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Administration Counting on Anti-ISIS Coalition; French Airstrikes Target ISIS in Iraq; Rice States No U.S. Troops for Syria Training; What If the U.S. Did Nothing; Interview with Rep. Jerry Nadler; Congress Votes; Scotland Says No to Independence; Iraq Ground War

Aired September 19, 2014 - 13:00   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: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer reporting from Washington. President Obama has been given the go ahead to put his plan into action to arm and train the Syrian rebels. The Senate followed the House's lead in approving the measure.

Moments ago, we heard from the president's national security adviser, Susan Rice. She was asked about a timeline for the training but would only say that the White House is going to move rapidly but that process will take several months. The administration also touted the cooperation of coalition partners in the mission at hand.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KERRY, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: We're getting in the middle of -- not getting in the middle -- we're going to be part of a coalition that is engaged in counterterrorism. This is a counterterrorist operation. Not counter insurgency and certainly not engagement in a civil war.

CHUCK HAGEL, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: More than 40 nations have already expressed their willingness to participate in this effort and more than 30 nations have indicated their readiness to offer military support.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: And just moments ago, the president's national security advisor, Susan Rice, said this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SUSAN RICE, U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR: And our strategy entails using local forces to fight ISIL on the ground. Iraqi security forces have already taken the fight to ISIL along with their Kurdish colleagues with U.S. Support. And, obviously, now, we'll be in a position to train and equip the Syrian opposition forces which will have the ability to do the same inside of Syria. To be clear, as we've said repeatedly, our strategy does not involve U.S. troops on the ground in a combat role in either Iraq or Syria. And no U.S. troops will be in Syria as part of the train and equip program. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Also today, one of the U.S. partners joined the fight. France launched its first anti-ISIS air strikes in Iraq. California Republican Congressman Ed Royce is here with me. He's the Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Congressman, thanks very much for joining us. Are you satisfied what you're hearing from the Obama administration?

ED ROYCE (R), CALIFORNIA, CHAIRMAN, HOUSE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE: Two hours ago, I was with the ambassador from France and we were talking about this operation. What's necessary right now is that the Gulf states come in, the Saudis, the UAE. I met with their ambassadors yesterday. Now is the time, frankly, for them to not only open up the checkbook but also to send the message throughout the region that this has to be on the ground a campaign in which, you know, we see -- there are 190,000 soldiers in the Kurdish army.

BLITZER: The Peshmerga?

ROYCE: The Peshmerga. And we see the awakening, as they call it, again, the Sunni awakening that helped defeat Al Qaeda. They've offered to help on that on training and equipment and so forth. But they want to see it happen quickly and I think speed is of the essence.

BLITZER: The ground troops we're talking about are Iraqi troops from the Iraqi army, even they did fairwell in the fight against ISIS. The Peshmerga, the Kurdish fighters and the moderate Syrian rebels. Those are the ground troops the U.S. -- of the 40 coalition partners, including any of the Arab neighbors of Iraq and Syria and Turkey, for that matter, any of the NATO allies, have any of them committed to ground forces to fight ISIS?

ROYCE: Not one has committed to ground forces at this time.

BLITZER: Why is that?

ROYCE: And I think part of it has to do with trepidation about getting involved in that part of the world, in that cauldron. But I think all are willing to put something up, in terms of payments for it, in terms of helping to train, and some of them will have their intelligence agents on the ground. But I don't they're going to bring brigades in on the ground. I think they wanted visibly, to the Arab world, that Kurds and Arabs are doing the fighting and it's not outside countries --

BLITZER: Because let's --

ROYCE: -- except for air support.

BLITZER: -- be honest, ISIS may represent a threat long term to the United States. It represents a much bigger threat to the folks in that part of the world.

ROYCE: And an immediate threat -- BLITZER: Yes.

ROYCE: -- to the ones you're naming, including Jordan.

BLITZER: So, let's go through -- let's go through some of these countries. The United Arab Emirates, are they willing to use air power? They've got a pretty robust air force, largely U.S. supplied. Are they ready to use air power?

ROYCE: I believe they will.

BLITZER: What about Saudi --

ROYCE: It's under consideration right now.

BLITZER: -- what about Saudi Arabia?

ROYCE: The Saudis have been pressed. I don't know if they will or not but we are pressing them, as we speak.

BLITZER: What about Turkey, a NATO ally?

ROYCE: Turkey will not. And we're having great difficulty with Turkey right now and that is the great disappointment. They will agree to close their borders. We're looking at how to finance -- how to pass legislation on terror finance in order to stop the money that is going to ISIL from some of the Alibaba, some of the thieves that operate through Turkey. Their government should shut those people down now.

BLITZER: Will Turkey at least allow a fellow NATO ally, the United States and France, for that matter, to use NATO air bases in Turkey, like Incirlik, to go ahead and launch air strikes against ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria from Turkey?

ROYCE: You're now -- you're now discussing the very questions we're having internally about what it means to be a NATO ally and what it means to be an ally to the United States if you're not willing to do this. And for the umpteenth time, we see this resistance in Turkey and it is becoming a big issue on the Hill right now.

BLITZER: Ed, what would you like the president to do right now? Because, you know, there's been a lot of criticism that he isn't formally asking you, the members of Congress, for authorization. You did give them authorization --

ROYCE: Yes.

BLITZER: -- to train and arm Syrian rebels. But a lot of members, I suppose you, would like to do a lot more, in terms of giving them a formal notification of authorization.

ROYCE: And what we're keen -- what we're keen off of are the suggestions out of the Pentagon but also out of the intelligence services that say, look, you've only done 176 air strikes. You know, it should be thousands of air strikes coming in right now on these targets. One of the operatives told me the other day, think of what we did, you know, as I shared with you during the Gulf War, first Gulf War, driving the invaders out of Kuwait, 118,000 air strikes. This is so slow walking, this operation. Why haven't we earned the Kurds yet? We're going to run legislation, I'm introducing it now, in order to make certain that the Kurds have the weapons that their foreign minister keeps telling me as of three days ago -- they're still haven't received.

BLITZER: The Kurds want the weapons to come directly from the United States to the Peshmerga and not go through Baghdad. They don't trust that regime.

ROYCE: It never arrives.

BLITZER: The new regime, the old regime.

ROYCE: It never arrives. That's right.

BLITZER: It may not happen with either one. I spoke with a top official from Kurdistan right here on CNN the other day. He said this new government in Baghdad basically has 90 days to get their act together, otherwise Kurdistan is going to think of a referendum to secede from Iraq. Those are strong words. You heard it from the top Kurdish official. Mr. Chairman, thank you for coming in.

ROYCE: Thank you, Wolf. Appreciate it.

BLITZER: Thank you, Ed.

President Obama hailed Congress' bipartisan approval of his plans to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels. But many Democrats actually voted against what the president wanted. Just ahead, we're going to hear from one of them, New York Congressman Jerry Nadler, on why he rebuffed the leader of his own party.

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BLITZER: President Obama now has all the Congressional authority he needs to arm and train those so-called moderate rebels in Syria as well as a plan to expand air strikes there. But what if the U.S. did nothing? That question is being raised today by the "New York Times" columnist, Thomas Friedman. He quotes Global Intelligence expert George Friedman asking this, "if ISIS really is a problem for the United States, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia have far more at stake in this than the United States. So long as they believe that United States will attempt to control the situation, it is perfectly rational for them to back off and watch or act in the margins or even hinder the Americans.

After getting Congress' support for arming Syrian rebels, President Obama praised the vote that a bi-partisan insertion that Americans, quote, "do not give into fear." Our next guest is among several of the key Democrats in the House of Representatives who voted against the president's proposal. Joining us now, Congressman Jerry Nadler of New York. Congressman, thanks very much for joining us. REP. JERRY NADLER, NEW YORK: Thank you.

BLITZER: Have you lost confidence in the president?

NADLER: Oh, no. No, that wasn't it.

BLITZER: You voted against what he asked you to vote for.

NADLER: I disagreed with this on two basic grounds. Number one, I think that we don't know who we are arming over there and we don't --

BLITZER: Moderate Syrian rebels.

NADLER: Moderate Syrian rebels, if you can find them. I heard someone on T.V. the other day say a moderate Syrian rebel was a Muslim brotherhood. We have no guarantee they won't turn those arms against us. That's one problem. The other problem --

BLITZER: Is the president wrong? Because he wants to arm --

NADLER: The other -- the other -- the --

BLITZER: -- those moderate Syrian rebels.

NADLER: Well, if you can find proper moderate Syrian rebels. I am somewhat a dubious and we've seen arms turned against us in the past.

BLITZER: But their argument is over the past couple of years, they vetted a bunch of these guys and they think they are on the right path.

NADLER: And they may be right and they might be wrong with some of them. But my bigger argument was that if we're going to be waging offensive war and our air strikes on ISIS is offensive war, et cetera, the president has no authority to do that under the Constitution, legally, unless he gets authorization from Congress.

BLITZER: He did get two votes in the Senate and House over the past few days --

NADLER: Those -- they --

BLITZER: -- to arm the Syrian rebels.

NADLER: To arm the Syrian rebels. My concern is that that vote might be viewed by the press, by the public and even by the courts as the functional equivalent of an authorization for use of military war -- force which it is not. I don't want to see it used as a Gulf of Khon Kaen resolution. And what we have been doing --

BLITZER: He says he doesn't need any more Congressional authorization. He goes back to 2001, the authorization to go after Al Qaeda, he sees Al Qaeda as an offshoot of Al Qaeda.

NADLER: I'm somewhat surprised to hear him say that. I would expect George Bush to say that. That's the kind of legal argument at least the imperial presidency and that completely cuts out Congress and the American people from the decision to go to war. That's an anti- constitutional argument. The idea that a resolution passed in 2001, 13 years ago, to attack Al Qaeda in Afghanistan because of their role in attacking us on 911 can be used 13 years later, in entirely unforeseen circumstances against an enemy who didn't exist at that point, is a real stretch.

BLITZER: This must be really painful for you. You're a good Democrat. You voted, I assume, for this president in 2008 and 2012.

NADLER: I certainly did.

BLITZER: You've worked with him on a whole bunch off issues. But right now, it sounds to me like you think he's taking the country down the wrong path.

NADLER: I think he's taking the country down the wrong constitutional path. And this is a path that many of post war -- post World War II president have gone and we've got to stop it because otherwise -- we're getting to the point where any president can take us to war and Congress has no role. I voted against the resolution, to a large extent, because of that. The president wants to oppose ISIS, which I think we should. We are to get an authorization through use of military force from Congress and we are to be debating that. Last week and this week.

BLITZER: You know that's not going to happen until after the midterm elections.

NADLER: It's not going to happen --

BLITZER: Congress has now gone into recess.

NADLER: It's not going to happen until after midterm elections. I think that's unfortunate. But it's even more unfortunate that if Congress doesn't vote it, we're going to go ahead anyway. Congress ought to control this. That's the constitutional scheme.

BLITZER: The Congress isn't even in town anymore, at least for a couple of months.

NADLER: That's right. But even if we were -- the problem with what's happening is, even if we were to come back, or even when we come back, we vote on an authorization for use of military force. If it were voted down, the administration claims the authority to keep going anyway and that's a basic constitutional --

BLITZER: That's what they said.

NADLER: The other thing is that --

BLITZER: By the way, if there were such a vote, do you think it would pass?

NADLER: Probably.

BLITZER: In the House and the Senate?

NADLER: Probably. But, I mean, it would depend on what is going on at that point. And what it said, I mean, you have to -- you know, how broad is it? How wide is it? And so forth. But there's another problem, too, and that is that we are being -- ISIS is not a direct military threat to the United States, at the moment. ISIS is a direct military threat to our allies in the Middle East, to Saudi Arabia, to Jordan, to the Emirates, maybe even to Israel potentially. It's a threat to our interest in the Middle East.

I don't understand two things. One, why our allies there are not willing to put troops on the ground first. It's a far greater threat to them than to us. And if they don't see that threat, I'm not sure why we do. Second of all, the threat -- there is a threat to us. But that threat to us is that people from the United States, from western Europe, go to the Middle East, fight with ISIS, get trained with ISIS and then come back here to create murder and mayhem. But that threat is not dealt with by whether ISIS captures another province or is thrown out of another province. That doesn't defect the magnitude of the threat - of the immediate threat to us. That threat has to be fought with appropriate surveillance, counter intelligence, border control here and abroad. It's a different kind of threat. It's a counterterrorism operation. It's not a military operation.

BLITZER: It's not necessarily a full-scale war.

NADLER: That's right.

BLITZER: Yes.

NADLER: Now -

BLITZER: Congressman, unfortunately, we're out of time, but you made your points and you made them well.

NADLER: Thank you.

BLITZER: Thank you very much for joining us.

NADLER: Thank you.

BLITZER: Jerry Nadler, Democrat from New York.

Coming up, a huge victory for those who want to keep the United Kingdom together. Scottish voters say no to independence. We're going live to London. Christiane Amanpour is standing by.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID CAMERON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: We hear you. We now have a chance, a great opportunity, to change the way the British people are governed and change it for the better.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BLITZER: The British prime minister, David Cameron, relieved after Scottish voters turned down a bid to break away from the United Kingdom. He says it would have broken his heart if Scotland had left. The independence referendum failed with 55 percent of Scottish voters saying "no," 45 percent voting "yes." While all those opposed celebrated, those favoring independence saw their campaign come to an end. A campaign that had gone on for several years. Queen Elizabeth has now responded to the vote saying, and I'm quoting, "I have no doubt that Scots are able to express strongly held opinions before coming together again in a spirit of mutual respect and support."

Our chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour is joining us now from London. I think you're right near Westminster over there. Christiane, what's the mood in the British capital after this historic vote?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, here's the thing, we rushed from Edinburgh just as soon as we knew what the vote was and that the independent referendum had failed to right here in Westminster because this is where the story is now. You heard what Prime Minister Cameron said. He told the Scottish people, we hear you. We hear that you want change and he promised them this morning change in his - phew, I kept my job, I kept the union together and now I have to deliver on the vow that I made to keep this, and that is to devolve power all over the United Kingdom.

A huge change is coming to the United Kingdom one way or the other and it's going to be decided by fierce debate in the British parliament behind me. As it stands, the leader of the Scottish National Party, Alex Salmond (ph), who led the yes campaign has resigned himself and both Cameron, and indeed before he resigned Alex Salmond said, this was a once-in-a-lifetime, once-in-a-generation referendum. And as David Cameron said, he hopes that there is no dispute now, this is not going to be revisited and the people have spoken and there will be change one way or the other.

Wolf.

BLITZER: And so basically let's talk about the practical implications for the people of Scotland right now. They will, when all is said and done, even though they're not going to have independence, they will have a greater say in their own affairs?

AMANPOUR: Well, they will. And, look, this is an amazing exercise in democracy. President Obama has praised it. The queen of England herself has given a statement, the queen of the United Kingdom. And everybody has been amazed by the unbelievable turnout. Eight-plus percent in some districts, 90 percent in some. A massive 97 percent of voters who are registered. All of this means that they mean what they say.

It was a divided vote and people are going to get the kind of change that they asked for, which basically means practical autonomy in everything except foreign and defense policy. That will still be held by the central government. But that is what they want, spending, tax, welfare autonomy and that is what the prime minister pledged today. BLITZER: Christiane Amanpour, watching the history unfold in the U.K.

And let's repeat, U.K. the - it remains the United Kingdom. Thanks very much, Christiane, for that.

The plan for Syria. Has the president received the approval he needs? Can he succeed with his new strategy to try to defeat ISIS? Will the backbone of the coalition fail to live up to its end of the bargain? The former U.S. defense secretary, William Cohen, is here. He's my guest. He's standing by live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Welcome back. I'm Wolf Blitzer reporting from Washington.

President Obama now has authority for dealing with ISIS in Syria. The House and the Senate both approved legislation to arm and train Syrian rebels. The president was also offered some advice. Some of it pretty pointed. Let's begin with the Republican congressman, Buck McKeon. He's chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. BUCK MCKEON (R), CHMN., ARMED SERVICES CMTE.: I think it's very important that he does follow the advice and counsel that he receives, the professional advice of the military. They are the ones best suited to do that. I realize he's commander in chief. He has the final - final say and the final obligation and responsibility. I would also request that he not take options off of the table.

GEN. JAMES MATTIS (RET.), FMR. CMDR., U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND: We didn't look for this fight. But once you go into it, you don't tell your adversary in advance what you're not going to do. We have the most skillful, the most - the fiercest and certainly the most ethical ground forces in the world and I don't think we should reassure the enemy in advance that they'll never face them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: That was Retired General James Mattis, the former commander of the U.S. military's Central Command. That's the military arm that is now planning the various Syria and Iraq contingencies.

Then there was this from the former president of the United States, Bill Clinton. He was on "The Daily Show" last night talking about the role of the Iraqi military.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL CLINTON, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: We can't win a land war in Iraq. We proved that. But they can. and we can help them win it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Joining us now, the former defense secretary under President Bill Clinton, William Cohen. Your former boss, do you agree with him, that the U.S. can't win a land war in Iraq, it's really up to the Iraqi military to do that?

WILLIAM COHEN, FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY: Ultimately, it is. But the fact is that the Iraqi military is never going to measure up to the standards that are going to be needed to win that war without U.S. help. And I take issue with President Obama when he says we'll never have ground combat troops in Iraq. We have them now. They're not on a combat mission, but they're definitely going to be in a combat environment. And I want to know, what is the station of forces agreement that we have in place with Iraq? Because we've got 1,700 U.S. forces in Iraq now. The reason we apparently left was because we couldn't reach an agreement with the prime minister to have a protection of U.S. forces. So now they are on the ground with what? No protection?

BLITZER: Well, I was told that the -- what they did work out on the status of forces agreement, you're right, the U.S. pulled out because Nuri al Maliki, the former prime minister, refused to give any remaining U.S. troops autonomy - the immunity from Iraqi prosecution.

COHEN: Right.

BLITZER: The administration says they do have that commitment now. The 1,700 active duty U.S. military personnel in Iraq will not be prosecuted by Iraqi courts, if you will. They do have that immunity.

COHEN: So they have an agreement in writing presumably?

BLITZER: That's what they say. They say they have that agreement from the new prime minister, from the new government.