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Kerry: ISIS Fight Will Take Time; Malaysian PM Speaks Out on MH17; Imagine a World

Aired September 24, 2014 - 14:00   ET

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

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JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: This will take time. You and others should not be looking for some massive retreat within the next week or two.

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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST (voice-over): Urging patience in the long fight against ISIS, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry here at the United

Nations in New York, my exclusive interview ahead.

And also next...

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I had to work the back channels. I had to when conduct the operation itself.

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AMANPOUR (voice-over): For the first time, the Malaysian prime minister talks to me about how he personally negotiated for the release of the

bodies and the black boxes of the downed flight MH17.

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AMANPOUR: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Christiane Amanpour, live here at the United Nations General Assembly

meeting in New York. And today is a big day for American leadership as President Barack Obama spoke here just days after launching airstrikes on

Syria.

In his speech, the president laid out a broad range of global problems, the illicit Ebola, Russia's aggression in Ukraine and the brutality in Syria.

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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Each of these problems demands urgent attention. But they also are symptoms of a broader problem,

the failure of our international system to keep pace with an interconnected world.

We collectively have not invested adequately in the public health capacity of developing countries.

Too often we have failed to enforce international norms when it's inconvenient to do so.

And we have not confronted forcefully enough the intolerance, sectarianism and hopelessness that feeds violent extremism in too many parts of the

globe.

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AMANPOUR: Now the United States is leading the way in the fight against ISIS and its extremist ideology and we've just heard a French hostage is

the latest victim of the group's violence. The French government says Herve Gourdel was beheaded after he was kidnapped in Algeria.

Here in New York, the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has been meeting with his counterparts after getting Arab nations on board the coalition to

bomb ISIS targets in Syria. And I talked exclusively to him just as we were getting word of a second day of airstrikes.

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AMANPOUR: Welcome to the program.

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: Thank you.

AMANPOUR: Welcome to CNN.

KERRY: Well, I'm very happy to be here, thank you.

AMANPOUR: Can you confirm what we have all been talking about, that there's a second day of strikes underway on targets in Syria and Iraq?

And that the leader of the Khorasan Group and another major leader have been killed?

KERRY: Well, there's definitely a second day and there will be a third and more. This is going to go on. The president has been very clear that

we're going to do what's necessary to get this job done.

Everybody is fixated on the strikes. But this is a very broad-based strategy, which involves foreign fighters. The president will chair a U.N.

Security Council meeting today on foreign fighters. It involves cutting off financing. It will involve major effort to reclaim Islam by Muslims,

by those to whom it belongs.

And I think you will hear more from the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, from the council, from people all around the world, who are outraged by what

ISIL is doing to Islam.

AMANPOUR: Can you confirm the death of the leader of the Khorasan Group, which you struck?

We were all surprised. Nobody had really been paying attention to it.

Has the leader been killed?

KERRY: I can't personally confirm that at this moment, no.

AMANPOUR: Regarding one of the key items that you just mentioned, that the president said to cut off the flow of funding to ISIS and other such

groups, many of the coalition partners who you have got, the Arab coalition partners, have been blamed for either directly funding or turning an eye

away from the funding going to these groups.

What are you going to say to them?

And are you convinced that they're on board to stop this funding?

KERRY: Well, I'm absolutely convinced that the coalition is on board. There's no question about it. And they proved that in the air, in their

willingness to join -- historically, to many people's amazement, they all came together. We had a very frank meeting yesterday with all of them,

with the president.

They are committed to this because this is a threat to every nation, and they see that. It's also a threat to legitimacy, it's a threat to

statehood, it's a threat to their futures. And so it has much bigger stakes than just immediate counterterrorism and so forth.

AMANPOUR: And you can be sure that they're going to cut the funding?

KERRY: Well, let me talk about the funding for a minute.

In the very beginning, Christiane, when the efforts to oust Assad took place, there were people who made calculations that the important thing is

to remove Assad. Yes, there are some bad apples there, but we want to get him out.

And that, unfortunately, resulted in funding to different groups and it was frankly a sloppy process. It did not provide the coordinated, concerted

effort that was needed.

So since then, there's been a real focus on this financing. And state- sponsored support of these groups, I believe, is over, it is ended.

There are still individuals within certain countries who have been funneling money to these groups.

And the theory back in the beginning by many of these people were, well, we're going to get rid of Assad and then we'll focus on these bad apples.

They realized it morphed into something more ominous, more threatening, and so I think people have really pulled back. There's a sense of purpose now

in this focus against ISIL.

AMANPOUR: You say a sense of purpose. The president has laid out a multiyear task ahead.

Quickly, the Khorasan plot, can you confirm precisely what it was and the imminence of it?

KERRY: Well, these are remnants of al Qaeda, core al Qaeda as we called it. These are people who were definitively plotting against the United

States and the West. We have been tracking them for some period of time now.

And it is true that we didn't put a lot of public focus on it because we really didn't want people -- we didn't want them to know that we were in

fact tracking them as effectively as we were.

AMANPOUR: Can you tell us what the plots were precisely?

KERRY: No, I'm not -- I can't. I'm not going to go into that, but suffice it to say that we knew there were active plots against the country.

AMANPOUR: Secretary Kerry, I'd like to ask about the military campaign. You yourself are a former military. You've fought against insurgents

yourself in Vietnam. This is an insurgent war.

Can they be flushed out by air power alone?

Surely it needs special forces on the ground to be able to identify future targets?

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AMANPOUR: American special forces.

KERRY: Well, there are a lot of different parts of this, Christiane. They are -- clearly intelligence comes from people on the ground. There's no

question about that.

But there are lots of people on the ground already in different forms -- and I'm not going to go into all of that, but there are other intelligence

systems; there are other countries. There are lots of inputs to intel with respect to ISIL. That's number one.

AMANPOUR: And you feel you have it, to be able to expand the campaign?

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KERRY: Well, we will continue -- General Allen is going there this next week with Ambassador McGurk. They will be there, working on this

networking of intelligence, this networking of entities on the ground. We will be training openly, thanks to the congressional vote, Syrian

opposition.

We believe that with the open effort against ISIL from many different players in the region, there's going to be much greater confidence in this

possibility of the opposition. And there will be more recruits. There will be more -- the morale will go up. People are going to be more willing

to fight.

In addition to that, there are other options. The president has been clear there won't be American special forces on the ground, but there are plenty

of ways to begin to bring greater pressure on ISIL.

AMANPOUR: Plenty of ways; you have been doing this now for six weeks plus in Iraq itself against ISIS, whatever targets. They have not been flushed

out, Secretary Kerry. They are not retreating.

KERRY: I understand.

AMANPOUR: They're not surrendering. They're also not flooding back to the central government, you know, the prime minister who you have helped stand

up.

KERRY: Well, the government is in its infancy, in its very first days, still in formation. And it was very important that Haider al-Abadi came

here, the prime minister, that he's had meetings.

They will go back and they will continue to do what they need to do. We will be working with them to reconstitute the military. The military has

not yet come back together completely.

Now, we know there are -- I won't go into the numbers -- but there are an adequate number of brigades ready to fight and capable of fighting.

And, of course, they haven't been flushed out yet. In fact, they're bunkering down. They're kind of --

AMANPOUR: And more villages are falling.

KERRY: Well, that will -- is possible for a period of time, but what we've done is we've stopped the onslaught. That was what we were able to achieve

with air power.

They were moving towards Irbil. They were moving towards Baghdad. Baghdad could well have fallen. Irbil could have fallen. They could have control

of all of the oil fields.

We resecured the Mosul Dam. We've protected the Haditha Dam. We broke the siege at Amerli; we broke the siege at Sinjar Mountain. So air power has

been effective.

And now, as their supplies begin to get hit and other things begin to happen, I believe there is the possibility of a slow degrading that,

ultimately -- and I say ultimately, because the president has been clear, this will take time.

You and others should not be looking for some massive retreat within the next week or two. There are going to have to be major efforts to stand up

tribes, to do the kind of thing that happened with the Sons of Anbar, with the Arab -- with the awakening, the Iraqi awakening, that took place years

ago.

AMANPOUR: So, that leads me my next question. I interviewed the new prime minister, al-Abadi, last night. And he says that he wants to bring the

Sunnis in. Clearly, that is the backbone of your strategy, the political part of it.

Do you believe that he gets it and that he will be able to do something dramatic and radical to convince the Sunnis that they are part of this

nation again?

KERRY: Well, it's critical, absolutely critical. And the first steps have been taken.

I believe he understands the challenge. But it is imperative, I cannot underscore how important it is that this be one nation with all the

different parties coming together, with an opportunity to be part of the decision-making and part of the future.

And if it does break down into the sectarian divisions and a refusal to share responsibility and decision-making, that will be very problematic.

AMANPOUR: Regarding Bashar al-Assad -- all of us know Bashar al-Assad must go. That's what the President of the United States said. That's what many

regional allies said three years ago.

He's not only there, but you have informed him of these strikes.

People have said, your ambassador said to me -- there must be no sense that this is going to help Bashar al-Assad.

Are you sure that what you're doing in Syria will not help Bashar al-Assad?

KERRY: Well, let me make it clear: Bashar al-Assad has lost an ability not because we say so, but because the facts on the ground tell everybody

that, when you have killed 200,000 of your own citizens, when you have driven a huge percentage of your population into exile -- a million and a

half refugees in Turkey, a million and a half or so in Jordan and Lebanon, another 4 million or so dislocated within your own country.

You dropped barrel bombs. You gassed people, you tortured people. How do you imagine having legitimacy to be able to govern that country?

AMANPOUR: But you're not going after him now?

KERRY: No, this is not about Assad now. This is about ISIL.

But we are continuing to train openly and to equip and arm the moderate opposition. And over the years, we have grown pretty good at vetting --

and understand we've done 20 years now of this. We did it in Iraq, we've done it in Afghanistan.

And our folks know how to separate people and begin to determine to the greatest extent -- you know, to the greatest extent possible who is really

moderate and prepared to fight.

AMANPOUR: There's been a huge amount of debate within the Obama administration for the past three years of this war in Syria. Many, the

whole entire, practically, national security apparatus of the president, wanted to do something like this much earlier.

The former CIA chief Panetta said it recently, that we should have probably done this much earlier, what we're doing now. The president dismissed

people mostly who promoted this kind of thing, thought they were trigger happy, you know, used certain terms against it.

Do you regret that this wasn't done sooner?

Would it have been easier?

KERRY: Well, first of all, let me make it clear. The president never dismissed anybody. The president engaged in extremely thoughtful and

comprehensive discussion to figure out the pros and cons and pluses or minuses.

And what is clear is the president has determined that he has the legal capacity -- remember, there were serious questions about legality about

what could and couldn't be done previously.

There was a big debate over chemical weapons even. We didn't have the same kind of legality to go do chemical weapons that we do now have because of

the request of the government of Iraq.

We didn't have a request from the government of Syria, because international law clearly recognizes a right of self-defense and collective

self-defense, and we have the legality to do what we're doing today. That mattered to the president.

AMANPOUR: So much more to ask you. I know your time is up. Thank you very much for joining us this morning.

KERRY: My pleasure. Thanks. Good to be with you.

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AMANPOUR: And of course as you heard, the fight against ISIS is also about combating an ideology. And that is what the prime minister of Malaysia,

the mostly Muslim nation, there told me. Coming up next another part of our fascinating conversation with him, Prime Minister Najib talks for the

first time about his personal dealings with the Russian backed rebels after the downing of Flight MH17.

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

Turning now to an extraordinary story of political daring: when Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak came here to the United Nations last year, he

could hardly have imagined that two of his country's planes would suffer disaster.

When MH17 was shot down over Ukraine just over two months ago, bodies were left to rot in the fields and the crucial black boxes, the key to the truth

about what happened, remained under control of the separatist rebels.

Prime Minister Najib, stung by his government's ineffectual response to the disappearance of MH370 in the Indian Sea, had learned his lesson. As

Western leaders turned up the rhetoric on Russia, it was only through the prime minister's rare personal intervention -- that means negotiating

directly with the rebels that bodies and even the black boxes were recovered.

And now Prime Minister Najib is telling his incredible story for the very first time. Take a listen.

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AMANPOUR: Prime Minister, welcome back to our program.

NAJIB RAZAK, PRIME MINISTER, MALAYSIA: Thank you.

AMANPOUR: It's good to see you again. This has been a very difficult year for you and for your country. For the first time you're speaking since the

crash of MH17.

How did you first hear about it?

What was your reaction when yet another flight was blown out of the sky?

NAJIB: If you can imagine, just four months after MH370 disappeared, and all of a sudden, middle of the night, you know, the message comes across

saying, look, we just lost a plane. It's off the radar. I mean, it was -- I was in a sea of disbelief. I mean, how could it happen within a period

of four months? But there it was; it happened. And it was a huge tragedy for Malaysia, especially for the families affected.

AMANPOUR: Did you and your officials and ministers react differently this time around than you did the first time around?

You remember you came under some criticism the first time around.

NAJIB: I think so. I think there were some things that we got right with respect to the first tragedy, some things that you know, we could have done

better, especially on the communications side.

But this time we realized that we needed to act. And we acted differently. And we did things that were rather unconventional.

AMANPOUR: What was unconventional?

NAJIB: Well, dealing with the separatists, something just unprecedented. But --

AMANPOUR: What do you mean by dealing with the separatists?

NAJIB: -- because normally, as a government, you'd only deal with another government.

But here is a movement, a separatist movement. And there was this impasse. We couldn't -- we couldn't retrieve the bodies. We couldn't get our hands

on the black boxes. We couldn't have access to the crash site. There was this impasse. We didn't know how long it would continue. And I felt I owe

it to the families, the fact that -- because that really moved me. Because when I met them, I met each and every one, individual families. And it

really touched me. I was moved. I was almost in tears when -- and I could feel for them a huge sense of empathy. And I told myself, look, as the

leader of a country, I needed to do something. I needed to bring closure to the families.

AMANPOUR: You said there was an impasse.

And then what did you do?

NAJIB: Well, I decided that I needed to negotiate with the separatists. This is, as I said, unconventional. But sometimes we have to -- we have to

work the back channels. You have to engage in quiet diplomacy in the service of a better outcome.

AMANPOUR: Did your ministers know?

Did you -- was this something you did alone or...?

NAJIB: I'm afraid I had to act alone because it was very, very sensitive. I had to press the buttons. I had to work the back channels. I had to

even conduct the operation itself. I mean, now can you imagine? I was doing it myself. I was literally guiding our team from one checkpoint to

another.

And I was --

AMANPOUR: On the phone?

NAJIB: On the phone, until the whole mission was accomplished.

AMANPOUR: And this you did between yourself and who (sic)?

NAJIB: The leader of the Malaysian team. And I had several conversations with the leader of the separatists.

AMANPOUR: Why did they say yes to you?

NAJIB: I appealed to them. I said look, come on, you know, this is something that you need to do because you know, their families' affected.

They have nothing to do with what you're fighting for. They're not involved in the geopolitical conflict. They're people; they're innocent

people. Look, hand over the bodies to us. Hand over the black boxes to us. I appealed to their conscience.

AMANPOUR: Do you think anybody will admit to what happened?

NAJIB: Frankly, I don't think so. I think getting the bodies back, getting the black boxes, that would seem to be relatively easier than

finding out the truth. But we owe it to the families that we must do it.

AMANPOUR: What do you think is the truth?

NAJIB: I have -- I have a sense what happened. But I cannot say who did it.

AMANPOUR: So you have a sense like most people that it was shot down by a missile?

NAJIB: It was. I think the initial investigation appears to be very clear -- although they didn't use the word "missile;: they said --

AMANPOUR: A high-energy object --

(CROSSTALK)

NAJIB: -- high-energy objects. But looking at the pattern of what happened, it was a huge missile or whatever it was that exploded just

outside the plane and led to the breakup of the plane in midair.

AMANPOUR: (INAUDIBLE) environment, is Asia right when it says hang on a second, it's our turn now. You all did your polluting and your Industrial

Revolution, your economic progress and now it's our turn.

NAJIB: Well, you know, as the saying goes, two wrongs don't make a right.

AMANPOUR: What should Asia do?

What should China do?

What should Malaysia do?

NAJIB: Well, I think we should be -- we should -- we should be committed to specific targets. And this is -- and we should be held accountable to

it. I think every single country in the world, big or small, should be committed to some specific target in terms of carbon reduction, carbon

emission reduction. And we must be specific about it. But the developing world expects some sort of help, because they are poor countries. You

know, they need help. They need to develop.

But at the same time, you're telling them, look, you can't cut down forests; you can't do this, you can't do that. Sure. But they need help

because they have to fight poverty. And if you don't fight poverty, it's a recipe for disaster.

AMANPOUR: Prime Minister Razak, thank you very much indeed for joining us.

NAJIB: Thank you.

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AMANPOUR: And of course a major climate summit was one of the centerpieces of the UNGA this week, and we stay with that issue on the Red Planet as

well as on this one, from Mumbai to Mars -- I'll explain when we come back.

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AMANPOUR: And finally, we've also been reporting on the U.N. Global Climate Summit that was held here this week with over 100 heads of state

attending. But the top leaders of China, Russia and India, numbers 1, 3 and 4 on the list of environmental offenders, were conspicuous by their

absence.

Now imagine a world where one of Earth's worst polluters has ignored the cost to this planet to go exploring another one.

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AMANPOUR (voice-over): There were cheers in Mission Control today led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as India put a satellite into orbit around

Mars, joining the exclusive club of the United States, Russia and Europe. Now this giant leap for the world's largest democracy marks another

milestone.

India is the only nation to do so on its very first try for the bargain basement price of $74 million, which is a fraction of the $600 million the

U.S. spent on its maiden probe, this Mars orbiter mission or MOM will study the surface of the Red Planet and test its atmosphere for indicators of

possible life below.

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AMANPOUR: And while this is a remarkable achievement, life back here on Earth remains an even greater challenge.

And that's it for our program tonight. Just before we go, a reminder that tomorrow, Thursday, I'll speak exclusively with the emir of Qatar. It's

his first major interview since taking office. And of course, he is one of the coalition partners against ISIS.

I will also sit down with Iran's president, Hassan Rouhani, what's at stake for his crucial nuclear negotiations. And in the meantime, you can always

contact us at our website, amanpour.com, and follow me on Facebook and Twitter. Thank you for watching and goodbye from the United Nations in New

York.

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