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Wolf

Coalition Has Killed 6,000 Plus ISIS Fighters; Yemen President and Cabinet Have Resigned; Pentagon Releases New Numbers on Anti-ISIS Effort; Yemen Resignations; Obama Won't Meet Netanyahu

Aired January 22, 2015 - 13:00   ET

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

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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world.

We start with breaking news on the fight against ISIS. We've learned that the coalition, the U.S.-led coalition, has now killed, according to the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, more than 6,000 ISIS fighters, including some of the terror organization's key leaders. That coming from the U.S. ambassador to Iraq.

Let's get the latest what is going on on this and other breaking news developments in Yemen. Joining us, our Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr, our Senior International Correspondent Nick Payton Walsh. He's the only western T.V. reporter in Yemen. And our CNN Security and Intelligence Analyst Bob Baer. Also joining us on the phone, retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel James Reese.

Barbara, first of all, tell us what the United States ambassador to Yemen is now saying publicly about the number of ISIS troops he says the U.S. and his coalition partners have killed in recent months.

BARBARA STARR, PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, this is a statistic the Pentagon never wanted to come out in public. But the ambassador now saying that the coalition has killed an estimated more than 6,000 ISIS fighters since the air strikes began. That number actually endorsed by U.S. military sources who say it comes from classified estimates with each air strike that has happened, there is a damage assessment. How many vehicles? How many check points? How many enemy fighters killed? But let's be clear, this is very rough estimate. Even military officials tell me they cannot possibly be absolutely certain. Nonetheless, the estimate is 6,000.

The big debate, why is this number now coming out through the U.S. ambassador, secretary of state, John Kerry, speaking in London, also talking -- in some detail, talking about half the ISIS leadership being killed. They are upset, to be blunt, with the Iraqi leadership who, in the last day or so, has come out and said the U.S. isn't doing enough. So, they responded, we are told, with this latest statistic. The problem, the Pentagon. The military adamantly, adamantly is just livid. They don't want to be in the position of anyone thinking they are doing body counts. A top U.S. military official speaking to reporters, a short time ago, was very distressed about all of this. He says, any question of a body count as a metric of success harkens back to the days of the Vietnam War, of course, when the military kept a Vietcong body count and claimed that that was a measure of success in that war. So, the Pentagon, half a century later, still so sensitive about the issue of body counts. But now, the number is out there.

BLITZER: And we all remember how that Vietnam War wound up. All right, Barbara, thanks very much.

I want to go to Yemen right now. There's other breaking news in Yemen with enormous ramifications in the war on terror. Nick Payton Walsh is joining us from Sana'a, the capital of Yemen. What are you hearing right now about the chaos that seems to be escalating?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, the president has resigned, the prime minister has resigned, and the cabinet have resigned. We've been hearing that now from multiple sources across the capital. Fireworks, gunfire occasionally heard behind me.

But a monumentous (ph) day, really, for Yemen. We've been seeing, today, how a political deal hatched late last night. It wasn't really, it seemed, coming into play. That required a lot of political concessions from the government here. And, according to a letter we've seen put on Twitter by the, former now, information minister, Nadia Sakkaf, she, basically, says those in cabinet, the prime minister can't go along with the effective nature of president Hadi being a figure head with the Houthis, really it seems, calling the shots in government.

It seems, too, now, according to the information minister, former I should say, and a senior political sources we've been speaking to, that, yes, president Hadi has also decided to resign.

What now? Well, we don't know. There are some suggestions from analysts that the succession would be that the speaker of parliament takes up that role. That could end up being someone very close to the former president of Yemen. But that's all, at this stage, frankly, speculation. It is totally unclear quite what the Houthis want, at this stage. We have not heard from them. We know that their leader, Al Domenico Houthi (ph), two nights ago in a lengthy speech, looked like somebody who conveys himself as a leader here, but made no pretenses in that speech to actually want to have a political title, simply wanting more influence in government.

But this has huge implications for Washington. Yes, they have an embassy with hundreds of staff here. But, more importantly, Yemen is home to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula where a U.S. drone program has been very clearly targeting individuals here in a lengthy campaign that's proven extraordinarily unpopular amongst some Yemenis here and controversial globally.

The issue now is, who can they talk to? The Houthis, one of their slogans is, death to America. They're not openly anti-American when we've seen them. But they may well have issues with aligning with the United States here and they do talk a lot about foreign influence in Yemen. Now, the cabinet, prime minister and the president are gone. Very stark changes ahead for Yemen -- Wolf.

BLITZER: And so, the question remains there are, what, several hundred American diplomats and military personnel in Yemen and there are, according to the Yemeni embassy here in Washington, thousands of American citizens, mostly dual Yemeni American citizens, who are in Yemen right now. How endangered, based on the initial assessments you're getting over there, Nick, are these Americans?

WALSH: Well, at this stage, there's no reason to think anybody is any major concern here. The U.S. embassy has been at minimal staff posture (ph) heightened security for months now and they've been giving a solid message that even though one of their vehicles was shot up Monday night, they do seem to be comparatively calm and going about normal business. But that's before the entire government has just resigned.

So, we could see a stark change here. It isn't clear, at this point. The city behind me is quiet and there's no indication, at this stage, that the focus of the political change here has been about removing U.S. influence from Yemen. It's much more, it seems, about internal grievances and those of the Houthis. We have to wait and see how that plays out. But a day of remarkable political change here in Yemen and great uncertainty about quite what comes next -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right. Nick Paton Walsh, standby. We're going to have much more on Yemen coming up. But I want to bring Bob Baer into this. Bob, let's get back to the news that Barbara Starr was reporting from the Pentagon, quoting the United States ambassador to Iraq that the U.S. and its coalition partners have made significant progress. And they now say they've killed an estimated 6,000 ISIS troops, including many commanders, over the past few months in these air strikes. When you hear this kind of talk, what's your -- what's your reaction?

BOB BAER, CNN SECURITY AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, as Barbara said, you know, we can't measure this war in body counts, 6,000 ISIS members. Who knows what that means? But they definitely -- ISIS, the Islamic state, still exists. They haven't pulled back from Mosul. Their core area is still intact. They still have Iraqi army bases under siege. I don't think they're going away.

And the Pentagon has said over and over again, we cannot win this war from the air. And, you know, for the Baghdad government, which is a Shia government, to complain about what we're doing is just preposterous because they've been sending death squads into Al Anbar Province where the Sunni live. So, they're not helping at all. We're, sort of, fighting this battle one-handed. The Pentagon knows this is going to go on for years, the way it's going now.

BLITZER: Let me bring Colonel Reese into this. Colonel Reese, what's your reaction when you hear the U.S. ambassador, all of a sudden, releasing these kinds of numbers? I don't know if we got Colonel Reese on the phone. Colonel, can you hear me? Unfortunately, we don't have Colonel Reese. We're going to try to reconnect with him. Let's continue to follow the breaking news but we'll take a quick break. Much more on what's going on in Iraq, in Syria, the war on terror, also these new developments in Yemen. What does that mean as far as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is concerned? Much more right after this.

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BLITZER: We're following the breaking news out of Yemen right now. A key U.S. ally that's been embroiled in a violent political standoff now for days. The entire Yemeni government has now, all of a sudden, suddenly resigned. That includes the president, the prime minister and the entire cabinet.

Nick Payton Walsh is, once again, joining us from the Yemen capital of Sana'a, along with our Intelligence and Security Analyst Bob Baer. He's joining us from Telluride, Colorado. Here with me in Washington is Yemen analyst and researcher, Sama'a Al-Hamdani. She knows a lot about what's going on as well. And, Sama'a, let me get your quick reaction to the breaking news. All of a sudden, this Yemeni government is gone. And it looks like these rebels -- these Shiite- led rebels, they're about to take over.

SAMA'A AL-HAMDANI, YEMEN ANALYST: I mean, they took over the city of Sana'a in 2014 so it's kind of a slow takeover. The former government that just resigned finally got the approval from the parliament just in December. So, December 18th, they, effectively, started working only to see them resign now. I think shortly after, I think President Hadi realized that he's not going to be able to lead the country like he wishes and that the Houthi rebels have taken over everything.

BLITZER: So, they're going to let them -- they're going to keep them there. I -- is he going to be under house arrest? Are they going to kill them, imprison him? What are they going to do with the president?

AL-HAMDANI: That is not clear yet. I doubt they will kill him, at the time being. However, they leaked voice calls that he had with his chief of staff, whom they already kidnapped a few days ago. So, it seems like they want to set him up in a situation where he can't go to the south and succeed because he's originally a southerner.

BLITZER: You know, as you know, Nick, you're the only western television reporter on the ground there. These Houthi rebels, they may not necessarily like AQAP, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Their Shiite, Al Qaeda, is largely Sunni, but they're no friends of the United States. We did some research. We checked -- their basic slogan is, death to America, death to Israel, damn the Jews, victory to Islam. That doesn't sound very encouraging from the U.S. perspective.

WALSH: Well, that is the case. And I think, in many ways, many say that the emblematic of the late 1970s revolution in Iran, in terms of the posture. But, yes, you say -- you're right in saying, too, that they do feed into the broader Shia-Sunni divide across the Middle East, at the moment, being predominantly Shia and facing here, often, Sunni tribes that are their enemies. I have to say, when we encounter the Houthis here, they are polite and calm, disciplined. They don't overtly show aggression towards us.

But, you're right to point out, much of the rhetoric we've heard from their leader, Aplanatic Al Houthi, has been to condemn foreign influence in Yemen, (INAUDIBLE) from Saudi to America, even to the United Nations. They're clear they have very much an agenda inside Yemen itself. They feel a disgruntled minority here, too.

And, today, it is quite clear that the pressure they put on the streets here and around key presidential buildings has led to the entire collapse of the government here. Yemen is now without a president. It is without a prime minister or a cabinet. There is, of course, under the constitution, a plan of succession here, which I believe, and I'm sure you'll guess they, you can correct me, may involve the speaker of parliament becoming the acting president technocratically and he said perhaps be an ally of the former president. But that's all hearsay at this stage.

It is clear who the political power here is in Yemen. That is the Houthis. Their leader, when he last spoke, didn't talk like he wanted to be the next president. He sounded like a leader but made no immediate pretentions to that role, laid out his demands. It's clear, though, that the political deal we heard last night has not stopped President Hadi from losing his job. And we are now really (ph) Yemen, a country without a clear leader and the United States without somebody really to telephone directly who's at the helm of a key ally in the war on terror here.

Wolf.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, and it could be - it could be a great opportunity for AQAP, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, to expand as well in the midst of all of this turmoil and chaos.

I'm going to bring Sama'a back in a moment.

But, Bob Baer, there are some analysts here in Washington who think this potentially, given the fact that these Shiite Houthi rebels are sort of aligned I guess with Iran, this could be a big victory for Iran in that part of the world and this is going to make the Saudis, for example, the UAE, the Emirates, they're going to get very nervous about this.

BOB BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: Well, Wolf, you hit the nail on the head. Saudi Arabia has opposed the Shia, the so-called Zaydi Shia, they are only sixer Shias but they've opposed them for -- since the beginning of the Iranian Revolution, 1979. And, in fact, Iran has financially supported them and supported them with weapons since the revolution. And this will terrify the Saudis, just as the Shia uprising in Bahrain did.

Now, Saudi Arabia, all these years, has avoided sending troops into Yemen. It's a quagmire for the Saudis. They've got a reinforced border and they've put a lot of troops down there. But, still, they are panicking. And let's not forget right now that the Saudi leadership is dying off. Salman, the crowned prince, is very sick. The king is sick. Muqrin, the third in line, is controlling the country. But it's not the best time for the Saudis to confront a crisis on their border.

BLITZER: Let me let Sama'a Al-Hamdani, who's a real Yemen expert, wrap this up for us.

So, Sama'a, looking what's going on right now, looking at the Americans who are in Yemen right now, if you were giving advice to the U.S. government, would you tell the president of the United States, get those Americans out of there ASAP?

SAMA'A AL-HAMDANI, YEMEN ANALYST: No, I think Yemen is safe at the time being. The Houthis have been in charge for a while. They have popular committees all over the capital of Sanaa and they've been running the security show. I do, however, want to say that the Americans might need to start talking to the Houthis. And if the Americans are talking to Iran in back channels, they need to do the same with the Houthis.

Having said that, the Houthis are ideologically very different than the Iranian Shia. So we need to kind of distinguish that when we call them Shia and --

BLITZER: It's a different Shia sect.

AL-HAMDANI: It's a very different Shia sect. As a matter of fact -

BLITZER: But they do have good relations with Iran?

AL-HAMDANI: Only the Houthi group, not the Zaydi Shia movement in Yemen. That's very different.

BLITZER: It's a real situation that's unfolding over there. We're going to stay in close touch with you. Sama'a Al-Hamdani, thanks very much. Nick Paton Walsh, you're not going to go too far away. You're in Sanaa right now. And Bob Baer, he's going to be back with us as well.

We're also following other breaking news right now. President Obama will not, repeat, not meet with the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he visits Washington in the coming weeks. We're going to go live to the White House, we're going to Jerusalem for the details on what is going on in U.S.-Israeli relations right now.

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BLITZER: Welcome back to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer, reporting from Washington.

And we're following breaking news this hour on multiple fronts. For this, President Obama, get this, will not, repeat not meet with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, when he visits Washington to address a joint session of Congress. That speech has now been pushed back from February to March. The main topic, of course, is Iran. That's a source of serious conflict between the president and various members of Congress from both parties.

Let's bring in our senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta, he's at the White House, and our global affairs correspondent Elise Labott, she's in Jerusalem.

All right, Jim, tell us what's going on and the White House decision to not meet with the prime minister of Israel when he visits Washington.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Right. And just to give our viewers a little context, Wolf, remember yesterday the White House said it was essentially blindsided by the speaker's office when House Speaker John Boehner announced that Benjamin Netanyahu would be coming here to Washington to a joint session of Congress to give a speech there. The date was originally scheduled for February. Then this morning the speaker's office put out a tweet saying it was going to be on March 3rd.

The White House was initially asked about this and they said, you know, they weren't annoyed, that they were reserving judgment on all of this, when clearly they were annoyed. But they said that this was a breach in protocol. And then this morning the spokeswoman for the National Security Council over here at the White House, Bernadette Meehan, put out a statement, Wolf, and I'll read it for you. They say that the president will not be meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu when he comes to Washington in March. And it says, quote, "as a matter of long-standing practice and principle, we do not see heads of state or candidates in close proximity to their elections so as to avoid the appearance of influencing a democratic election in a foreign country. Accordingly, the president will not be meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu because of the proximity to the Israeli election, which is just two weeks after his planned address to the U.S. Congress."

And so the White House essentially saying here that because this election is only going to be two weeks after Netanyahu's speech to this joint session of Congress, that the president is not going to be meeting with him so they don't look like they're influencing the election in Israel. But, Wolf, it goes on to say in that statement that the president and Prime Minister Netanyahu have talked about this issue of Iran on multiple occasions and that they'll continue to do that in the future.

But, of course, the sticking point in all of this, Wolf, is that the president said the other night in the State of the Union Address, he will veto any legislation that comes in the midst of these nuclear talks between the U.S., these world powers and Iran over constraining its nuclear program. And, of course, Netanyahu is coming to Congress to give his appeal to members there to pass some sort of legislation. And so the president is essentially responding to what was a very big diplomatic snub yesterday it seemed when House Speaker Boehner invited Netanyahu to come to Congress.

BLITZER: Let's get the Israeli reaction to what's going on right now. Elise is in Jerusalem.

Elise, we talked about this yesterday when the speaker first invited the prime minister to come. That was supposed to be February 11th. Now it's been moved to March 3rd. The Israeli elections are scheduled for March 17th. That's two weeks after Netanyahu would be in Washington. And as you know, the opposition parties in Israel, they were deeply

irritated that, in effect, they saw this as Republican interference in domestic Israeli politics trying to elevate or boost the prime minister. These are going to be close elections in Israel, just weeks before the election. And now the White House is basically saying they're not going to play that game. They're not going to meet with the prime minister of Israel because they don't want to interfere in domestic Israeli politics. The opposition parties, they've been pretty irritated by what's going on, right?

ELISE LABOTT, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, they're very irritated and circling petitions, Wolf, urging the prime minister not to come so close. I mean if it's any indication, his last speech a few years ago, he got 29 standing ovations. So what this does is really kind of give him this photo op a few weeks before the election showing how he's the arbiter of some wonderful relationship between the U.S. and Israel, which is, as we know, is just not the case right now. The leaders have a very tense relationship. And this visit so close to the election just gives him a boost that the opposition parties don't feel he deserves.

But, Wolf, listen, Netanyahu is still not even confirming this visit. His office won't say anything about it. And basically it's hardly surprising when you see the reaction from the White House. And this invitation, you know, is a poke in the eye to everybody because, on one hand, it inserts Israel into the fight between President Obama and the Congress over Iran. At the same time, it inserts the United States into the Israeli election.

Would President Obama have met with president -- Prime Minister Netanyahu had he had come on that original date, a full month before the election? Probably not. I don't think we'll ever know. But this could really backfire on Prime Minister Netanyahu because now he is coming to the United States. He will not meet with the U.S. president, which is something that they've done in the past and Netanyahu doesn't like it.

BLITZER: Yes, I wouldn't be surprised at all, as someone's who's covered U.S./Israeli relations for a while, if that whole visit is just postponed, shall we say.

LABOTT: Exactly.

BLITZER: Let's see what happens in the Israeli election. It's going to be a tight election. Polls showing it could be very, very close.

LABOTT: Very close.

BLITZER: So maybe Netanyahu will decide not to come to Washington at this sensitive moment after all and not get into this fight that's underway between the president of the United States and many members of Congress, a lot of Republicans, but even a whole bunch of influential Democrats at the same time.

All right, guys, we'll stay on top of this story. We'll see what falls out. But it has been rather awkward, this entire situation. Coming up, we're following two other breaking news stories for you

right now. An estimated 6,000 ISIS fighters, according to the U.S. ambassador in Iraq, have been killed in Iraq and Syria by U.S.-led coalitions forces, mostly air strikes. And Yemen's government resigns after a coup. All of the angles on these breaking stories right after this.

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