We're going to shrink the territory that they control and, ultimately, we're going to defeat them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: So, what more will we hear from the president this week about the plan to defeat ISIS? That's really the question, Michelle. What are we expecting?

MICHELLE KOSINSKI CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we're not really sure how much more detail we're going to hear. I mean, we've known what we have heard from not only the president there in that address over the weekend but also from different members of the administration, kind of ever since that fateful day when we heard him say that he didn't have a strategy yet. I mean, the White House has been careful to say, OK, those words only related to a military portion for Syria. But the White House has repeatedly said there is a strategy. It's going to be a phased approach. First, to degrade and destroy ISIS in Iraq. And it's interesting to hear the kind of evolution of how the White House has framed that plan. I mean, first, it was degrade and destroy and, now, they say degrade and ultimately destroy. Over the past week or so, we've been hearing them really manage expectations because they want to say, yes, the goal is to destroy ISIS. They've been putting that ultimately in there.

And we've heard different members of the administration saying it's going to take time. I mean, the president himself, we've heard him say that. But, specifically, one of his top advisers last week said it could take years, especially dealing with the Syria component. They want this to be well-planned out. It could last beyond this administration. We heard John Kerry, during the NATO summit, when he addressed the coalition, these 10 nations meeting together on the last day, to come up with this plan. And the administration has repeatedly emphasized that that coalition is a key part.

We heard Kerry say, OK, we do have the ability to defeat ISIS, but it could take one year. It could take two years. It could take three years -- Brianna.

KEILAR: And, Michelle, you know, we hear President Obama, he's repeated that there will be no U.S. combat boots on the ground. I want all of you to listen to this, and we'll talk about it on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is not going to be an announcement about U.S. ground troops. This is not the equivalent of the Iraq War. What this is is similar to the kinds of counterterrorism campaigns that we've been engaging in consistently over the last five, six, seven years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: So, no boots on the ground. That's, obviously, going to mean, Jim, that the U.S. needs some help. It needs a little help from its friends. Where does it stand with the U.S. trying to shore up supports from its allies in the region, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, the UAE?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: This is simple. He wants to have allies on the ground. He doesn't want this to be an outside in kind of operation, the west-U.S. interacting from afar. So, he needs that. This is why the secretary of state, John Kerry, is going to the region this week to help build that kind of support. So far, that support has been largely humanitarian. You have the Jordanians, the Kuwaites, the Saudis sending millions of dollars to help buy humanitarian aid. But the administration clearly wants more.

For instance, from the Jordanians, they want intelligence's help on ISIS inside Syria and Iraq. From the Saudis, they want the Saudis to be supporting the moderate Syrian rebel groups that are fighting Assad. And this is key because while the president is saying no boots on the ground, you need some sort of ground force to help take back and hold territory as you -- if you're successful, as you degrade ISIS from the air in the coming months and years.

So, who is that group going to be? It's not going to be American troops. We also don't expect -- the U.S. does not expect the Saudis to be sending in their forces, et cetera. So, you need some allies on the ground. They want the Saudis to fend -- to fund the moderate groups. But also, crucially, you need help from Syrians and Iraqis themselves, right? You want to get the Sunni tribes on your side. We, to this point, have, if not fighting -- been fighting alongside ISIS, they've been helping them progress. So, you need to get them on the other side of this battle. And these are very tall orders going forward.

KEILAR: Is there really a belief that, for instance, the Syrian rebels, who have been fighting the Assad regime, who have come up against ISIS and who have really been so diminutive --

SCIUTTO: Yes.

KEILAR: -- compared to the military might of ISIS. Is there a sense that they can be beefed up enough in order to really be a fair match?

SCIUTTO: That's a great question because, at this point, the performance hasn't been great, right? They have been massively overmatched by ISIS which is one reason why you have some of the administration's critics pointing to the president's decision not to arm moderate groups earlier. Now, that's, in effect, part of the plan. If not directly from the U.S., then from Saudis and others. Had you done that earlier, would ISIS have been weaker? Would those groups have been stronger? You know, you can rewrite history -- you can't rewrite history, at this point, but that's left the administration open to criticism.

But also, there is a question as to how good are they, right, even if you do arm them? Can they stand up to ISIS, you know, possibly with the power of the U.S. Air Force and other support, special advisers on the ground, maybe. But still an open question.

KEILAR: Ron, this no boots on the ground. This seems to be the key when you hear politicians talking about this. They say, no boots on the ground. That, obviously, is speaking to the concern that many Americans have, that they may be war weary. But we also saw with the targeted strikes against areas in Iraq, trying to -- you know, around the Mosul dam trying to push ISIS back from those areas. The majority of the Americans were in support of that. So, what really is --

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.

KEILAR: -- what really is the landscape here when the president and politicians are looking at what the American people will go for and what they won't?

BROWNSTEIN: It's a great question because the politics of the Middle East seems to be shifting, to a point. If you look through the first five years plus of the Obama administration, clearly, the defining and controlling force in the political environment on the Middle East was the widespread sense of disillusionment about the interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan and the feeling in the public that it did not produce the outcomes we wanted. And, therefore, all of the impetus was towards getting out.

And, I think, the public is still skeptical of a broad scale military invasion. Everybody is very clear intervention -- everybody is very clear -- you know, as you saw in the president making clear that is not on the table. But two things have shifted. One, elite opinion in both parties. The foreign policy establishment in both parties are increasingly coalescing around the idea that we have been too passive. And, as Jim noted, there's a lot of tough questions for the president about why this strategy is coming now when ISIS has been gaining strength and even consolidating territory for many months. So, that's changed.

And I think, on the public side, clearly, after these twin savage murders of Americans, there is more appetite for intervention, to a point. And we'll see how deep that support goes if things start to go wrong, at any point in our intervention.

KEILAR: All right, stick with me, guys. We're going to continue our conversation as we await this White House briefing, really the first White House briefing since we learned that President Obama will lay out his case for taking on ISIS in Syria on Wednesday.

Up next, Congressional reaction to President Obama's coming plan on ISIS. We will go live to Capitol Hill.

Plus, Palestinian President Ahmad Abbas sends a sharp message to Hamas. How the comments could threaten the unity government. We have that ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: We are, right now, awaiting White House spokesman, Josh Earnest, as we await the briefing there at the White House that was supposed to begin, frequently slides. We'll be keeping an eye on it and bringing it to you live because we expect Josh Earnest to talk about the president's upcoming meeting of Congressional leaders tomorrow as well as his planned speech on ISIS on Wednesday.

And joining me now from Capitol Hill to talk about this is Texas Congressman, Mac Thornberry. He's a Republican vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Thanks so much for joining us, Congressman.

REP. MAC THORNBERRY (R), TEXAS, VICE CHAIRMAN, HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: You're welcome.

KEILAR: What are you hoping to hear? What are do you want to hear from the president on Wednesday?

THORNBERRY: Well, I want to hear a clear articulation of what he thinks the goals are, what his strategy is for achieving those goals. And what I really want to hear from the president is a reassurance that he's going to stick with it, because if there's one concern I've got is that the president left early in Iraq. He was on track to leave early in Afghanistan. He pulled back from Syria. And, more important than me, other countries, our own military, wants to be reassured that whatever plan he comes up with, he's going to stick with it until the job is done.

KEILAR: Did you hear that -- when you -- when you heard in his interview yesterday with "Meet the Press," he's talking about defeating ISIS. He's talking about ultimately defeating ISIS. And, obviously, there appears to be some management of expectation of the fact that this isn't something that happens overnight or quickly at all. Did you hear that to a satisfactory degree?

THORNBERRY: Well, it's certainly getting better. And the bipartisan criticism that the president has gotten over the lack of strategy, lack of articulating what was at stake, I think is starting to sink in. But I -- but you're hitting on another key point. In addition to looking to see whether the president is going to stick with whatever course he lays out, the other question is, is he going to articulate a strategy for the broader terrorism group and the world? If we're just looking at ISIS as an organization, we are ignoring the growth of terrorism in a whole variety of places.

So, what we need is -- it's like a virus and the suggestion has been made, by Newt Gingrich and others, that we need to treat it as a virus and look at how you control a biological epidemic. That broader, longer strategy for dealing with this threat of terrorism, ISIS, yes, it has our focus now, but beyond ISIS is what I really hope we hear from the president.

KEILAR: We, sort of, I guess, got a little preview yesterday when he was talking about a diplomatic element to his plan, an economic element to his plan as well as the military aspect to it. What do you think the U.S. needs to be doing in Iraq and Syria to combat ISIS?

THORNBERRY: And a military alone element, especially, you know, dropping a few bombs with air power is certainly not going to get the job done. But if we go to other countries, whether you're talking Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan or whoever and say, we want you to help with some money, with presence on the ground or whatever, they're going to be looking to us and say, OK, we may be willing to take that risk, but are you going to stick with us? And that's why I think the crucial thing is for the president to reassure all those other countries and our own people that he's going to stick with it even though it will be tough, there may be some losses but he's got to reassure that he's going to stick with the plan that he lays out.

KEILAR: And I wonder tomorrow, what is the view there on Capitol Hill for this meeting that the president has with congressional leaders? He'll be meeting with the big four. McConnell, Reid, Pelosi, Boehner. Is this just a courtesy, hey, guys, head's up, this is what I'm planning to say tomorrow, or do you think there's going to be any incorporation of ideas here?

THORNBERRY: Well, I hope so. If all the consultation is, is a preview of what he's going to say in his speech, then that's not really consultation. The key for success for the president here at home is that he's going to make this a team effort. That means reaching out to Congress in a way that he has not done before, certainly in the last several years. So he needs to listen as much as he needs to talk and he needs to broaden it out beyond just the top four leaders because he's going to have to have bipartisan majority supporting his strategy and that's going to require some effort because there's a lot of questions about the president as a commander in chief.

KEILAR: You're also a member of the intelligence committee. This is the week where we'll see the anniversary of 9/11. Are there any fears and are you hearing anything about anything that could coincide with that anniversary?

THORNBERRY: Well, there's always a heightened awareness, a heightened concern when we come up to the anniversary of 9/11. Certainly ISIS poses unique challenges because of the number of western passports that their members have and how easy it is for them to come - come here. So it's always a week of heightened awareness. But the truth is, the number of terrorist threats that pose a threat to the United States is greater now than it was before 9/11 2001. We have more threats to watch, more dangers to be cautious of, and so a heightened vigilance, a heightened intelligence effort is really critical, not just this week but in many, many weeks and months to come.

KEILAR: Congressman, we'll be watching this speech, along with you, on Wednesday and waiting to see what comes out of this meeting at the White House tomorrow. Thanks for being with us.

THORNBERRY: You bet.

KEILAR: And ahead, as we await the White House press briefing, ISIS presses ahead on its social media campaign. This time it's online video of its capture of a key Syrian military base.

And next, the fragile coalition among Palestinian leaders may be coming apart. We'll find out what's causing the rift.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: We are keeping our eye right now on the White House Briefing Room. We are awaiting the briefing. Really, this is the first since we have learned that President Obama will lay out his plan for combatting ISIS in Syria. What will it entail? What's the role of the U.S. military? How does the U.S. ensure that it won't become engaged in an open-ended war? These are some of the questions no doubt that will be asked today of White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest. And we'll bring that to you as soon as he begins.

A fragile reconciliation agreement between Palestinian rivals could be in jeopardy. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas slammed Hamas' leadership at an Arab League meeting, accusing them of operating what he called a shadowed government in Gaza. A senior Hamas spokesman quickly hit back at Abbas' comments calling them, quote, "unjustifiable."

Let's bring in Ian Lee. He is live for us from Jerusalem.

Tell us, Ian, what's behind the comments that Abbas made?

IAN LEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, essentially Mahmoud Abbas is saying that Hamas is running this shadow government. And last April they came up with this unity government where they would have an interim cabinet and Mahmoud Abbas is saying that these ministers of the interim cabinet aren't able to operate inside Gaza and that Hamas has their own people taking charge and they're instead thus violating the terms of this agreement.

KEILAR: And under the terms of the reconciliation agreement, elections are supposed to be held by the end of the year. So how do you think, Ian, that may affect this process?

LEE: Well, it could definitely jeopardize this process. Hamas is riding a wave of popularity right now. A recent poll had almost 80 percent of Palestinians saying that Hamas won this recent war with Israel. And also, if there was presidential elections right now, Hamas political leader Ishmel Hania (ph) would beat Mahmoud Abbas. But it's also important to note that we do not know the entire story of what's going on behind the scenes here. This whole thing could be a political ploy by the Palestinian president.

KEILAR: And all of this comes, this spat, it's coming just two weeks after that major conflict that lasted for 50 days between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. How is Israel reacting to the news of this rift?

LEE: Well, Israel is very pleased with this rift. They were against this unity government from the beginning, calling Hamas a terrorist organization and urging Abbas not to deal with them. Well, they're also wanting the Palestinian president to rejoin a dialogue with them. But if we go back to this cease-fire agreement, a big part of it was that Mahmoud Abbas' men would take up security along Gaza's border, thus allowing humanitarian aid in and other sorts of aid. Well, that hasn't happened. The aid isn't there. The Palestinian president's security forces aren't on the Gaza border. So this could also have consequences for that cease-fire.

KEILAR: All right, Ian Lee, thank you so much.

We're also following this, Russia could soon start forcing western airlines to fly around Russian air space. It would be retaliation for the newly planned sanctions over Ukraine. And also today, Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko traveled to the battered city of Mariupol in eastern Ukraine, which was the site of more shelling over the weekend. The cease-fire, which was announced Friday, is still technically holding. Pro-Russian separatists have so far turned over around 1,200 prisoners of war as part of the terms of the cease-fire.

And we're going to hear from President Obama on Wednesday about his new strategy for fighting ISIS in Syria and Iraq. In the meantime, ISIS is continuing its battle against forces in both of those countries. This extremist group is also continuing its relentless public relations campaign and this time it's a video of the Syrian air base that ISIS overran last month. Brian Todd joining me now to talk about this latest video.

One of the first things that we noticed when we see this, Brian, is that we see it from sort of the eye in the sky point of view.

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, Brianna, showing that ISIS has some kind of drone capability. They've put something up in the air, an unmanned aerial vehicle. We've seen this before. They've mounted a camera on it. They have some kind of capability there. They're showing that in this video. And we believe this might be from the Tabqa air base captured near Raqqa last month.

There you see some of the drone video that they have. This could have been after the battle, but experts are telling us, look, the fact that they have eyes in the skies at all means that they might be able to, at some point, be able to map out what's over the next ridge, in the next town, maybe before a battle coming up. So we're going to be doing kind of a deeper dive on this video, what the drone video shows, what some of the other video shows in this release from ISIS and we're going to be looking more at that in "The Situation Room" at 5:00.

KEILAR: And we're also seeing in this more battle -- some of the battlefield action.

TODD: Right, which is extraordinary. This is the first kind of in the moment video that you're seeing of a battle taking place with these ISIS fighters moving around the battlefield, firing at their enemies in some kind of a formation. That's significant because we haven't seen a lot of that. We've seen them kind of in their own positions firing away at unknown targets. But here you see them in these kind of formations. And what experts told us that the fact that these guys are spread out in this video, they're not bunched together, means that they kind of know what they're doing. They know how to take a position. They're seemingly showing some capability here on the battlefield. Some discipline on the battlefield that you don't often see with terrorist groups.

KEILAR: What's -- what is their objective in putting this out?

TODD: Well, I think to show their capability is what you're hearing mostly.

KEILAR: To show that they're scary in a way?

TODD: Yes. Yes.

KEILAR: Is it to show fear? Is it also to inspire?

TODD: Oh, absolutely. Fear is a huge part of these videos and the psychology behind them. They put these videos out to show potential enemies and towns where they're advancing toward, hey, this is what could be in store for you if you resist us. This part of the video is interesting, too. They show them capturing Syrian fighter jets, which is extraordinary. Now, of course, you know, what we are hearing from almost every expert we've talked to is, there's no evidence that they can fly these things or maintain them or fuel them. But the fact that they've captured that. And look at that, they've captured some ammunition, some possible air-to-air rockets there. These are significant captures here because that could actually help (INAUDIBLE) the ammunition.

KEILAR: Yes, tremendous amount of weapons that they've captured.

TODD: Right.

KEILAR: All right, Brian Todd, thanks so much. And we'll be looking forward to the rest of your report --

TODD: 5:00 (INAUDIBLE) -

KEILAR: In "The Situation Room."

TODD: "The Situation Room."

KEILAR: Now, once again, we are awaiting today's White House press briefing where we expect to learn more about the president's meeting tomorrow with congressional leadership to talk about ISIS, as well as that address that he'll be giving to the nation on Wednesday about ISIS, what he's doing to do to combat the group. We will bring that to you when it happens.

But meantime, still to come, the immigration dilemma. We'll go on patrol with immigration and customs officers as they trap a suspect. We have that next.

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