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Amanpour

Alleged Syrian Chemical Weapons Use Discussed; Examining the Inmate Hunger Strikes at Guantanamo Bay

Aired April 29, 2013 - 15:00   ET

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

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Christiane Amanpour.

And tonight, we continue to pursue proof that President Bashar al- Assad's forces have used chemical weapons against the Syrian opposition. Despite British, French, Israeli and U.S. officials saying this has happened, President Obama says that he must see clear evidence for his red line to be met and for the United States to take action.

Tonight, I'm speaking with a Syrian-American doctor, Zaher Sahloul, on the frontline who says the evidence is irrefutable. He says his organization has delivered blood and tissue samples taken from victims of chemical weapons attacks, taken them directly to U.S. embassy officials.

Dr. Sahloul is the president of the Syrian American Medical Society. Right now, he's at the Turkish border, having just come out of Syria and he says another attack occurred today, the sixth chemical attack that his organization is aware of since last August.

It's said to have occurred in the town of Saraqeb near the Turkish border, and it follows a string of other reported attacks, one in Homs, two in Aleppo and two in Damascus.

The Syrian American doctors have brought back pictures from Aleppo. The hospitals there are now building chemical decontamination sites at their entrances and they tell us the death toll from the attacks has been much higher than previously known, between 100 and 20 people have been killed and as many as 1,000 injured, they say.

I'll be speaking with Dr. Sahloul in just a moment. But first, here's a look at the other stories we're covering tonight.

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AMANPOUR (voice-over): Starved for justice, the hunger strike grows in Guantanamo.

And a Holocaust survivor's plea to end the slaughter.

ELIE WIESEL, HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR: We must do something to stop the bloodshed in that country.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Twenty years ago, it took genocide in Bosnia. Today, will it take weapons of mass destruction to stop the killing in Syria?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: We'll get to that in a bit, but first Syrian American Dr. Zaher Sahloul. He joins me live from very close to the Syrian border in Turkey.

Dr. Sahloul, thank you very much for joining me.

Let me ask you first and foremost, your organization says that it does have proof. Can you tell me what evidence you have and when you first took this to U.S. officials?

DR. ZAHER SAHLOUL, PRESIDENT, THE SYRIAN AMERICAN MEDICAL SOCIETY: We have medical proof. We have many reports from physicians who we are dealing with inside Syria, who told us about treating patients after the five attacks and today after the sixth attack. All of them describe similar presentation of the patients.

All patients had respiratory symptoms and neurologic symptoms. The respiratory symptoms are shortness of breath, bronchospasm, respiratory failure -- some patients require mechanical ventilation. And patients also had neurologic symptoms -- convulsions and some of them were in coma.

Some died and some survived after they received antidote. The symptoms are suggestive of an agent, chemical agent, that increases the concentration of chemical in the nervous system, caused acetylcholine. And this is consistent with what's called nerve gas or sarin gas.

We do not have a clear confirmation that this is what it is, that it's sarin gas. But the evidence coming, especially the number of patients who are exposed, their description of their symptoms, and indicates that it is nerve gas.

AMANPOUR: Doctor, describe for me the precise samples that your doctors took and the precise journey of those samples to U.S. officials in Turkey.

SAHLOUL: The first samples that our members took were after the first chemical attack in Aleppo, which happened in March 19th in the area or neighborhood of Khan al-Assal in Aleppo. At that time, there were reported about 300 patients who were admitted to the hospitals. About 40 of them died.

Also seven members of the medical team who were treating these patients had symptoms similar to their presentation. One of the nurses, her heart was stopped and she had to be defibrillated.

We took -- our members took samples from four patients who died, unfortunately. And they took them to Turkey, to our office in Turkey. And it was delivered to the members of the American embassy in Turkey.

AMANPOUR: And again --

SAHLOUL: That's the first time.

The second time was in -- after the.

The second time was after the second attack in Sheikh Maqsoud area in Aleppo, in April 13th. And at that time also the patients were transported to the city of Afrin and three patients died. All of them are a member of one family, two girls and their mom. One of the girls was 18 months year old.

And they took samples from the hair and the urine of the victims. And they also transported the samples to our Turkish office and it was handled over to the American embassy in Turkey.

AMANPOUR: So if I'm correct, you've taken hair; you've taken urine; you're taken blood. Anything else? Any other samples that you've been able to give to U.S. officials?

SAHLOUL: Today after the attack in Saraqeb, I was just speaking with one of the physicians who treated one of the patients. She was a woman and she was intubated on the ventilator. And he told me that they took also blood, urine and hair samples and also samples from her clothing. And they kept it there and they will deliver it to our office here.

AMANPOUR: Have you had any response from the U.S. officials to whom you gave these samples, from the embassy, from anybody?

SAHLOUL: The member of our organization who is a physician who was dealing with this file in the United States received a call from the State Department, thanking him for coordinating the delivery of the samples. And also confirming with him that the -- that the Ministry of Defense also confirmed that this is probably a chemical attack. That's after the second sample.

AMANPOUR: When was that? And which Ministry of Defense? You mean the Pentagon?

SAHLOUL: The Pentagon -- after the Pentagon announced that this -- the chemical -- that this is most likely a chemical attack, the member of our organization received a call from the State Department thanking him for his effort and confirming that. That was last week.

AMANPOUR: Last week. Now you've come out with pictures of various hospitals in Aleppo, where we see tents that are being built, that is decontamination tents. Do you expect more? Do the people expect more of these chemical attacks?

SAHLOUL: Definitely. When I spoke with the members of the medical team and the leadership team in Aleppo, all of them were prepared for another attack. And I think that even the events of today proves that.

They held a meeting last week and they decided to go ahead with the plan for erecting decontamination tents in front of all hospitals in the areas in Aleppo that is outside of the control of the Syrian regime. There are 10 hospitals there.

We visited them. I took some of the pictures, you know, and it looks like they have tents, that it will be used for decontamination of patients who will be arriving to these hospitals if there is any chemical attack.

AMANPOUR: Dr. Sahloul, thank you very much for joining us with that very important information.

And now, we go inside Syria. CNN correspondent Fred Pleitgen has just arrived in Damascus. He's one of the few journalists to report from inside that war-torn country.

And let's be very clear that many officials are saying that they need to know whether any kind of chemical attack was ordered by President Assad or was it a local initiative by his forces.

Now, Fred, the regime is denying that they've used chemical weapons.

What kinds of reactions are you hearing in Damascus to this whole issue?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Christiane.

Well, it's interesting, because people here that you meet on the street, they are quite nervous about the whole issue. They don't really have very much information, because it's certainly (inaudible) that you don't really see in the official media here. But of course, they do on the Internet and they do see these reports.

And as you say, the government says that they've not used any chemical weapons whatsoever, that these chemical weapons are still locked up.

However, the people that you speak to say they're really not sure. On the one hand, it's something that a lot of them can't really fathom, that they can't really believe that in this war now that you would have chemical weapons being used.

But on the other hand, of course, there is a large distrust here of the authorities, of the government.

So therefore people are saying they are not really sure. It is really an issue that seems to be coming up more and more in society here, not only because, of course, because of the fear of chemical weapons on the one hand, but also because people feel that it might be changing the equation for the government here, that it might lead other countries like the U.S., for instance, closer to some form of intervention or increased intervention, Christiane.

AMANPOUR: And indeed, the leader of the Syrian opposition forces, General Idriss, told me that there had even been attack registered, a chemical attack, he said, in Otaiba, one of the Damascus suburbs.

But let me move on to what happened today. The Syrian prime minister escaped an assassination attempt when a bomb exploded near his motorcade. And you've just driven past that whole area, where it happened.

What did you see and what's the reaction to that really high-profile, you know, attempted assassination?

PLEITGEN: What that does here in the city, Christiane, is it makes people absolutely nervous. You'll see there's very little going on in the streets right now. When you go past that blast site, obviously, the blast site is still there. It's quite large. There's a school in the area.

And that area, Mazzeh (ph), where all of this happened, is really a very upscale area. It's quite strange, because there are a lot of checkpoints there that have been (inaudible) specifically to private attacks from happening there because there's a lot of government officials that actually live and reside in that area.

So the blast site is still there. It's very big; there's a school in the area. The cleanup is still sort of going on. The interesting thing that you do see is that there are people on the street there now.

But certainly that blast, like the blasts in the past that have really shaken people's confidence -- I've been speaking to people who are telling me that it seems to them as though in the run-up to all of this, as though things had actually gotten a little bit more secure, if you will, a little more safe here in Damascus, where you hear less shelling, where you see less smoke rising up from the suburbs here.

But now with each attack, it just makes people very, very nervous; it causes businesses to close. It causes people to go inside even earlier than they would normally. And if you know Damascus from the past, certainly (inaudible) that really came to life in the evenings and at night and I can tell you right now it's dying down very, very quickly, Christiane.

AMANPOUR: That's exactly right. Fred Pleitgen, thank you so much for joining me from Damascus with all these developments.

And when we come back, a humanitarian crisis in Guantanamo. What began as a hunger strike has become for some detainees a life-and-death struggle.

But before we take a break, another look at Syria and the fear of chemical weapons as we've heard.

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AMANPOUR (voice-over): That there is a member of the rebel forces assembling a homemade gas mask. He begins with a plastic soda bottle and fills it with charcoal and cotton gauze soaked with Coca-Cola. Then he fits it over his face with a bit of elastic. At best, perhaps it can buy some time in the event of a nerve gas attack. We'll be right back.

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program. And we turn now to a story we've been covering at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo, where, according to officials, 100 prisoners are now on hunger strike, although defense attorneys assert the number is even higher.

When we first reported this story last March, officials were reporting just 31 striking prisoners. That was last month. Medical staff are force- feeding those hunger strikers at greatest risk of starving themselves to death. That's 21 prisoners, according to officials.

For the first time in a long time, the forgotten detainees at Guantanamo do have the world's attention. United States Senator Dianne Feinstein, who's the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has now asked the Obama administration to release 86 prisoners already approved for transfer.

And the Yemeni president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, is also calling for the transfer of the 56 Yemenis on that list.

Colonel Greg Julian is a public affairs chief for the U.S. Southern Command, which does oversee Guantanamo. And he joins me now from Miami.

Colonel, thank you for joining me. Good to see you again and welcome to the program.

COLONEL GREG JULIAN, PUBLIC AFFAIRS CHIEF, U.S. SOUTHERN COMMAND: Yes, thank you, Christiane. It's a pleasure.

AMANPOUR: Is there any hope that these 86 are going to be transferred as now Senator Dianne Feinstein is urging President Obama to do?

JULIAN: I really can't comment on the transfer. Our task force in Guantanamo is charged with the safe and humane care and custody of the detainees. And we really have no involvement in the decision about their legal status.

AMANPOUR: Right. I'll follow up with you in a moment on that. But when you say safe and humane treatment, let me quote to you from Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel, who is one of the prisoners there and who wrote a "New York Times" column, saying that, "Gitmo is killing me."

He says, "The situation is desperate now. All of the detainees here are suffering deeply and there's no end in sight to our imprisonment.

"Denying ourselves food and risking death every day is the choice that we have made."

Is there any doubt in your mind that this will not end until there's at least a death?

JULIAN: No, I really don't anticipate that. We have a good medical staff on board. There are currently 21 detainees that are being enterally fed. And five of those are being observed in the detainee hospital. And there are no life-threatening circumstances at this point.

AMANPOUR: Well, probably because they are being force-fed, as you say. We have heard the excruciating pain of that force-feeding.

I'd just like you to walk me through what your medical staff to make those 21 or so eat.

JULIAN: Well, this is the same procedure that used in civilian hospitals for people that are in a condition where they're unable to eat normally. And a tube is fed through their nasal passage into their stomachs. And then they're fed a nutritional supplement.

AMANPOUR: Do you -- you would agree with what the lawyers are saying, that it's pretty invasive and pretty painful?

JULIAN: I -- no, I wouldn't agree. This is a legally approved procedure followed by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. And we adhere to the same procedures.

AMANPOUR: Now one of your staff -- or rather the sort of Muslim adviser to the staff at Guantanamo Bay is quoted in a press report as saying that -- well, he believes that this is going to go on until there is some kind of resolution to this transfer.

Do you agree, as some other officials down there in the Southern Command feel, that this is really about this stalemated situation that they're in, that they have lost all hope?

JULIAN: I really wouldn't want to speculate on what the detainees think. That's really not our lane. We're just responsible for providing for their care and custody.

AMANPOUR: All right. Well, let me play this bit of an interview that I did with one of the defense attorneys not long ago. This is what he said on our program.

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CARLOS WARNER, DEFENSE ATTORNEY FOR GUANTANAMO DETAINEES: I'm not here to argue about the numbers. I'm here to call on the president to end this strike. And he can do that if he would just pay some attention to what has happened in Guantanamo. They've been accused of nothing. They are not only innocent, but the government has agreed they're not dangerous to release.

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AMANPOUR: So here we are in this kind of Kafkaesque situation.

What is the exit strategy for some of these prisoners? Is there any hope that they will get released, particularly those who are not accused and are, you know, have already been approved for transfer and who now have that blocked?

JULIAN: Well, I think there's a misunderstanding of that term, that they've been approved for transfer. That means that they've been approved for transfer to another country's detention facility. It doesn't mean that they're innocent and it doesn't mean that they're cleared to be released into the (inaudible).

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AMANPOUR: Right. But even they're not being removed. And some of them think that maybe they could go back to their own country if they would host them, and at least their families would be there. At least they'd get out of this black hole in Guantanamo Bay.

So the question is, is there any kind of procedure to your knowledge that is going to allow that to happen?

Or are they there forever?

JULIAN: That's really out of our lane. That's for others to decide. We're really only responsible for maintaining their care and custody.

AMANPOUR: So what is the process then for these -- for the 86 in question? Who is the -- whose lane is it in?

JULIAN: Well, the Office of Military Commissions conducts the commissions process. And then the political leaders will determine their - - the transferability of the detainees.

AMANPOUR: So political leaders are.?

JULIAN: Our government.

AMANPOUR: All right. Well, some -- go ahead?

JULIAN: That's really outside of our lane.

AMANPOUR: Right. Some members of Congress have said that that's just kind of a stalling tactic, and the Pentagon just doesn't want to move on this issue, because they say they've issued leeway that certain, you know, discretion can be used in this -- in this matter.

Has -- how do you answer to that?

JULIAN: It's really inappropriate for me to comment on that.

AMANPOUR: All right. What can you say?

JULIAN: That we take our job very seriously and we are ensuring for their care and custody. We moved them into single cell procedures because at a point the detainees had damaged or covered more than 100 of the video cameras. And it made it difficult for us to monitor their medical well- being.

So we've had to return to this single cell type operation for the meantime. And we'll continue to do everything we can to provide for their care and custody.

AMANPOUR: Col. Julian, we've met before and, you know, I'm not trying to attack you. I know you're just a spokesman. But when you say care and medical condition and humane, I mean, these stories are really outrageous coming out of there. I know you think that nobody's going to die because you've got a tube going down into their stomach.

But what if somebody does die? What is that going to do there? And what is that going to say about America?

JULIAN: Well, we have an advanced medical team available to provide for their care. And we actually even brought in an additional medical team because we anticipated an increase in the number of hunger strikers. And we have the means to keep them alive and well and (inaudible).

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: You know that there have been a number of suicide attempts as well. That could increase.

JULIAN: Yes, that's potential. But by inspecting their cells and monitoring them closely, we're better able to prevent that from happening. There is no 100 percent solution to keep somebody that's determined to cause themselves harm. But we're doing our best.

AMANPOUR: Col. Julian, thank you very much for joining me.

JULIAN: My pleasure. Thank you.

AMANPOUR: And we will be back after a break with a final thought.

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AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, 20 years ago at the dedication of Washington's Holocaust Museum, Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel turned to then President Clinton. And he made this emotional appeal for intervention in Bosnia.

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WIESEL: Mr. President, I cannot not tell you something. I have been in the former Yugoslavia last fall. I cannot sleep since for what I have seen. As a Jew I am saying that. We must do something to stop the bloodshed in that country.

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AMANPOUR: Two and a half years later, President Clinton did intervene. And years of genocide and ethnic cleansing ended.

On the museum's 20th anniversary today, the two men were together again as another slaughter goes on in Syria. And it brought to mind Elie Wiesel's impassioned words, previously on this program.

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WIESEL: . Syria was then as it is now a symbol of mass murder.

And the fact that we know, the fact that we can see from television, the fact that we can speak about it and nothing is being done, that is a scandal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Now a weapon of mass destruction, sarin gas, is most likely being used in Syria. The spokesman for the Syrian opposition is calling for a no-fly zone and strikes against the Assad regime's military and missile installations.

It took genocide in Bosnia. Will it take weapons of mass destruction in Syria?

That's it for tonight's program. Meantime, you can always contact us on our website, amanpour.com. Thanks for watching and goodbye from New York.

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