Return to Transcripts main page
Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Video Of Teenage Girl Taken Down By School Resource Officer Goes Viral; New Polls Shows Donald Trump Trailing Dr. Ben Carson; American Soldier Killed Fighting ISIS; WHO: Processed Meats Linked to Cancer. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired October 26, 2015 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[20:00:05] ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Good evening and thanks for joining us.
We begin with breaking news and video that might not be easy to watch especially if you're a parent with a child in school. Two abuse of a single violent moment in High school classroom in northeast Columbia, South Carolina. Here is the first.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hands behind your back. Give me the hands.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: That's a school resource officer throwing the female student to the floor, now here is a slightly different angle.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hands behind your back. Give me your hands. Give me your hands. Give me your hands. Give me your hands.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Now, as you might imagine, this video is getting wide play around the country. As you see it shows a single moment in time. We don't know what happened prior to that.
CNN's Jean Casarez joins us now with what she has been finding out about the entire incident.
What do you know, Jean?
JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, we're continuing to get more information but this did happen today in South Carolina at the Spring Valley high school and that is a school resource officer from the Richland County sheriff's department. We do know that the sheriff's department has just come out with a statement saying that their sheriff is actually looked at the video and has numerous questions tonight. They are beginning an investigation because this sheriff wants some answers. Once he has answers, he will publicly let it be known what they are. Now here is what we don't know. We don't know a lot because we don't
know what came before this iPhone started rolling that video. But our affiliate WIS is saying that in fact, the student was refusing to compile with the teacher and the school administrator to leave the classroom. So they called in the school resource officer. They asked the school resource officer to take over. According to WIS, the school resource officer placed this student under arrest for disturbing the school, asked the student to compile to leave the classroom. The student refused. Asked a second time, refusal.
Then according to our affiliate, that's when the iPhone starts rolling where the student is resisting the second request for arrest and to leave the room. At this point, the school district also has undergone their own investigation and they have given a statement to CNN saying that they are deeply concerned about this incident. This is a school resource officer is to protect the student, not to harm the student. But at this point the big question is why and what is the complete story.
COOPER: And the officer is, what, placed on leave or?
CASAREZ: He's placed on administrative leave to not come near that school. He will not perform his duties as a school resource officer at that high school or any other school at this point.
COOPER: All right, Jean, appreciate that. We'll continue to gather information.
Joining us is CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Sunny Hostin, also CNN law enforcement analyst and former NYPD detective, Harry Houck.
Harry, what do you make of this video?
HARRY HOUCK, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: I got a couple questions first here. You know, we don't see what happened earlier, but based on the report the officer asked this child to get out of this seat twice. Let me tell you something that's got me really mad, Anderson. You know, cops are at a school in the event there is a crime being committed. Too often these teachers and these schools are calling on the cops because they have a disruptive student in the classroom. This is not a cop's job. This is the job of the teacher and if the teacher can't handle it, to call the principal or somebody that's trained in that. So they don't want to be the bad guy so they call the police officer in. Now what the police officer did basically was all legal. You know, he can pull that child from that and, you know, he can. But the fact is I wouldn't have done it that way.
COOPER: You think there are other ways to handle it.
HOUCK: Right. There are other ways to handle it. I would have basically told that teacher, to listen, if you can't handle this child are you personally going to sign the complaint against this child because if I have to touch the child, that child is going to be placed under arrest. Now the school is second guessing the officer.
COOPER: Sunny, what do you see? SUNNY HOSTIN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I don't know what video Harry is
watching, Anderson, but this is illegal. Cops can only use excessive force and this is a police officer when their life is in danger, this kind of force.
HOUCK: That's not true.
HOSTIN: The issue here is whether or not --
HOUCK: That's not true.
HOSTIN: It's reasonable and necessary the force used. If you look into the profile of this officer, he is a power lifter, a competitive power lifter, he squads 940 pounds. The kind of force that he used with this child in a school is absurd. I'm not angry about, you know, the fact that an officer was called in. I'm angry that this officer chose to hurl and assault a 13 -- a child onto the ground.
[20:05:10] COOPER: What do you think they should have done if the child was not willing to leave --?
HOSTIN: There are so many things that can be done. You can ask for backup. You can forcibly remove a child, certainly, but you don't have to flip over a chair after you choke the child and then hurl the child across the ground.
HOUCK: She was resisting.
HOSTIN: There are ways -- resisting?
HOUCK: Ma'am, first of all --
HOSTIN: Wow --
HOUCK: You know the fact that an officer can use whatever force is necessary to effect an arrest. I have nothing to do --
COOPER: The only --
HOSTIN: Watch the video.
COOPER: The only resisting that appears is not following an order by the police officer. That, I think that's what you mean by resisting. It doesn't seem like the child --
HOSTIN: She's sitting there. She's sitting there in a very docile way, in fact.
HOUCK: You want to sit for two hours to wait, more cops come, for teachers come. You know, the school should do something like this, this is what annoys me, Anderson, the schools think the cops are there to be able to do something like this and then what they do is turn around --
HOSTIN: Are you annoyed by the video?
HOUCK: I would have done it a different --
HOSTIN: How about the assault?
HOUCK: Legally that officer could have pulled that child out of that seat, no problem.
HOSTIN: Can he assault a child?
COOPER: Does her age matter in all of this?
HOSTIN: Of course, it does. I think it matters --
HOUCK: It's a high school kid.
HOSTIN: It matters legally.
HOUCK: High school kids have killed police officers.
HOSTIN: Come on.
HOUCK: I'm not saying she would have.
HOSTIN: In terms of humanity, we're talking about a female. We're talking about a child. And I think when you look at it legally in terms of what is the reasonable and necessary force, why would a power lifter, a football coach, a competitive power lifter --
HOUCK: It doesn't matter how strong he is.
HOSTIN: It does matter.
HOUCK: No, it does not,
HOSTIN: Need that amount of force --?
HOUCK: When did you win a case because somebody was strong or so strong or stronger than somebody else? It doesn't matter.
HOSTIN: It matters.
HOUCK: This officer properly reacted --
HOSTIN: Properly?
HOUCK: Yes, he did. I believe he had.
HOSTIN: And that's the problem with law enforcement.
COOPER: What do you think he would have done, Harry?
HOUCK: I would have went over to the child like I said and talk to them couple of time, listen, you know, if you don't get out of the car, out of the chair, I'm going to pull you out of here. Do you want that? We are going to call your parents. And this is after I spoke to the teacher and I spoke to the principal saying you're signing the complaint if I have to touch this child, alright. And I don't think that's happening here. I think the school is turning around here. They will point fingers at the police officer because he acted the way he acted.
HOSTIN: There is no justification to use the type of force that we are seeing in this video.
COOPER: You say without a doubt this is excessive --
HOSTIN: Without a doubt. And I don't think we need to see what happened before.
COOPER: You don't think it matters what happens before.
HOSTIN: Absolutely doesn't matter. And again, I think, you know, the beauty of having videotaped incidents like this is that you can allow jurors and allow the American public to use your common sense and allow your eyes to see what your eyes are seeing. I don't think any American seeing this video would say that this isn't --
HOUCK: We don't see the beginning of the video.
HOSTIN: Think about it if it were your child.
HOUCK: I would kick my child's butt if he didn't get out of that chair when a police officer told him to get out of that chair. I tell you that. I would do that. I'd throw him more than this kid got thrown down.
COOPER: Sunny Hostin, Harry Houck, thank you very much. Obviously, a lot to learn about this incident.
Just ahead a third warning sign for Donald Trump. The third poll in a row out of Iowa confirming the new leader is Dr. Ben Carson. How is Donald Trump reacting? You'll see that ahead.
Also ahead, did that bacon you enjoyed this morning perhaps increase your chance of getting cancer or the hot dog for lunch? There is a new report out that worries a lot of people, Dr. Sanjay Gupta here to tell you what you need to know.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:12:34] COOPER: Tonight just days away for the next Republican debate, signs of a serious shift on the ground in crucial first state of Iowa. New polling from Monmouth University this shows Donald Trump battling trailing Dr. Ben Carson, a 14-point gap. Back in August, they were tied for the lead. It is the third straight poll showing a Carson lead in Iowa. Trump downplayed the first and began taking sharper jabs in his opponents in some believe Carson's religious believes. Here is a sampling back and forth and the part about religion so you can decide for yourself what to make of it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have a breaking story, Donald Trump has fallen to second place behind Ben Carson. We informed Ben, but he was sleeping.
BEN CARSON (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't get into the mud pit.
TRUMP: Carson is lower energy than Bush, I don't get it.
CARSON: And I'm not going to be talking about people.
TRUMP: Carson, I don't know what the hell is going on there. I don't get it.
CARSON: I've been attacked since I got in this thing. It's nothing new.
TRUMP: Ben Carson is a very low energy person.
CARSON: The only question is will there be ten attacks a day or 15?
TRUMP: I'm Presbyterian. Boy, that the down the middle of the road, folks, in all fairness. I mean Seventh Day Adventist, I don't know about. I just don't know about.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, it was Saturday when asked about their religion. He said he would apologize if he said something bad about Carson's faith, which he said he did not. No apology.
Plenty to talk about, though with CNN commentators Van Jones, Amanda Carpenter, and Jeffrey Lord. Van is a former Obama administration advisor. Amanda is a conservative writer and former communications director for Senator Ted Cruz. And Jeffrey served as White House political director during the Reagan administration.
So Jeffrey, do you like seeing Trump throw his jabs at Carson? I mean, he was saying he is low energy? It is one thing he brought up Carson's religion, again, you can make of it whatever you will. He said he basically doesn't know about Seventh Day Adventist? Do you think it could give him any harm?
JEFFREY LORD, FORMER REAGAN WHITE HOUSE POLITICAL DIRECTOR: No, I don't. I have a column coming out tomorrow in the "American Spectator" called the (INAUDIBLE) of presidential politics.
I spent some time today going back and looking at presidential primaries and both parties and wow, I mean, all the way back to 1960 when John F. Kennedy was accusing Hubert Hoffrey of being a draft dodger and planning on flooding the polar sections of Milwaukee with African-Americans in public housing. I mean, these things have been pretty brutal on both sides. And frankly, I think historically speaking, this is just as normal as watching grass grow. I really don't see anything.
And I understand why they do it. They are trying to differentiate themselves from their opponent and draw a sharp, you know, line here. So I don't think that there's anything that's new in this at all. We've seen it before and we're going to see it again. [20:15:25] COOPER: Amanda, I mean, invoking Dr. Carson's religion,
whatever Trump is trying to accomplish by bringing it up and whatever he meant by it, I mean, we are talking about a Republican primary in Iowa where, you know, (INAUDIBLE) and probably important and a large evangelical turnout is crucial.
AMANDA CARPENTER, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR FOR SEN. TED CRUZ: And that I why I think it's perfectly fine for Donald Trump to ask about. Listen, faith is a part of Dr. Ben Carson's public persona. And he is very comfortable talking about it. He has been going all around Iowa talking about it. So I don't see this as a potential concern for him.
But what I do think is really interesting about the Carson-Trump dynamic is that Trump is really the only one that is willing to go negative on Carson. Look at all the people who are so willing to go after Trump when he was leading in Iowa. You had Marco, you had Rand, you had Jeb, just tearing him apart, but they are quiet when it comes to Carson.
And so, I'm sort of wondering if they are comfortable Carson actually winning the Iowa caucus because if you look at the last two cycles, it doesn't matter who won. Huckabee won, Santorum won it and then they didn't win anything after that. So I'm sort of wondering if people are comfortable, Carson being a Trump killer in Iowa and then playing a longer gain as we go through it.
COOPER: That's interesting.
Van, I mean, what do you think about that? And also, I mean, you have this op-ed on CNN.com which you argue that the Iowa numbers may not be such bad news for Trump.
VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Absolutely.
First of all, I really agree. What you are seeing here, Iowa is a special place. It's a small place being a big celebrity doesn't help as much there. It usually goes in weird directions when you are talking about Huckabee or Santorum. So, you really could just let Trump have his balloon pop by Carson. But I think people and maybe making too much of this. Trump is still number one or two in every poll taken everywhere. And basically number one every place else. So in that situation, you have to start accepting the fact, and I hate to say this, that Trump could lose Iowa and still win the nomination especially when you look at the fact he's dominating in this new way of politics.
I don't agree this is not new. His tone is very un-presidential. Even in the past when you had attacks they weren't in this tone. Why is it working for him? It's working for him because in a new media era of reality TV and social media where being a bragger doesn't hurt your ratings in reality TV. Being controversial doesn't hurt your following on twitter. So the old rules pre-reality TV, pre-social media are falling away. He is not breaking the rules. He is playing by a new set of rules. I talked about that on CNN.com. COOPER: Jeffrey, I mean, to Van and to Amanda's point, I mean, if
there is a long game that these other candidate are playing, how do you see that actually playing out? I mean, if they figure, OK, Dr. Carson is going to get Iowa just as Huckabee and Santorum got before because the large evangelical turnout and then Trump looking for New Hampshire, South Carolina and other spots later on.
LORD: He's right. He's way ahead. Trump is way ahead in South Carolina and I think in New Hampshire, as well. Van has one point at least that I agree with him on. And I would remind that Ronald Reagan lost the Iowa caucuses to George H. W. Bush and then went on to win in New Hampshire and South Carolina and go from there. And I think I know he lost Pennsylvania, the beauty contest here in Pennsylvania to Bush. The contest went on until May when Bush finally yielded.
So this can go on for quite a-while and, you know, Trump is leading, absolutely in these other places. So, just losing in Iowa in and of itself isn't going to mean anything.
COOPER: Amanda?
CARPENTER: Yes. To that point, I think Trump is absolutely playing a longer game. If you look at his activities over the past week, look, he's betting big on Florida. He had two events, Miami and Jacksonville. He picked up the endorsement of the vice-chair at the state Republican Party there and opened an office in (INAUDIBLE).
And so, I think he is making a big play there because it would be tremendous if he actually knocked out support from Marco and Jeb in his home state. That's a big power play that I think Trump is the kind of guy to try.
COOPER: Yes, good perspective.
JONES: One thing --
COOPER: Real quick.
JONES: One quick thing about this particular fighting style of Carson, he is using judo. You have a barroom brawler approach from a Trump and he is actually being thrown around a bit by the calm, cool judo of a Carson. It's very interesting to see a style of fighting that actually does seem effective against Trump. Nothing else has worked. And in this state, you got to give Carson credit for being effective in at least one state.
COOPER: Van, thank you. Amanda Carpenter and Jeffrey Lord, thank you as well.
More now on the side of the Trump campaign that hasn't got much attention so far but could make all the difference in Iowa, the ground game. Given how much Donald Trump talks about poll numbers, you may conclude that this is all they his campaign's guide. You might think that when it comes to local effort, he's just winging it.
CNN's Sara Murray found out the reality though is just the opposite. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
[20:20:11] TRUMP: I love Virginia. Man.
SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER (voice-over): Donald Trump knows how to rally a crowd.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go ahead.
MURRAY: But it's the army of supporters working behind the scenes who could make him a formidable contender.
TRUMP: Our ground game is all over - Iowa, New Hampshire, all over. South Carolina tremendous ground game.
MURRAY: The billionaire celebrity status lures fans by the thousands.
SAM CLOVIS, TRUMP NATIONAL CAMPAIGN CO-CHAIRMAN AND POLICY ADVISER: For the typical campaign in Iowa as you do seven pizza ranches in a day and you get crowds of 30 at most. We do one event a day and get 3,000.
MURRAY: At every event, volunteers sign on Trump's unconventional supporters convincing people who never caucused before to be precinct captains in Iowa, enlisting them to phone bank in New Hampshire and training them on turnout in Nevada.
The push starts before Trump fans even arrive. They sign up for free tickets online entering their contact information and helping the campaign build a database of potential supporters. State directors say they are inundated with volunteers, some as unique as the candidate, unafraid of using unorthodox methods to attract attention.
CHRISTOPHER MAZERALL, TRUMP VOLUNTEER: If I'm going to be hanging up signs and putting things out, I'll wear the hat and take my parrot with me, he likes people. So, it gets a lot of people's attention.
MURRAY: The campaign keeps a lean staff at New York headquarters. Paid employees are fanned across nearly a dozen states, including some that don't vote until March. The campaign aims to send a message to critics and competitors. Trump is in it to win.
So what's your response to people that don't think Mr. Trump is in it for the long haul?
CLOVIS: Well, I can't say it on the air. So it's a -- but I think that a typical -- a polite response would be check the scoreboard when the clock has run out.
MURRAY: Trump's fame works for and possibly against him. His brand is so big that he spends next to nothing on advertising. But his popularity comes with a cost.
FRED DOUCETTE, NEW HAMPSHIRE TRUMP CO-CHAIRMAN: It's probably not a logistic possibility to be hitting all the small diner, the famous ones for Mr. Trump because he draws such a media presence. Doesn't mean he can't connect with the people but on a larger scale.
MURRAY: The early states aren't used to large scale campaigning and many voters prefer close contact with the candidates which may help explain why Trump now trails in Iowa, making that army of volunteers all the more important.
Sarah Murray, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Well, up next, Donald Trump and his beginnings in the business world. He said today it's never been easy for him. His very next words, though, have a lot of people saying they wish they had it as tough as he did. You will hear from yourself and decide how bad he really was him when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:26:41] COOPER: Welcome back.
Donald Trump does not as a general rule as you know do humility, he mainly does huge. So today, we are going to talk about what he sees as his own humble beginnings and hard times on his way at the top. It came with a huge footnote, seven figures in fact. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: My whole life really has been a no and I fought through it. I have been, and you know, I talk about it. It's not been easy for me. It has not been easy for me. And you know, I started off in Brooklyn. My father gave me a small loan of $1 million.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Now, a lot of people would not describe $1 million as a small loan. They would call it a small fortune. Yet even a Donald Trump did not exactly come from humble beginnings, I mean, certainly coming a long way.
360's Randi Kaye takes a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Long before the glitz and gold of Trump power on Manhattan's fifth avenue, there was a small Trump office on avenue Z in Coney Island. That's where Donald Trump and his father Fred Trump first bonded over real estate.
TRUMP: I started off in a small office with my father in Brooklyn and Queens. I learned so much just sitting at his feet playing with blocks listening to him negotiate with subcontractors.
KAYE: His father had discovered his love for real estate at an early age as well.
Fresh out of high school, the young Fred Trump reportedly teamed up with his mother Elizabeth Trump to form E. Trump and son, the beginnings of Trump Empire. He needed a partner, his mother to write checks, he was not old enough.
Fred Trump built garages, but eventually began building homes for the upper middle class and for veterans returning from World War II. He then left $30,000 by his dad, Fred Trump senior who was also a builder, a lot of money then but still Fred Trump worked as if he had pennies.
Unlike his son, "the New York Times" says Fred Trump did not like to put his name on things he built. Donald got his start in the business in his 20s. After working on deals with his dad in Queens, Donald Trump began searching for distressed properties in New York City.
TRUMP: He used to say, Donald, don't go into Manhattan. That's the big leagues. We don't know anything about that. Don't do it. I said dad, I got to go into Manhattan. I got to build the big buildings.
KAYE: And that's just what he did proving to the man who gave him his start just how much he taught him.
Randi Kaye, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: More now on Donald Trump's rise and the doubts that have dodged him every step of the way about his true wealth and his true success as a deal maker.
Joining us is Tim O'Brien, publisher of "Bloomberg View" and the author of "Trump Nation, the art of being the Donald." He's not, we should say right up front, one of Donald Trump's favorite authors. You were sued by Trump. That was eventually finally dismissed and lost on appeal, correct?
TIMOTHY O'BRIEN, ANCHOR, TRUMPNATION: Yes, got dismissed.
COOPER: OK. It got dismissed.
First of all, the fact, what do you make of Donald Trump saying, you know, he had a rough road the whole way, started off with a small loan, $1 million from his dad?
O'BRIEN: You know, it's all very silly. Donald is a guy who was born on third base and pretends he hit a triple. You know, the reality is he inherited conservative rule about $125 million.
COOPER: Really?
O'BRIEN: Yes, from his dad. When his father passed away the family sold off his Real Estate Empire in Queens after that and
[20:30:00] at least $125 million. He had a trust fund his father set up for him when he was a young man.
COOPER: You had told me once of a case where his dad bought a whole bunch of chips at a casino.
O'BRIEN: Correct. In the early 90s when Donald's casino empire was in trouble and he was having trouble making debt payments, it was around 1990, Fred appeared one evening at the Trump Castle casino in Atlantic City and bought about more than $3 million worth of chips, and so Donald had the cash to meet debt payments. So he certainly got more than $1 million from his father. He benefited throughout his career as a young developer in Manhattan from his father's connections. His father was deeply tied into the Manhattan political machine, the Democratic machine. And through those relationships, the Trump family got enormous tax abatements on projects they built. When he redeveloped the Grand Hyatt, he got about $111 million in tax abatements that -- over 40 years.
COOPER: To be fair to him, he's always acknowledged his dad was big in construction in Brooklyn and Queens, I mean, construction in Manhattan is another kind of thing, isn't it? It does say something about Donald Trump that he wanted to come to Manhattan and make his mark here?
O'BRIEN: Absolutely. I think that he did something in Manhattan his father on his own probably never could do. But that's a different issue than the notion that all he ever got from his father is $1 million. He got tons of money from his father, and he got tons of connections and financial support from his father that made his career in Manhattan possible.
COOPER: His -- I mean, his business, it's -- you've said it's much different than a lot of people realize. That his business now is a lot of it is licensing his name to buildings around the world.
O'BRIEN: Yes, Donald is essentially a human shingle now. He's never been a good business operator. He was a disaster as a casino operator.
COOPER: How can you say he's never been a good business operator? I mean, he seems to have a lot of businesses.
O'BRIEN: He's a good self-promoter and he is good at licensing his name on everything from mattresses to underwear to vodka to men's clothing. But in terms of running a business on a day to day basis, he lost a lot of his early gains in real estate because he didn't run those businesses well, and certainly the casino slipped through his fingers for the same reason.
COOPER: He says though he got out of Atlantic City at the right time. He was praised for that.
O'BRIEN: He lost control of Atlantic City before Atlantic City spiralled down because he didn't run the casinos properly.
COOPER: Tim O'Brien, appreciate you being on. Thank you very much.
O'BRIEN: Thank you.
COOPER: The other quick money note, we have breaking news from a place that rarely functions smoothly, but apparently has tonight, where the bipartisan congressional leaders in the White House had just agreed to a deal in principle to raise the debt ceiling and head off a government shutdown. Final details are still being worked on. They include lifting budget caps on defense and certain domestic programs. A vote could come as early as Wednesday.
Just ahead, inside the deadly rescue mission to free dozens of ISIS hostages in Iraq. There is newly released video showing how the raid went down moment by moment. Our military analyst walks us through it frame by frame, explaining what it shows. We'll show it to you just ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:37:00]
COOPER: Tonight a look inside the mission that cost a U.S. Army master sergeant Joshua Wheeler his life. The Delta Force soldier died last week in northern Iraq during a raid on an ISIS controlled prison. U.S., Kurdish and Iraqi forces took part in the mission to free dozens of hostages the Pentagon said were facing imminent mass execution.
We're getting a look at how exactly it went down. Kurdish officials released a video taken by a helmet camera worn by a Kurdish soldier. CNN military analyst and retired U.S. Army General Mark Hertling who commanded forces in Iraq, U.S. forces in Iraq, analyzed the video for us. Guided by General Hertling's expertise, CNN's Jim Sciutto walks us through the dramatic pictures.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The tape starts with the crackle of gunfire, which our analyst identified as AR-15 rifle shots. The same weapons seen on all the troops in this video. Fire burns in the adjacent room, possibly started after flash bang grenades were thrown into it to stun the enemy. A common technique used by U.S. Special Forces.
Then four Kurdish soldiers emerge from the darkness in what's called a four-man stack, evidence of their U.S. training, and with them, the first of many freed hostages. This man appears to have blood on his clothes.
As more and more hostages are rushed out, Kurdish commandos yell at them in Arabic to move, move very quick, and none of the hostages have shoes. Our analysts believes their ISIS captors must have wanted them barefoot to make escape even harder.
About 30 seconds into the video, what looks like controlled chaos turns into mayhem. The sound of AR-15 rifle fire rises to a steady barrage. Mixed in with it, says our analyst, is the sound of AK-47s, a weapon most likely used by ISIS fighters. Now the hostages are on the run, and told over and over again to hurry by Kurdish forces. The tape then cuts to another room. A massive black ISIS flag hangs on one wall. The Kurdish commando wearing this helmet cam then heads to a hallway that is lined with what could be prisoner cells. One of them still secured with a padlock.
Then another edit in the tape. An AR-15 rifle fire rings out again.
Finally to this scene, hostages being frisked. At this moment, these troops don't know for sure if these men are prisoners or ISIS fighters trying to conceal their identity. They are searched for weapons, for suicide vests, and for what the U.S. military would call pocket litter, phone numbers, information, any intelligence written down that could be passed to someone on the outside.
Then we see and hear Americans for the first time.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hold that guy there. We got more coming.
SCIUTTO: The soldier on the right, our analyst said, has markings on his helmet and sleeve consistent with the Army's Delta Force, of which 30 were part of this operation, according to a U.S. official.
[20:40:00]
During this mission, we're told before this portion was filmed, a Delta Force special operator is mortally wounded. Overall, around 70 hostages are freed. Once the building is cleared, coalition forces launch an air strike so that it can never be used by ISIS again.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Jim Sciutto joins us now. It's incredible to see that. I understand the U.S. Defense Secretary Carter has acknowledged that there will be more Special Operations forces in Iraq like this one. How does it line up with the contention that there are no U.S. combat troops on the ground?
SCIUTTO: He acknowledged it, and it appeared to be intentionally so. I was in the press conference with him on Friday, and I asked him about this, how this measures up with the administration's claim. One, he didn't dispute that what we saw there is indeed combat, and he also made clear in his words that this is a capability the U.S. has. It's a good capability. And it's one he intends to use going forward. These are called advise and assist missions, but part of that assistance sometimes means, as we saw here, coming to the aid of your local partners on the ground. That's exactly what that Special Forces operator, Delta Force operator did, who was mortally wounded in this attack.
You see more of these. It may not be a mass ground exercise like we saw during the invasion of Iraq and occupation, but it's certainly danger, and I'll tell you, Anderson, there are people in the Pentagon pushing for more roles for U.S. combat forces, such as ground controllers or forward deployed military advisers, but that decision stays with the president.
COOPER: Terrible loss of an American hero. Jim, thank you very much.
It's been more than 12 years since U.S. troops invaded Iraq, and almost four years since the last American combat soldier was pulled out, and yet Sergeant Wheeler was killed taking part in that raid four days ago. It's a country racked by violence as you know, and civil war with the added threat of ISIS now. Just ahead, at the top of the hour, CNN's Fareed Zakaria takes a deep dive into how we got to this place. His special is called "Long Road to Held, America in Iraq." Fareed joins us now.
You look at the origins of the war and think that it was in retrospect, a terrible mistake. At the time you supported the overthrow of Saddam.
FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN ANCHOR: I did. And I thought it was a way in which you could have -- put in place a functioning democracy in Iraq that would have been a kind of a middle ground between the very brutal and repressive dictatorships of the Middle East, and this kind of Islamic jihad and violence. But as the United States goes in and topples Saddam and it initially goes well. It then makes a series of catastrophic errors. It disbands the army.
COOPER: The de-Baathification.
ZAKARIA: Essentially dismantles the whole state, the de- Baathification, the dismantling of the bureaucracy, and as a result, it takes all these young Sunni men, who are now totally disaffected, angry with the new regime, and it throws them onto the streets, but they all still have guns.
COOPER: And many of them have military training.
ZAKARIA: And many have military training. This is the old army. And this in many ways was the core of what became al Qaeda in Iraq and then became ISIS. The military core appears to be in all these cases these disaffected soldiers, and in some cases bureaucrats who were once on top of Iraq, and we dismantled the whole state and pushed them to the bottom.
COOPER: And we still see some of these people aligned with ISIS now.
ZAKARIA: There is no question that ISIS military command -- separate from the theology and all that. The military guys seem to be former Saddam people, which is weird, because those guys were not religious at all. In some ways, this is really a power grab, the guys who we pushed out of power, this is their way of trying to get back.
COOPER: You interviewed Tony Blair for this, obviously he was the prime minister in England at the time. He essentially apologized, said it was a mistake of intelligence, but that the world is better off for Saddam Hussein -- did you talk to folks from the Bush administration?
ZAKARIA: It's funny you said that, Anderson. We tried very hard to talk to very senior people. We got to some. Mostly they didn't want to talk. Really it was so hard to get former senior people, and those are the guys who really made the decisions. Tony Blair was just supporting those decisions, the dismantling of the army, all this was done by the Bush administration. The ones who did, an enormous amount of buck passing. COOPER: Pointing fingers at each other.
ZAKARIA: Pointing fingers, you know. One guy will say this was done in Baghdad, the other guy says no, we got instructions from Washington. If you try to figure out who in Washington came up with the idea, not very clear. One thing was clear, no one wanted to apologize, no one wanted to take responsibility.
COOPER: It just shows you the difficulty when you have foreigners in a foreign land, I mean, it's hard enough to figure out how to, you know, control crime here in the United States, try to figure out all the different forces in a foreign country. It's a huge task.
ZAKARIA: It's exactly right. That's where I've come to. If you look at Iraq, it's not just that in Iraq, we got rid of the regime and we tried this very ambitious nation building, and it didn't work. In Libya, we got rid of the regime, and we didn't do any nation building. We left it to the Libyans. We said this is for you, and it's turned into a mess.
[20:45:00]
In Yemen, we just allowed new elections, and it turned into a mess. In Syria, we've done nothing and it's turned into a mess. The Middle East is in huge turmoil, and the idea that, you know, a few more Special Forces here and no-fly zones there, if only the United States were to get involved -- I think we should have some humility. Looking at this documentary, the main sense I get out of it is, this is a very complicated part of the world in huge historical turmoil. It will sort itself out, and the idea that an incremental American nudge or push here isn't going to make much difference.
COOPER: Look forward to watching it. It starts 15 minutes from now. Fareed, thank you very much. Fareed's documentary, "A Long Road to Hell, America in Iraq" premieres just minutes from now, 15 minutes or so, at 9:00 p.m. Eastern. Urge everyone to watch.
Just ahead, a new report by the World Health Organization linking processed meat to cancer. We're talking about hot dogs, cold cuts, bacon, putting that in the same category as smoking and asbestos. The question is, how big are the actual risks? Chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta joins us ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COOPER: Today the World Health Organization stamped bacon and other processed meats, including my personal favorite hot dogs, with a big fat C, saying they raise the risk of stomach and colon cancer.
[20:50:00]
The new report also says that red meat probably causes cancer, as well. For a perspective, let's bring in our chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Sanjay, what does this report actually say? DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know,
it's a pretty big deal. They basically said we now have sufficient evidence to say that processed meat causes cancer in humans. Just to give you a little bit of context, this is a -- they sort of looked back in time at some 800 studies that go back over 20 years, you know, many, many different countries involved in these studies, and they look at this in aggregate and say let's draw a conclusion now.
And based on looking at all those studies, they say that there is again, sufficient evidence that processed meats cause cancer in humans. They also said red meat probably causes cancer in humans. It wasn't quite the same level of evidence, but it was pretty significant, and they even put some numbers on it. With processed meat, they say if you're eating 50 grams of processed meat a day, roughly two slices of ham for example, you're increasing your risk about 18 percent of developing colon cancer. So they said that evidence is there, and here are the numbers.
COOPER: I mean, what does that mean for consumers? Should we all stop eating bacon and other processed meats?
GUPTA: Well, you know, I think that depends on how much you want to tolerate risk and how much you love bacon, you know? We know there are certainly risks to all sorts of different things.
COOPER: For me it's hot dogs.
GUPTA: For example meat -- well, and hot dogs was on the list.
COOPER: I know, I know, we're showing pictures of hot dogs, which is freaking me out and also making me hungry.
GUPTA: You love your hot dogs. Right? But it's like most things in life, you have to sort of -- you have to really look at the risk and figure out, you know, is this something you are willing to tolerate in terms of risk based on your love for the food or whatever it may be.
Let me give you something I think is important, Anderson. Whenever we talk about risk, typically headlines are talking about relative risk, right, the relative risk increase is about 18 percent. But if I told you that the overall risk in the United States of developing colon cancer is about 5 percent, that means if you eat this processed meat regularly, it will go from 5 to about 6 percent. It's an increase. Is it a dramatic increase? Again, it depends on how you look at these sorts of things, but this is a risk you need to take into account and balance it with your love for any particular food.
COOPER: How does it balance with other things that cause cancer, smoking, asbestos?
GUPTA: This will also maybe freak you out a bit, Anderson. We looked at some of the numbers, this agency, this International Agency for Cancer Research, that basically categorizes substances, any kind of substance and says is this something that causes cancer in humans? Is this something that possibly could cause cancer in humans? Does it probably cause cancer in humans? What they find is that things that cause cancer, there is about 118 things on the list.
Look, you know, obviously processed meats will get added to that list today. Asbestos is on the list, cigarette smoking is on the list. Cell phones last year were put on the list of things that could possibly cause cancer.
So, you know, people always say looks like everything can cause cancer, in some way, and when you look at the list, you can understand why people say that. But again, this is based on data, and it also gives you a context of what that risk is.
COOPER: Sanjay, it is good to have you on, appreciate it.
GUPTA: You got it, thank you.
COOPER: As you can expect, the meat industry is not happy about the new report. Several groups blasted the report's findings. In a statement the North American Meat Institute said the panel's vote quote, classifying red and processed meat as cancer hazards defies both common sense and numerous studies showing no correlation between meat and cancer, and many more studies showing the many health benefits of balanced diets that include meat."
Coming up, dessert, the ridiculist is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:57:40]
COOPER: Time now for the Ridiculist. With more than a year to go until the presidential election, things are going to get weird. You can pretty much bet on that. Candidates can melt down, burn out, say outrageous things, get caught in scandals that we can't even anticipate at this point. But say what you will about American politics, with its wiener photos on Twitter and its hiking of the Appalachian trail, and its reality TV stars running for president. One thing we don't do here is we don't put wookies in handcuffs.
This is a real story from Ukraine, where Chewbacca got arrested for breaking election rules by campaigning on voting day. He got fined about $5 for the infraction, but not before he was taken away by several police officers.
Who was Chewbacca campaigning for, you might ask? Darth Vader, of course. Darth Vader was running for mayor of Odessa, pledging to build a galactic empire and demanding more transparency in Ukrainian politics. This has actually been going on for years in Ukraine, thanks to a group called the Internet Party. They have also put Yoda on the ballot.
This actually is not Chewbacca's first run-in with authorities. A few years ago, Peter Mayhew, the actor who plays Chewbacca, was detained at the Denver airport because the TSA was concerned about his cane, which looked like a light saber. We reported the story on this program and were subsequently treated to some really amazing Wookie impersonations. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The TSA says the unusual weight of the cane got an officer's attention, but that the passenger and the light saber cane were cleared to travel within five minutes. I always wanted a light saber.
COOPER: That was my Chewbacca.
Was that your Chewbacca?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No? Just get me a light saber.
COOPER: Have you ever seen "Star Wars"?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: It's a pretty bad Chewbacca. Not that mine was any better. But just to get that out of your head, here is what Chewbacca actually sounds like.
Thank you. Chewbacca actor Peter Mayhew and his wife were really good sports about the airport detention.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETER MAYHEW, ACTOR: I'm a big guy, therefore I need a heavy cane.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You do know you just told Chewbacca he can't have his light saber cane, at which time I think her eyes maybe got a little big, I don't know. Our job is to see to it that people have a good time.
MAYHEW: That's what we're here for.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If the Wookie arrives in a foul mood, nobody will have a good time, I promise.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: That is true. If the Wookie arrives in a bad mood, nobody is going to have a good time. If you dress up like a Wookie and campaign on election day in Ukraine, the police force will be with you, at least on the Ridiculist.
That does it for us. We'll see you again 11:00 p.m. Eastern for another edition of "360." "Long Road to Hell: America in Iraq," hosted by Fareed Zakaria, starts now.
