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U.S. Drone Strike Accidentally Killed Two Hostages; Strikes Also Kill Two American Al Qaeda Operatives; Hundreds Of Surveillance Hours Preceded Strike; White House Briefing. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired April 23, 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.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Hi, there, I'm Brianna Keilar in for Wolf Blitzer. Wherever you're watching from around the world, thank you for joining us.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

KEILAR: We begin with some breaking news and I will tell you right now, we are awaiting the White House press briefing set to begin any moment now. We're talking today about the death of two innocent hostages in a U.S. counterterrorism operation in Pakistan. One of those killed was American Warren Weinstein, who was kidnapped in August of 2011 in Lahore, Pakistan. The U.S. has not recovered Weinstein's body. It did not conduct a DNA test. An Italian hostage, Giovanni Lo Porto was killed in that same operation. President Obama takes full responsibility for the drone strike that killed the two hostages, and he expressed sympathy to their families.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As a husband and as a father, I cannot begin to imagine the anguish that the Weinstein and La Porto families are enduring today. I realize there are no words that can ever equal their loss. I know that there is nothing that I can ever say or do to ease their heartache.

And, today, I simply want to say this. As president and as commander in chief, I take full responsibility for all our counterterrorism operations, including the one that inadvertently took the lives of Warren and Giovanni. I profoundly regret what happened. On behalf of the United States government, I offer our deepest apologies to the families.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: All right, and we are currently -- the White House briefing has just begun. We're monitoring that. We'll bring that to you. We expect the press secretary will be talking about this.

The administration has also revealed that an American Al Qaeda member was killed along with the two hostages. And then, also, American Adam Gadahn, a prominent Al Qaeda leader, was killed in a separate strike later.

And I want to take you now to the White House the -- where the briefing has just begun and Josh Earnest, no doubt, will be addressing this.

JOSH EARNEST, U.S. WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY (live): -- to share as much information as possible with you and with the American people about what occurred. In pursuit of that effort, I spent a decent portion of the last 24 hours talking with our national security team, talking with the attorneys on our international security team to try to collect as much information as possible and to give you as much detail as possible so I could answer your questions on this matter.

However, as you would expect, in order to protect our availability to carry out counterterrorism operations, there are some details, including some very basic details, that I will not be in a position to discuss. So, for example, I'm not going to be in a position to talk with precision about where this operation occurred and I'm not going to be able to talk in much detail at all on how this operation was carried out.

But that all said, we're not planning a background briefing here at the White House. I'm here at the president's instruction to answer as many questions in as much detail as I can on the record and in public.

And as the president mentioned, our country and our government's willingness to face up to mistakes and redouble our efforts to review protocols and procedures to prevent them from happening again is one of the things that makes our country so unique and contribute significantly to our strength. So, in that spirit, Josh (ph), let's get start would some questions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thanks, Josh. Let's start just with some of the facts of what happened to the extent that you can discuss them. How many other people were killed in these two strikes, either local civilians or militant militants?

EARNEST: Josh, I won't be able to provide specific numbers on this. I can tell you that in this specific strike that resulted in the death of Dr. Weinstein and Mr. Le Porto, there was one other Al Qaeda leader who was among those who was killed. That is the Ahmed Farouq, the American citizen Al Qaeda leader. This was a strike against an Al Qaeda compound and the result was the death of at least one Al Qaeda leader.

I can tell you that the assessment that we have right now does not raise questions about additional civilian loss of life. Again, the reason for that is that the standard that was in place, and to the best of our knowledge, was closely followed by our counterterrorism professionals, was to adhere to this near certainty standard. And that near certainty standard applied to two things. The first is near certainty that this was an Al Qaeda compound that was used by Al Qaeda leaders that turned out to be true. That assessment did turn out to be correct.

[13:05:09] The other near certainty assessment was that no civilians would be harmed if this operation was carried out. Unfortunately, that was not correct and the operation led to this tragic, unintended consequence.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And there's very little, at this point, that we know about the Gadahn operation. Who was the target of that operation and were others killed in that strike?

EARNEST: Josh, I can tell you that Mr. Gadahn was not specifically targeted. But, in a fashion that was similar to the operation that we are discussing that resulted in the death of Dr. Weinstein and Mr. Lo Porto, the operation was against an Al Qaeda compound.

So, again, this was a scenario where U.S. officials had determined, with near certainty, that an operation could be carried out against an Al Qaeda compound that was frequented or at least where at least one Al Qaeda leader was located. And that operation did result in the death of Mr. Gadahn.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, you -- are you saying, basically, that there wasn't -- there were not specific individuals that were being targeted in that strike, but more the U.S. knew this was a place Al Qaeda guys went and so the U.S. struck there under the presumption that they'd be likely to get out -- take out some Al Qaeda operatives by striking that location?

EARNEST: Yes, based on -- again, based on the intelligence assessment, they could conclude with near certainty that this was an Al Qaeda compound that was frequented by Al Qaeda leaders or at least an Al Qaeda leader.

There is one other element of the near certainty standard that applied to the first operation, the one that resulted in the death of Ahmed Farouq. And that is there were hundreds of hours of surveillance against that particular Al Qaeda compound and this surveillance included near continuous surveillance in the days leading up to the operation. And that is what led to the near certain -- near certain assessment that it was an Al Qaeda compound frequented by an Al Qaeda leader and did not include -- or that civilians would not be included in an operation against the compound. Obviously, the latter assessment was incorrect.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We know these strikes took place in January, but you said in your statement this morning that the U.S. recently confirmed, you know, what had happened and that these individuals had died. Can you tell us when exactly was that? Are we talking days, weeks, months ago? And how long did you wait after coming to those conclusions before informing the families of these hostages?

EARNEST: Josh, this is a -- this is a good question and let me try to explain how this process works. When counterterrorism operation is carried out, it is -- it is followed by a battle damage assessment where our intelligence professionals evaluate the region or the area where the operation was carried out to determine the results of the operation and whether or not, if any, civilian casualties occurred. And in the process of carrying out that battle damage assessment, that draws on multiple sources of intel, there was some indication that Dr. Weinstein had been killed. This was not in the early stages linked directly to the U.S. government operation.

So, as intelligence was collected that indicated or at least raised questions about whether or not Dr. Weinstein was still alive, the intelligence community that had been devoting significant resources to trying to find and rescue him began to explore, more completely, whether, in fact, Dr. Weinstein was dead and to try to learn the circumstances of his death. And only in the last several days did the intelligence community reach a -- an assess -- an assessment with high -- with a high degree of confidence that Dr. Weinstein had been killed in a U.S. government counterterrorism operation.

The president was briefed by his national security team very soon after that high confidence assessment was completed. Upon receiving that assessment, the president directed his team, as I made reference to, to declassify as much information as possible about this specific operation for two reasons. One is to provide details to the families.

[13:10:07] And, two, is to be candid with the American public and with the world about what had happened. And the president mentioned in his statement that he believes the United States derives important strength from having the confidence and courage to face up to mistakes when they are made even when they are as serious as this. And I guess he would say, particularly when they're as serious as this.

Let me say one other thing about our communication with the Weinstein family and that is that there was an open line of communication with the Weinstein family. The Weinstein family was very aware, as they indicated in their statement today, that the government was working diligently to try to find Dr. Weinstein. And when there was intelligence indicating the possible death of Dr. Weinstein, that information was also shared would the family.

But, again, it was only after the high-confidence assessment was completed in the last several days was the family informed that the intelligence community does assess that Dr. Weinstein was killed in a U.S. government counterterrorism operation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I know many of us have been reflecting, as I'm sure you have on the 2013 speech that the president gave at National Defense University laying out his kind of terrorism strategy. And, in that speech, the president was pretty firm about laying out this standard of near certainty that no civilians would be killed or injured in a strike. Today, from this podium, we heard, you know, quite a different type of rhetoric. We heard the president talking about the fog of war and the cruel truth that deadly mistakes can often happen when you're fighting terrorists. You know, I'm wondering, has the president lived up to the -- to the principles that he set out for himself when he gave that speech?

EARNEST: The president has absolutely lived up to the principles that were laid out in that speech. Prior to giving to that -- giving that speech, there was not a lot of clear guidance. There were not clear or at least the protocols were not as clear as they were today about how these kind of counterterrorism operations should be carried out. And because of the diligent work of the president and his national security team and our national security professionals, there is much greater clarity about how the -- our counterterrorism officials can both use our significant capabilities to protect the American people while also living up to the very high standards and values that are -- that the president expects.

And so, that is what the -- that is what the goal of those protocols and those reforms that the president laid out in the speech.

What's also clear and what I would also readily admit to you is that in the aftermath of a situation like this, it raises legitimate questions about whether additional changes need to be made to those protocols. Again, to put it more bluntly, we have national security professionals who diligently follow those protocols based on what we all -- based on everything that we know so far. They followed those protocols and yet it still resulted in this unintended but very tragic consequence. And that's why the president has directed his team to conduct a review of this particular operation to see if there are lessons learned, reforms that we can implement to this process.

What's all -- what I can also let you know is that there is an ongoing inspector general review of this matter. So, that there will have an opportunity for someone to take an independent look at this particular operation and also offer up recommendations for changes that could be made that could do more to prevent these kinds of, again, tragic, unintended consequences from occurring in the future.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And, lastly, on this issue of reviewing what happened, there's been a flurry of statements this morning from members of Congress, you know, not only joining the president and offering condolences, but promising rigorous oversight from some of the relevant Congressional committees. Does the White House feel that Congress has a role to play in figuring out what went wrong here and how to possibly prevent it from happening again?

EARNEST: Well, Josh, I can tell you that the president believes that Congress does have a very important oversight rule over these kinds of programs. That's why in the president's National Defense University speech that he delivered a couple of years ago, he made clear that when these kinds of counterterrorism operations are carried out, that the relative members of Congress are briefed about each operation. And that is an indication of the seriousness with which the administration pursues cooperating with legitimate Congressional oversight.

[13:15:00] And I can tell you that as these intelligence assessments, about the death of Dr. Weinstein and the ultimate high confidence assessment that he'd been killed in the U.S. government operation we shared with the president, that information was also shared with relevant members of Congress.

OK. Alright. Jeff (ph)?

QUESTION: Josh, will the U.S. government provide compensation to the families of the two hostages who were killed?

EARNEST: Yes.

QUESTION: Can you give any details about that or how much?

EARNEST: I'm not aware of the details of that compensation is, but I can tell you that compensation will be provided.

QUESTION: To both families?

EARNEST: To both families, to both Dr. Weinstein and the family of Mr. Lo Porto.

QUESTION: How will this incident affect specifically the U.S. policy -- government policy on usage of drones?

EARNEST: Well, Jeff (ph), there are certain aspects of this specific operation that I'm not going to be able to discuss, including how this specific operation was carried out. But I can say a couple things as a general matter.

The first is the president -- and I had an opportunity to talk about this with him today -- believes that his top priority is keeping the American people safe.

And in this particular incident, it is particularly painful and tragic that, in the course of carrying out an operation that was aimed at trying to protect the American public, an American citizen, an innocent American citizen, lost his life.

And it highlights the challenge that our counterterrorism professionals confront everyday in terms of balancing the need to use our significant capabilities to protect the American people with the need to carry out these operations consistent with the values that we hold dear in this country.

QUESTION: Can you address the issue of drones, though, in any way? I take it you don't want to confirm that that's what was used in this particular strike?

EARNEST: I'm not in a position to talk specifically about how the operation was carried out.

QUESTION: Can you talk about the future review of drone strategy more generally?

EARNEST: What I can say is that these counterterrorism operations that are are critical to the national security of the United States and critical to the safety of American people continue. At the same time, there is an ongoing review, both by the national-security infrastructure and by the inspector general, to review what occurred in this particular operation and to make recommendations about some reforms to the protocols and policies that are in place that would make it less likely that an unintended consequence like this would crop up again.

And that -- that is not -- these kinds of reviews are not unusual; our national-security professionals, after every operation, try to review what had occurred, even when it's successful, particularly when it's successful, to derive lessons learned and to look for other ways or changes that could be put in place to strengthen our protocols, both in terms of their capabilities but also in ensuring that they're living up to the values that are so important to our country.

QUESTION: Mrs. Weinstein said today that she hoped her husband's death would prompt the U.S. government to, quote, "Take its responsibility seriously and establish a coordinated and consistent approach to supporting hostages and their families." Do you hear that criticism, and can or should the United States government be doing more to support hostages and their families?

EARNEST: Well Jeff, I probably should have said this earlier, but it's -- the president had the opportunity to do that this morning, but let me use this opportunity to convey our condolences to the Weinstein family for the death of Dr. Weinstein. And the Weinstein family right now is enduring something that's unthinkable, to contemplate the loss of their loved one in this particular manner. And our thoughts and prayers of everybody here at the White House is with the Weinstein family.

And so an expression, given those circumstances, an expression along the lines of what you just read from her statement is, of course, understandable. And what she also noted in her statement is her appreciation for U.S. counterterrorism and national security professionals that had gone to great lengths to try to rescue her husband and to do their best to keep the family informed.

But we have heard from other families who have been in this terrible situation about the need for improved communication with the federal government when they're in the midst of these circumstances. And the president has ordered a review of the way in which the government and our national security apparatus communicates with families that are in this terrible position.

And so the president is familiar with that frustration that is understandable and is articulated in her statement.

[13:20:05] And the goal of the ongoing review is to try to address those frustrations. I don't have any announcements to make in terms of the timing for that review, but I would anticipate that that review will be done relatively soon.

OK, Mike?

QUESTION: Thanks Josh. Two things. Following up on what Jeff asked, is there -- can you say that the use of -- of counterterrorist -- counterterrorism operations like the one that was used in this incident have been reduced because of the review that's ongoing? In other words, are things happening less often? Are those strikes happening less often because this review is underway? Has something been -- has a spigot been turned off?

EARNEST: Let me try to answer your question this way, which is that the United States retains significant capabilities to protect the American people. And the expectation that the president has, and this was mentioned in the National Defense University speech, is that when these operations are carried out, that they follow very specific protocols and procedures that balance the need to protect the American people, with the need to adhere to very high standards in terms of preventing civilian casualties.

Consistent with those protocols, our counterterrorism operations continue. And if there are reforms that are derived from the review that can strengthen those protocols or make those protocols more likely to result in successful counterterrorism operations, then the administration will act quickly to implement those reforms.

QUESTION: And then second, I appreciate your trying to give us a timeline of when you learned what you guys learned, but there's almost no times in the timeline. So, let's just real quickly, what -- what day did this happen -- did the strikes happen?

EARNEST: I'm not -- I'm not able to...

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: You said where or how. That's a when.

EARNEST: OK. Well, the "when" is in the same category. That wasn't an exhaustive -- unfortunately, there was not (ph) an exhaustive list of things I'm not able to disclose. (CROSSTALK)

EARNEST: But the president -- what we have indicated is that these -- that both of these strikes that were mentioned in my written statement this morning occurred in January. But precisely when...

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: ... in January -- early, late?

EARNEST: I'm not able to say precisely when in January.

QUESTION: Can you say, then -- can you give us some sense of when you -- when the government first learned or first suspected that -- that Mr. Weinstein was -- was perhaps dead? Not yet known that it was at the hands of the U.S., but is that February, early February, late February? I mean, what -- give us a sense of the time of when that happened.

EARNEST: I would say that in the weeks after the strike, there were -- or in the weeks after the operation, there were -- there started to be some intelligence that indicated the possible death of Dr. Weinstein. And it was in the course of following up on those intelligence leads, and developing intelligence from a wide variety of sources, that the intelligence community was able to assess with high confidence that Dr. Weinstein had been killed...

QUESTION: (inaudible) additional assessment would have been in February, right, if it was weeks. Because we know the strikes -- or the operations happened in January. So in February some time, you guys had that initial assessment that they might be dead.

EARNEST: Well, I don't think that the intelligence community actually reached an assessment in February. I think... QUESTION: They started hearing things.

EARNEST: They started...

QUESTION: And at that point in February, they also communicated to the family, "Hey, we think he might be dead."

EARNEST: I don't have a specific timeframe for that. But what I can tell you is that as the intelligence community began to develop information that pointed to the death of Dr. Weinstein, that information was briefed to the president and that information was shared with the Weinstein family.

QUESTION: And you don't have any information because you don't have it? Or because you've just -- I mean, what would the security risks be of telling us a little bit -- in more -- with more precision when some of these things happened?

EARNEST: Well, as it relates to -- it's hard for me...

QUESTION: I mean, I guess I get the strike itself, but, you know, kind of some -- being more precise about this seems to be in the interest of what the president just promised the American public about transparency.

EARNEST: Well, I -- there's no doubt that we are having a rather detailed conversation about a previously classified operation. And that is consistent with the spirit of what the president talked about in his statement this morning.

I do think that it -- for me to talk about specific timeframes when we learn a piece of information through intelligence could compromise sources and methods, and that's something that we obviously are very mindful of when talking about these kinds of matters.

[13:25:02] OK? All right, Peter.

QUESTION: Josh, was the president the one yesterday who first communicated to the Weinstein family that Warren Weinstein was dead?

EARNEST: No, he was not the first person to convey that information to them. There are members of the national security apparatus that had been in regular touch with the Weinstein family to keep them apprised of the ongoing effort to try to rescue him.

QUESTION: And so was yesterday the first time that they were told with confirmation that he was dead, though?

EARNEST: Yes. This was the first time that they were informed of the high confidence assessment by the intelligence community that Dr. Weinstein had been killed in the context of a U.S. government counterterrorism operation.

QUESTION: Did the president sign off on either of these strikes specifically? Or keeping with the policy, because there was a presumption that there were no Americans there, it was a part of policy that these strikes would continue without his official signing off on these specific operations?

EARNEST: The president did not specifically sign off on these two operations. There are policies and protocols in place for our counterterorism professionals to make decisions about carrying out these kinds of operations based on a wide variety of things, including an assessment of near certainty that the target is an al-Qaeda target and that civilians would not be harmed if the operation were carried out.

And that is a decision that is, as a policy, that the President and his team have put in place that was, as far as we know, followed by our counterterrorism professionals. But let me just conclude the answer by saying that the President was very direct up here today, when he indicated that he -- while he did not sign off on the specific operation, he does take full responsibility as the commander-in-chief for the unintended tragic consequences that resulted from the operation.

QUESTION: Adam Gadahn, although he wasn't the specific target of that second of these two strikes, is he a target that the U.S. was trying to find and would they, knowing that he was there, have pursued that strike against Adam Gadahn?

EARNEST: Well, the thing that you know about Mr. Gadahn is that he had been indicted for treason in 2006. That is an indication that he is somebody who presented a danger to the United States and our interests. And he is somebody that the United States was very interested in finding.

QUESTION: Would the President have said, "go forward" -- would the President have wanted to go forward with said strike, if he knew Adam Gadahn was there?

EARNEST: Yeah. Well, it's hard for me to entertain a hypothetical like that. Let me...

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE) pursuing strikes on Adam Gadahn?

EARNEST: Let me just say that he was not classified as an HTC. But he was obviously somebody who was wanted by the U.S. Government, because he'd been indicted for treason.

There is a procedure and a policy, again, one that the President put in place for carrying out counterterrorism operations against American citizens who are necessary. But in this case, Mr. Gadahn was not targeted. What was targeted was the Al Qaida compound that he frequented. And that strike did succeed in taking some Al Qaida leaders off the battlefield.

QUESTION: And the ACLU put out a statement a short time ago where it says, among other things, "These new disclosures raise troubling questions about the reliability of the intelligence that the government is relying on to justify drone strikes. In each of the operations acknowledged today, the U.S. quite literally didn't know who it was killing. These and other recent strikes in which civilians were killed make clear that there is a significant gap between the relatively stringent standards the government says it's using and the standards that are actually being used."

So what's the White House's response to that?

EARNEST: Well, I strenuously disagree. There is no evidence at this point to indicate that our counterterrorism professionals deviated from the established protocols. But it also is important for us to step back here and recognize the situation that we're confronting. We're talking about the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. This is a region of the world that is exceedingly remote.

The President talked about this in his NDU speech back in May of 2013, that Al Qaida figures hide out in these areas, because they're remote. They hide out in these areas because they know that local forces don't -- in some cases, don't have the will, in some cases, don't have the capacity to go after them.

And when you're talking about a circumstance like that -- and the other thing that they know, because it's so remote, that the possibility of putting U.S. boots on the ground to go after them is just not feasible. And what that means is when we're talking about an environment like this, absolute certainty is just not possible.

What we can do instead, though, is we can leverage significant intelligence assets to, for example, in this case, actually conduct extensive surveillance of a particular compound.