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Ebola Battle through Nurse's Eyes; America's Team in Liberia; Airstrikes or Ground Operation?; Imagine a World

Aired October 08, 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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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST (voice-over): Tonight: contagion, American boots on the ground to fight Ebola in Liberia. My interview with the U.S.

general in charge and the U.S. ambassador there.

And later in the program, boots on the ground in Syria or Iraq? A top British general tells me how the war against ISIS could be won.

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GEN. DAVID RICHARDS (RET.), BRITISH ARMY: . they'd expect a guy in an airplane to be able to seize and hold terrain, which ultimately this is

what we've got to do.

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

Tonight boots on the ground in Liberia as Ebola spillover kills its first victim in the United States and threatens the life of a woman who

contracted the disease in Spain. The U.S. is deploying its military might in the fight against this disease as Secretary of State John Kerry makes an

urgent plea for other countries to step to what is now a global crisis.

And in a moment, my conversation with the U.S. general in charge and the American ambassador in Monrovia.

But first, a rare look at Ground Zero for the Ebola outbreak, a Liberian nurse agrees to wear a camera inside a high-risk Ebola war and CNN's Nima

Elbagir has the story.

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NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Blood splattered and limp, too weak to hold up his head, a nurse struggles under the weight of a

desperately ill patient. The nurse agreeing to wear a camera to give us a glimpse as the bleak reality he witnesses daily. Here at this government

run treatment center. Today the nurse managed to get this patient to drink water.

It's a small victory.

For the last few months, Dr. Soka Moses and his team have worn their protective suits in unbearable heat, walking the high-risk wards to tend to

the patient in their care.

DR. SOKA MOSES, JFK EBOLA TREATMENT UNIT: Life is rough and then you die. What else can we do if we don't do it? Who will do it for us? So we have

to take the risk and take care of the patients or else our country will be wiped away.

So working in a high-risk zone is highly dangerous. And you have so many patients in agony. Patients are crying in pain. Some patients are dying,

unconscious. Some patients need help. Some patients cannot move any longer. And you see some patients; you cannot do anything for them. They

are dying. All you do is you watch them die; sometimes you pray for them and do the little you do. And just hope that something miraculous happens.

ELBAGIR (voice-over): Dr. Moses got one day's training before going into these wards and says that typical here. In a health care system struggling

to cope you do what you need here to survive.

The nurse forget the camera for a moment and begins to hum a hymn to himself, a comfort amidst the grimness.

An ambulance has arrived, bringing more patients. It begins again.

There is no room, so the stretcher goes on the floor for now next to a mattress where another critical patient lies. Here there are two patients

for every bed.

More patients. It is an unimaginably unrelenting.

But there are the success stories and that's what sustains the staff.

Around the back of the Ebola ward, patients spot the camera and begin to wave. They're recovering, maybe even going home soon. But for the staff,

there is no end in sight.

ELBAGIR: What happens when you go home at the end of the day?

MOSES: I can prepare for another day.

ELBAGIR (voice-over): And another day and another day until their prayers are finally answered -- Nima Elbagir, CNN, Monrovia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Now as bad as it is -- and we've seen that in Nima's piece there -- in Liberia itself, President Obama calls Ebola "a national security

threat to the homeland." And he's deploying up to 4,000 troops to Liberia.

The general in charge, Darryl Williams, who joined me earlier from Monrovia with the American ambassador, Deborah Malac, explained their task.

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AMANPOUR: General Williams, Ambassador Malac, thank you so much for joining me.

And let me start with you, General, first, as commander of this operation, obviously your hospital is not up and running yet and when we spoke to

doctors and particularly Medecins sans Frontieres, the group that's been spearheading the fight, they were delighted that so many U.S. military were

coming but said that if it didn't happen soon, it really needed to happen.

So when do you think you can start grabbing the bull by the horns?

MAJ. GEN. DARRYL WILLIAMS, U.S. ARMY: Yes, well, that's already started. We have great momentum here right now, Christiane. We were asked to

provide by AID, who's the lead federal agency, a part of this fight, along with the ambassador's team and the government of Liberia, to provide our

unique capabilities.

And I will tell you that two mobile labs are already working in Bong County, an island county, and providing the ability for determination

whether someone has the Ebola virus in two or three hours versus two or three days.

So we've already started; we're off to a great start. The hospital that we're going to build, the Monrovia Medical Unit, will be completed Friday

and we're looking forward to some great results out of that.

AMANPOUR: As you know, there's a lot of worry in the United States that these soldiers could bring the disease back to the U.S.

We're told that they will not be in touch with infected people.

So what actually will the military be doing?

WILLIAMS: So the Department of Defense is taking a lot of precautions to ensure that soldiers that deploy here have the knowledge, skills and

ability; they understand their environment. This is a very complex environment.

But as you know, covering what the Department of Defense has done for the last 12-13 years, soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines are used to working

in tough environments. And so everything from the labs that I just spoke about, that we're already providing, these sailors arrived last Sunday and

are already providing great support through the weekend.

I will tell you that we've been asked to provide some training to support some of the health care workers. We've been asked to provide our

logistics.

We have a unique capability. We're bringing our logistic might. And we've been asked to provide our engineering expertise to fill the gaps that a

team that's already been on the ground has been doing very, very well here through the government of Liberia.

AMANPOUR: What about the actual medical personnel?

I understand the U.S. is not sending military doctors. You will not be physically treating those infected with Ebola.

So who will be doing that?

WILLIAMS: Actually, we are providing from the Health and Human Services some doctors which will arrive here very shortly to man the 25-bed Monrovia

Medical Unit. But the Ebola treatment units, which I believe you were referring to earlier, we've been asked to build up to 17 of these Ebola

treatment units.

And what these Ebola treatments are going to be -- are going to do is allow Liberians who are infected with this disease to break the chain, to remove

them from their homes and allow them to heal in these Ebola treatment units.

AMANPOUR: Let me turn to Ambassador Malac for a moment.

Tell me about the challenges that are on the ground.

DEBORAH MALAC, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO LIBERIA: As you know, Christiane, Liberia has spent the last -- in its 11th year post-conflict. And so that

conflict left the country with a very fragile -- in a very fragile state. The infrastructure challenges, which we've done some rebuilding and as

we've discovered, the health care system was not nearly as robust as we anticipated and was very quickly overwhelmed by this outbreak.

In addition, you couple the fact that you have a large -- 50 percent illiteracy rate. You have challenges across the board in getting messaging

out to people about what they need to do to stop this, to stop the transmission of this -- of this disease.

It's been a real challenge to do that. But I have to say we've been very pleased over the last six weeks, certainly, to see great momentum building

since our DART team arrived here on the ground in early August and through the weeks of September, we have continued to build momentum, working with

our partners and very much behind the government of Liberia's own strategic plan.

Now that our DOD colleagues are here to join us, they add additional energy and heft to the effort.

AMANPOUR: Do you think that you can control this outbreak in Liberia, which has been the hardest hit, where already more than 2,000 people have

died and there are so many infected?

MALAC: Absolutely. We are determined and committed to get on top of this virus and we are -- we have the pieces in place that will build that

momentum and to enable us to do so.

We have no alternative. Every one of these outbreaks in the past has been -- has been defeated. This one will be as well, although it is certainly

taking more resources and more time than any of us would like.

AMANPOUR: General, let me ask you what you think of this criticism, coming from Congress and other quarters, did American militaries train to fight

wars, not to go treating people and fighting diseases?

WILLIAMS: Well, I think our nation's military is used to operating in complex, ambiguous environments. And we'll do everything in our power to

protect the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines and Coast Guard and the civilians here to ensure that we're able to do our mission and accomplish

our mission.

AMANPOUR: The Liberian ambassador to the U.K. told me that what they desperately need is coordination, because there are so many agencies

involved now, multiple U.N. layers, you know, the -- obviously the United States military, which they're really thankful for, different countries.

Do you think this will be well coordinated?

MALAC: I would say that we are already in a very well coordinated effort here. I have seen a level of interagency and intergovernmental

coordination and cooperation that I have not seen in many other -- in many other places.

We -- yes, indeed, it is quite complex. We have lots of different pieces. But everyone seems to understand what their appropriate role is. It will

never be completely smooth. We will always have to calibrate over and over again.

AMANPOUR: This is obviously Liberia that you're dealing with. It is the worst hit. But Sierra Leone and Guinea are also suffering, particularly

Sierra Leone.

Is there any idea of expanding the U.S. military presence to help contain in those countries as well?

WILLIAMS: Well, Christiane, my joint operational area includes those countries you mentioned all the way up to Senegal. So our planning

efforts, our ability to bring resupply into Liberia, the center of gravity, if you will, is here in Monrovia for the military right now.

But we had the ability to include the other countries that are in my current joint operational area, where we will provide forces and resources

into Monrovia.

And I must also add, Christiane, we have partnered very well with the armed forces of Liberia. General Ziankhan, in the three weeks that I've been

here, has become a quick friend of mine.

As you know, we helped in the development of their great army and we are living with their soldiers in the same area, the 101st, which will come in,

will have its headquarters there. Major General Jerry Volesky is a very good friend of mine. And he will be with the minister of defense and

General Ziankhan.

So we look forward to partnering and building on this relationship, which will only strengthen our resolve to fight this disease.

AMANPOUR: And Ambassador, what frightens you the most about this mission?

MALAC: I would say I'm not particularly afraid at this point because we see assistance coming in. My darkest days were back in July and August,

when we were wondering whether anyone, whether we, ourselves, would be able to pull together all the pieces that we needed in order to help get on top

of this.

But as things have started to flow in, we're quite confident that we're moving in the right direction. And so we're only -- we're only moving

forward. We're not going to look back.

AMANPOUR: General Williams, Ambassador Malac, thank you both very much for joining me from Monrovia.

MALAC: Thank you for having us.

WILLIAMS: Thank you, Christiane.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: So waging a war against disease over there, of course a very different kind of war continues to rage on the border of Syria and Turkey.

U.S.-led airstrikes may not save the key city of Kobani, though, now a mounting consensus says that, yes, there must be boots on the ground.

The former head of British armed forces, Lord David Richards, lays out a winning strategy -- next.

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program. And there's been another day of fierce fighting for the key Kurdish town of Kobani on the Syria-Turkey

border. ISIS hasn't been able to take it yet; Kurdish forces are desperately trying to hold on.

But Washington admits that its airstrikes won't be enough to save the town from falling. As the British government said today, it won't rule out now

Turkey's demand for a buffer zone along its border. The former chief of the British armed forces says there will have to be boots on the ground for

the battle against ISIS to succeed.

General David Richards, who's just published a memoir of his time in uniform, joined me here to lay that out in the studio.

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AMANPOUR: General Richards, welcome to the program.

You have your new book out -- fascinating reading, particularly at a time like this.

What is your judgment on what should be done about Kobani?

The Americans have said it's likely to fall, but it's not our strategic problem right now.

Well, I think in one sense that they're quite right. And anyway, it's probably too late. I'm not certain what's going on actually on the ground.

But tactically it looks to me like we're a bit behind the power curve. And therefore, in a strategic sense, it's not vital. I feel very sorry for the

citizens of Kobani; that's a different issue.

But how are we now going to address the overall problem, I think, is becoming the key issue.

AMANPOUR: You say it's not vital. But if we look at a map here, they say that if Kobani goes, it means that ISIS not only expands its so-called

caliphate, but has control of some very strategic roadway and highway that leads into Turkey as well.

What do you think is the psychological impact, much less the land grab impact, of them getting yet another important town?

RICHARDS: Well, I think the psychology of war is central to its success or failure or one's success or failure so it's not a good thing.

But I think the Americans that are saying that it's not a strategic issue right now are right. You can take Kobani back in due course.

AMANPOUR: But the next question is can an air campaign alone dislodge ISIS and defeat ISIS?

RICHARDS: It cannot possibly do that. The rules of war are well written on this and well established. I've been saying it; others have said it.

My good friend, General Marty Dempsey, as good as said it the other day. Wars aren't ever going to be won from the air alone. They're a vital part

of success but don't expect a guy in an airplane to be able to seize and hold terrain, which ultimately this is what we've got to do.

AMANPOUR: Or even have forces on the ground to figure out what targets to hit.

So if the Americans are saying none of our boots go on the ground, if the British are saying the same, if the Arabs in the coalition are saying the

same, who are the boots on the ground and can they manage it?

RICHARDS: Well, I think this is the big question. And of course it's related to how long do we have. What worries me is you can raise an

adequate army that then, at some point when it's ready, deploys into the attack.

But to get all that to work is a very complex business, as you know well. And I think it'll take a long time. It can be accelerated if you mingle

that force with experience, Western and other armies. And I think that's where I would settle down.

AMANPOUR: Are you saying you should have Western boots on the ground?

RICHARDS: I think without doubt you've got to have a sort of bolstering role being played by Western troops. I'm not saying they have to be in the

front line. But they have to be deeply involved in the logistics, which is what often discriminates proper armies from amateur armies.

I mean, to sustain battle is a big issue. You've got to get command and control sorted out. I think you've got to make sure that your aerial

campaign is accurately delivered. And that probably means some special forces up front.

AMANPOUR: I was just speaking to the prime minister of Turkey. We had an interview earlier this week. And he says we are ready to join the

coalition of the willing but we want no-fly zone. We want safe haven because otherwise if we don't have a buffer zone, no matter what we do,

people will keep flooding into Turkey and we just can't cope anymore.

Then he says as a price for going into as ground forces -- because presumably the Turks are the only ones who could right now -- we want to go

against Assad, because if we don't, this will just continue and it won't ever -- ISIS will never be defeated.

RICHARDS: Well, I think I can look at it from a military perspective. Based on what you've just described are political conditions, I would

question whether you should signal your intent quite so clearly.

What's happened to good old-fashioned guile, if that is what he wants to do?

My own view right now is he would -- the Turks would be complicating the military problem considerably if they chose to combine this offensive,

which is what we're talking about, which would prevent places like Kobani from falling, with an attack on President Assad's forces.

My own instinct -- and I accept that I'm -- you know, I'm not -- may not be politically correct on this -- is that, right now, you at least want him

not to cause you a problem. And I would myself, if I was still in my old job, recommending things to the prime minister, I would say let this play

that long.

AMANPOUR: So play that long.

But then when you were in your old job and you did recommendation to the prime minister in 2011-12, I think, you came up with a very robust, in your

own words, a coherent strategy to actually topple Assad.

Can you tell me what that was?

RICHARDS: Well, first of all, things have moved on a long way from then. And so I have been saying you could actually use that as the basis for an

attack on ISIS, which was to raise an army, if you like, from --

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: Of 100,000 --

RICHARDS: -- 100,000; it would take a year. But you could get into the political conditions sect, too, which is vital, by the way. This won't

work if we don't take the Sunni tribes with us.

AMANPOUR: I do ask you this because, as you know, for a long time, the President of the United States -- nobody did this and, in fact, was told it

was fantasy to assume that raising a rebel army or et cetera could actually make a difference.

But you're saying that it could and it was raising a rebel army plus?

Plus what else?

RICHARDS: Well, it was --

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: Airstrikes?

RICHARDS: -- I mean, getting into the weeds of it a bit, it would have foreseen after a huge communications exercise, in which we'd have got

people like CNN to progressively film this army as it grew in stature, you know, vision of them charging across the desert and getting better and

better, at a point of committal with Western air and maritime forces, I think they would have been more than up to the job.

And in the meanwhile, you played on the mind of Assad's forces. They would know they were going to be defeated and you almost had time to grow the

political framework. So it was a coherent military strategy. But it's -- things have moved on.

AMANPOUR: And yet you're saying that strategy should be the backbone for fighting ISIS?

RICHARDS: I think --

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: Raise and take as much as time as you need to raise a proper army on the ground?

RICHARDS: Well, my one caveat is have you got the time?

We did have back in 2012. I mean, ISIS will grow in allure to many disaffected Muslim extremists.

How many more atrocities? That's where I probably, if I had a perfect magic wand to wave over it, I would mix Western forces, boots on the

ground, much more so than I felt was needed back in 2012.

AMANPOUR: Let me take a chapter out of your book, one of your great achievements in 2000 was actually stopping the civil war in Sierra Leone

and preventing the RUF, was it?

Yes, from taking over, the terrible thuggish, horribly barbaric rebels there.

Now as you know, the U.S. military -- the British are in Sierra Leone; the U.S. is in Liberia.

What do you think the military can do to stop a disease, to stop a contagion, much less a war?

RICHARDS: Well, they could do quite a lot. The problem is I don't think it's going to be sufficient. I mean, this is -- this has actually been a

disgraceful episode in many ways, that the world community wasn't alerted back in March, April.

I was there in May. I came back. Now we've got to pour in support if, for no other reason, than a basic humanitarian one. You know, these countries

are fragile. They do have Muslim populations. You only need a few -- we're back to sort of Northern Nigeria potentially, so there's a security

implication.

I just think that what is going in to both Liberia and Sierra Leone probably isn't yet enough. It's a little bit too late and not enough. And

we've got to learn some lessons from this, surely.

AMANPOUR: General Richards, thank you very much indeed for joining me.

RICHARDS: Well, thank you very much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Now back to the Syria war, it sent nearly 2 million refugees fleeing to Turkey, millions more are in Jordan and Lebanon and displaced

inside Syria itself.

Of course it's often the children who touch the heart and stir the conscience most. But imagine another face to this human tidal wave, 100

years in the making, the oldest refugees, when we return.

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AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, this is the all-too-familiar face of Syria's displaced population, over 1 million children forced into refugee

camps after 3.5 years of bloody civil war. Now imagine a world of refugees, worn and weathered by a century of struggle, forced to live out

their final years in a limbo, where there is no country for old men or old women.

Thanks to the United Nations Refugee Ability and photographer Andrew McConnell, among Syria's oldest refugees there are 12 centenarians, exiled

to makeshift shelters in Northern Lebanon, they remind us that deprivation cannot take away their dignity. They've lived through two world wars and a

myriad of endless regional conflicts.

Some are deaf, some blind, some have lost wives, husbands and children. And yet all share one fervent wish: to go home, to be buried in their own

scarred and still beloved native land.

You can see all those images online at amanpour.com. And that's it for our program tonight. Thank you for watching. Follow me on Facebook and

Twitter. And goodbye from London.

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