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Hillary Clinton Supports Military Strike; Syria Welcomes Chemical Weapons Plan; Obama Interview During Situation Room Tonight; Full Congress Back; White House Briefing

Aired September 09, 2013 - 13:00   ET

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

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Happening right now, breaking news we're following. Syria embracing a proposal to put its chemical weapons under international control. This comes as President Obama faces one of the most crucial tests of his entire presidency, trying to make the case for military action against Syria. Is it a serious attempt, right now unfolding by Syria, to avoid a U.S. attack?

Also happening now, the former secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, she's visiting the White House and she's supporting the president's plan on Syria. She's breaking her silence. She strongly backs his decision to ask Congress to authorize military action. We expect to hear from the former secretary of state. That's coming up in a little while.

Also right now, the Obama administration under pressure to make the case for military action. A new poll shows it's a very tough sell. Syria is likely to dominate the White House briefing that is about to get under way. While the White House press secretary prepares to face reporters, I'm preparing for my interview later today with President Obama.

I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. Is it a potential game changer or is Syria just playing games? We're talking about a proposal from Russia to put Syria's chemical weapons under international control to avert military action. Now, Syria's foreign minister says Syria welcome the proposal.

Our Senior International Correspondent Nick Paton Walsh is joining us from the United Nations. And, Nick, the Secretary of State, John Kerry, actually mentioned this as a hypothetical proposal earlier in the day. The State Department quickly backtracking though. Is this now considered a serious proposal to avert a new round of U.S. military attacks in Syria?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, I mean, we're really almost into the diplomatic long grass here. Remarkable what's taking shape in the past few hours. As you say, what started as seemingly a slip of the tongue by Secretary of State John Kerry has now it seems snowballed into something which U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon welcomed as a potential avenue out of this crisis, of course, seized upon by the Russians and Syrian government, too. But to bear in mind, cynically, perhaps, this process could take a number of weeks if it got underway in which, of course, international opinion may begin to side along with those who say the U.N. should be allowed to do its work to assess what stock piles are even there.

Let me just read out to you what ban Ki-Moon said in a press conference earlier on. I'm considering urging the Security Council to command the immediate transfer of Syria's chemical weapons and chemical precursor stocks to places inside Syria where they can be safely stored and destroyed.

Now, that, of course, raises a whole load of practical issues. Who would be sure enough that these chemicals were actually moved? Do they represent the entirety of something being transferred to other organizations in different countries? Morass here. But the key point, Wolf, is as you well know, we're entering 48 hours in which the Obama administration was very keen to get its message across. The interview you did with Barack Obama, his address the subsequent day to the nation on this particular topic. And now, we have this bizarre side distraction which has emerged out of nowhere which potentially is gathering some sort of diplomatic steam -- Wolf.

BLITZER: It certainly is getting some sort of diplomatic steam. We'll see what the reaction will be from the Obama administration. As you know, we're expecting to hear from the White House press secretary, Jay Carney, momentarily. He'll be asked about this Russian proposal by Ban Ki-Moon's proposal. Stand by, I want to get back to you. Nick Paten Walsh at the United Nations.

Let's bring in our Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour, also Fareed Zakaria, the host of "FREED ZAKARIA AT GPS." They are joining us right now. Christiane, what do you make of this latest development potentially designed to avert a U.S. military strike?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, to be fair, it hasn't actually come out of nowhere. This has been floated certainly in England, in Great Britain, in certain quarters for over a week now. The idea that real deterrents in the face of having used chemical weapons, in the face of potential response would actually be to bring these weapons out and either have them destroyed or put them under international control. And I asked that specific question to the Syrian ambassador to the United Nations on your program last week. And he said that is something we might be able to consider.

So, yes, it is getting a much more prominent play now. Even the British prime minister has issued some comments, some statements that they would welcome such a move. And it comes at a time, Wolf, when obviously, you can see the political writing on the wall right now. That is very difficult right now as it stands today for President Obama to win a vote in Congress, all his people say that, and that the public opinion, not only in the United States but in Great Britain, in France and in many, many parts of the world is against any military intervention. France, which is about the only of the major western allies which would take part with the United States in a military strike is now even saying, according to the president there, that they may try to seek U.N. resolution. So, this is coming in that context right now -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes, it's very intriguing right now, Fareed, because if the president of the United States is looking for assurances that Syria will not use chemical weapons once again, this may be a way out if, in fact, the Russian proposal is serious, if the Syrians are intent on making sure all of their stockpiles of chemical weapons are put under control.

If the U.N. Security Council as Ban Ki-Moon wants were to pass a Russian resolution with Russian support, Chinese support trying to destroy Syria's chemical weapons' stockpiles, that would certainly offer the president of the United States a way out of this current crisis. He could come out and say, look, there are not going to be any more chemical weapons attacks if all of this is serious.

FAREED ZAKARIA, HOST, "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS": He could, Wolf. It is a blow for the administration's strategy though because they really wanted to use this attack as a way of sending a signal, a very strong signal about the use of chemical weapons. They point out, Secretary Kerry says, that Assad has used these weapons perhaps in the teens, that is several times.

It is also clear that this was a -- an occasion the administration was going to use to shift the balance of power away from Assad and toward the rebels. So, it will -- they lose that option and they lose that ability to degrade Assad's air power, in particular six airfields they were planning to strike.

The whole thing, however, does demonstrate, Wolf, something very striking. That is if you take this Syrian acceptance of this Russian proposal and you add to it Assad's interview that we have seen clips of, what you're struck -- what I'm struck by is quite different from Saddam Hussein or many Arab leaders. Assad is not engaging in a lot of bravado or kind of crazy talk if you think of Gadhafi's interview on the eve of that campaign. Assad has been very cool, very calculating, very clever in what arguments he uses.

In the interview, he talked about how there wasn't public support for this. He reminded people of the Colin Powell speech at the U.N. He talked about the fact that the rebels are linked to al Qaeda. This was not a kind of bizarre rantings about American imperialism and Israel. It was clearly designed to weaken the American public's support. And so, you add to it this acceptance of a -- of a proposal, and it all strikes me as suggesting that the Syrians are playing a very clever game of counter offensive.

BLITZER: The Obama administration could certainly say that that threat of U.S. military power or U.S. air strikes tomahawk cruise missiles convinced the Russians and the Syrians to go ahead if, in fact, this proposal is serious to control, even destroy, those chemical weapons stockpiles.

We're awaiting reaction from the White House. The press secretary, Jay Carney, getting ready to brief reporters. I suspect this will be the first question on the agenda. We'll have that.

I want to play a little clip of what Bashar Al Assad told Charlie Rose in that interview in Damascus. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BASHAR AL ASSAD, PRESIDENT, SYRIA: In the area where they said the government used chemical weapons, we only had video and we only have pictures and allegations. We're not there. Our forces or police, our institutions don't exist. How can you talk about what happened if you don't have evidences?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Christiane, you've interviewed Bashar Al Assad. I watched the interview earlier today with Charlie Rose. And Bashar Al Assad, say what you will about him. He seemed to know what he -- the talking points he wanted to deliver to the American public. This was an American television network. He was trying to score some points when he spoke of transparency. Go ahead, you got the evidence. Release the evidence. Don't keep it classified. He seemed to be pretty sophisticated at least from that P.R. perspective -- Christiane.

AMANPOUR: Well, I think, yes, from a P.R. perspective, but, you know, he's been saying the same thing for the last two and a half years that we haven't done anything. It's not me. I haven't given any orders. Whether it's chemical weapons or whatever it might be. That this is just a fight for -- by my forces against terrorism. That has been his mantra for the last two and a half years. So, I'm truly not surprised at all by what he says in any kind of interview at this particular time because it is something that is designed purely for the current situation.

And it's so interesting that the Syrian officials, who are usually so tight-lipped and it's so difficult to sit down with any one of them, have suddenly started to blanket the airwaves. I think we all know why that's happening right now.

But I do think, obviously, and clearly the president is facing this headwind, that there is a lot of skepticism about the detailed evidence that, yes, they have shown those videos many of which were taken from YouTube, in other words, open source publicly available videos. All the other things, for instance the intercepts of conversations, those transcripts, other such things have not been made public. Perhaps certain officials have received those, but the public hasn't. And because of this whole idea of Iraq and the big fiasco over that, that is undermining the U.S., the western case in terms of the evidence.

And furthermore, some for instance the German intelligence is now saying, according to local German reports, that they don't believe that Assad himself ordered the latest chemical attack, but they do believe that there would be nobody else with that kind of capability. And perhaps his commanders did it without his knowing about it. Although then you get into the position of command responsibility. There have been more than a dozen, according to intelligence reports, chemical attacks over the last at least since 2012, and he knows about them. They've been publicized and that also is culpable under the whole chain of command international law regarding these things such as genocide and the use of chemical and other such weapons of mass destruction.

BLITZER: Fareed, later this afternoon, I'm going to be going over to the White House to sit down with President Obama for an interview that will air later today in "THE SITUATION ROOM." But you've been skeptical of a lot of this current crisis, what the U.S. needs to do. What would you want to hear from the president that would reassure you, Fareed, someone who studied international affairs for a long time, what do you need to hear from the president right now that would convince you it's the right thing to go ahead and launch these air strikes against targets in Syria?

ZAKARIA: I think the most important thing with any strategy, Wolf, is what is your objective? What are we trying to do here? And once you figure that out, you can then use whatever tools you have but you also then know when you've achieved that objective. You can understand how you can declare victory whether you haven't achieved it. And I think the problem with the administration's strategy is it's not entirely clear what the objective is. John Kerry calls this a Munich moment, invoking the path to World War II and Adolf Hitler's attempt to conquer the world. But if it's a Munich moment, are we really going to do two days of air strikes that the president describes as a shot across the bow which is really a warning?

So, you know, if he is going to pursue a very limited almost symbolic strike, it needs to be clear that is what the strategy is, what the objective is, when we will know that we have achieved it, and when we can then say, this is done or is there a much broader strategy with much broader objectives at work? I think that this is partly why there isn't as much public support because people wonder which of these two strategies is being pursued?

BLITZER: And if you listened to the secretary of state earlier in the day, he said this limited U.S. strike, in his words, would be unbelievably small. Unbelievably small, a direct quote --

ZAKARIA: Yes.

BLITZER: -- from the secretary of state John Kerry. So, lots of good questions I have for the president of the United States. That interview, by the way, will air during our 6:00 p.m. -- right at the top of the 6:00 p.m. Eastern hour hear in the United States and around the world in "THE SITUATION ROOM."

Don't go too far away, guys. We have a lot more to discuss. The breaking news we're following. A Russian proposal that the Syrians now say they're open to that Ban Ki-Moon, the U.N. Secretary-General, says he's clearly open to.

We're standing by for reaction from the White House. What will the White House press secretary say? The White House Press Secretary, Jay Carney, he's going to be going to the microphone shortly. We'll have live coverage coming up right here in the CNN NEWSROOM. That's coming up. Stay with us. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: There's the breaking news we're following right now. Russia has formally proposed that Syria allow all of its chemical weapons stockpiles to be under international control. Syria says it is open to that proposal. The United Nations secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, says he wants a U.N. Security Council resolution to consider not only that, but going one step further and actually destroying all of Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles. And they have a lot of chemical weapons.

We have not yet received formal reaction from the White House, but we're standing by. On the left, you see the White House Briefing Room where White House Press Secretary Jay Carney will go before reporters. They're not -- some of them have walked in. Some of them will be walking in shortly. Once Jay Carney comes there, we'll have live coverage.

We're also waiting to hear from the former secretary of the state - the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She has been relatively silent, only speaking through a spokesperson just a little while ago earlier last week. But now she's going to break that silence and tell us what she thinks about this crisis in Syria. Stand by. We have live coverage of all of this coming up.

Meanwhile, polls released this hour show just how concerned Americans are about the risks of any U.S. military action in Syria. And most say the risks just aren't worth it. In the new CNN/ORC poll, 72 percent say a strike against Syria would lead to a larger war that could spread throughout the Middle East and into other parts of the world. Sixty-seven percent say an attack would likely result in Syria using chemical weapons again in the future. Thirty-one percent say that's not likely.

Americans are also worried that a strike would lead to what are called boots on the ground. Two-thirds say it's likely the U.S. eventually would have no choice but to send ground troops into Syria. People are also concerned about terrorism. Six in 10 think an attack could lead to terrorists using chemical weapons against U.S. targets, including inside the United States.

Clearly, President Obama is going to need all of his powers of persuasion to change Americans' minds about Syria. Can support from Hillary Clinton help the president? The former secretary breaking her silence on how the U.S. should respond to the Syrian regime's suspected use of chemical weapons. She's visiting is the White House today on an unrelated matter, but she's also weighing in on the Syria debate.

Let's bring in our senior White House correspondent, Brianna Keilar.

Brianna, how significant is this show of support from Hillary Clinton?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I think, Wolf, it's significant in that it's telling. It's telling that President Obama has a problem and it lies, obviously, not just with the Republicans, but within his own party. And that's part of the reason why I think Hillary Clinton is going to be weighing in next hour. She's here to talk about a wildlife trafficking - at a wildlife trafficking event. So, obviously, this is very much unrelated. But we understand that she will be briefly talking about Syria, as she will, we expect, briefly talk about it tomorrow when she gives a previously scheduled address in Philadelphia.

I do want to tell you, we've gotten a little reaction from a senior administration official just on this latest that we're hearing about Russia saying that Syria is open to giving up its chemical weapons to international control. I've been told, Wolf, by a senior administration official that John Kerry was serious about the concept of it, though not the timeline. You know he talked about seven days in his comments. But I also think that, on the flipside, we've heart from our Jim Sciutto, who was talking to a U.S. official, who said that this was a major goof and that Kerry went off script. So I think what you're seeing, and we know that aides have been huddling, trying to figure out how to respond to the latest news, I think you're seeing sort of the scramble that's going on here at the White House to really adjust to this latest information that's been put out there by Secretary Kerry.

BLITZER: What would be the downside, if any downside, from the administration's perspective, in seeing and checking out to see if this Russian proposal does have merits and that Syria will basically be forced to eliminate its chemical weapons stockpiles, especially given the tough struggle the president's having in getting a resolution passed in the Senate and the House authorizing the use of military force?

KEILAR: I think if you said to administration officials and the president, hey, what if Syria were to get rid of their chemical weapons, were to give them up, they would say that's great. But I don't think that when they're dealing - when the administration is dealing with Russia or they're dealing with Syria, they take what Russia and Syria say with a grain of salt. Observers of Syria, Wolf, don't expect that Assad would ever give up his chemical weapons. They see it - they find it sort of disingenuous that Russia and Syria would propose this. And the administration, for a long time now, has felt that Russia's role in all of this is really just to slow things down, to gum up the works, to buy time. And so they're very skeptical that that's what's happening again here.

BLITZER: As you know, I'm coming over to the White House in a little while. I'm going to be sitting down with the president for an interview.

KEILAR: Right.

BLITZER: He's giving a lot of interviews today. All -- he's giving interviews to six news organizations, television news organizations. And tomorrow night, 9:00 p.m. Eastern, he'll address the nation from the White House. Are we expecting some new arguments from the president now or is it going to be a little bit more detail of what he's been saying over the past couple of weeks? KEILAR: I think initially we expected, Wolf, that he was maybe not going to say anything very new, that more than anything he was relying on trying to get a bigger audience to make his case. But I do wonder, and we don't know this, I wonder if the White House is recalibrating here, trying to make maybe a different argument or a honed argue because what we've seen in recent days, you know, last week, on Monday and Tuesday, there was a tremendous sense of momentum here. And here, when you saw John McCain, Lindsay Graham, you saw House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and House Speaker John Boehner signing on to the president's idea of military intervention.

Well, it's a very different mood here now and I think there is a sense that President Obama needs to do something to convince the American people. So it's very much up in the air exactly what we're going -- whether there are going to be changes, Wolf. But I suspect maybe that's something that you'll get a sense of when you're here later today.

BLITZER: Yes. I'll see you over at the White House. Brianna, thanks very much.

That interview, by the way, will air 6:00 p.m. Eastern in "The Situation Room" here on CNN.

Let's go to Capitol Hill right now. We saw a lot of action there last week with hearings on Syria. But now all 535 members of Congress, the House and the Senate, they are due back in chambers today. They're ready it debate and eventually vote on military action in Syria.

We're keeping a close count on which way they are leaning. Here's the Senate, for example. Pretty evenly split, as far as we can tell, 25 yea, 23 nay. A lot of undecided. In - it's a landslide, though, in the House, against. One hundred forty-eight as of now against. Only 25 members say they will vote with the president on this issue. Still plenty of undecided at the same time.

Let's bring in our chief congressional correspondent, Dana Bash.

Dana, what kind of push is the White House making towards Congress this week beyond the interviews he's doing today, his address to the nation tomorrow night?

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A lot more of what we saw last week. Classified briefings here on The Hill. We're going to see a big one with House members tonight or at 5:00 Eastern. They are bringing people to the White House at various times in various groups. The Congressional Black Caucus, which is a very important group of people for the president generally, very support of his policies. In this case, so many of them are undecided. Many of them are just noes based on what they're hearing mostly from their people back home, their constituents. And then we're going to see lots of other discussions behind the scenes.

But one of the things that is so fascinating, you just showed CNN's count, we've been very consecutive and so we have a lot of sort of that gray area that's show undecided. Fair to say that just anecdotally, a lot of those members, particularly in the House, are, at this point, leaning no. And in the Senate, which is where this is going to be taken up first, it's really unclear. It's very much up in the air where things stand. They simply do not know if they have the votes now. And we have been hearing throughout the day more people, if they're coming out, coming out and saying no.

And I just have to tell you the reason has been fascinating. Wolf, you and I talked about this many times last week and it is still true. It is - it is not because these members don't believe that Bashar al- Assad was behind these chemical attacks, and they don't -- it's not because they don't believe that it is morally important for the U.S. to stand up. It is, as Senator Lamar Alexander, the latest Republican to come out and say no, said in his statement, it's because he is concerned about the uncertainty, what happens after the military attack. He says, I know what plan a is, step a is, but what about b, c, and d? And that really is the key thing that lawmakers across the board, across the Capitol, across party lines, say that they're not hearing from the administration. And that's what they feel so uncomfortable about, Wolf.

BLITZER: The press secretary for the White House, Dana, Jay Carney is about to walk to the microphone there, start taking reporters' questions. High on the agenda right now, obviously, the breaking news we're following, this Russian proposal that would allow the Syrians to consolidate their weapons, their chemical stockpiles, their chemical weapons stockpiles for international control and inspection. Perhaps even as Ban Ki-moon, the U.N. secretary-general is proposing, going to the Security Council and destroying all those weapons. If that were to happen, I assume that would be warmly welcomed by members of Congress because it would, in effect, eliminate, if it were to be achieved, and that's a huge if, obviously, but if it were to be achieved, it would eliminate the need for U.S. military strikes and it would basically end this immediate crisis for the U.S. But are you getting any reaction up on Capitol Hill, Dana, to this Russian proposal?

BASH: Oh it absolutely would cause a big sigh of relief to be briefed here on Capitol Hill among Democrats and Republicans who are certainly undecided. One thing that we should note is that there has been something along these lines that has already been proposed by two Senate Democrats, consecutive Democrats, who have said that they're going to vote no on military authorization, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota. They have something out there already saying, let's delay this for 45 days and try to get Bashar al-Assad to turn over his chemical weapons and, during that time, for the administration to develop more of an international consensus on what to do. It's not exactly what's being talked about, but it's this same kind of vein. And they were already told that they will get a vote on this if this happens this week.

So we already saw some kind of, for lack of a better way to say it, face-saving measures being proposed by some of the president's fellow Democrats here on Capitol Hill. And, Wolf, I'm told that there are other things being discussed behind the scenes if they feel that they simply will not have what is expected to be 60 votes needed to pass authorization regardless of what happens in Russia.

BLITZER: All right, Dana, here's Jay Carney, the White House press secretary.

JAY CARNEY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for being here. We wanted to wait for Ambassador Rice to finish her remarks before starting this briefing.

Today, I have with me, at the top of this briefing, the president's deputy national security advisor, Tony Blinken, whom many of you know. Tony is here today because while many of us were traveling last week with the president, Tony and other senior administration officials were engaged in the effort to provide detailed information to members of Congress about the chemical weapons attack in Syria on August 21st. He was a part of a group that provided classified briefings to I believe 185 members of the House and Senate and is engaged in the overall outreach effort that so much of the administration is participating in now. So what I'd like to do is ask Tony to provide to you at the top here a summation of the presentation that he's making, together with other officials, and then he can stay and take a few questions and then I've got to let him go, continue that effort, and I'll take your questions on Syria and other matters after that. With that, here's Tony Blinken.

TONY BLINKEN, DEPUTY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR: Jay, thanks very much.

Good afternoon.

You know, since the events of August 21st and this use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime against its own people, we reached out almost immediately to members of Congress who, at that point, were spread across the country. And we sought their views on what we should do. And we heard different views, as you continue to hear today. But one of the things we hear with near unanimity was a desire by Congress to have its voice heard and its vote counted in this matter. And, of course, the president believes that we're much stronger and more effective if we can act together, especially on matters of national security.

So the president went out and made the announcement about his intent to take action, but also to seek Congress' authorization to do so. Since then, we've been engaged in a very deliberate and detailed process of trying to provide Congress all of the information we have so that they can make the best informed decision possible. And as Jay said, we conducted over the past week or 10 days a series of briefings, many of them classified, some of them unclassified, many conversations as well on an individual basis of members. The classified briefings that I took part in, along with senior officials from the intelligence community, the Defense Department, the State Department and the Joint Chiefs, I believe had about 185 members, Republicans and Democrats, both houses, take part. And we've had individual conversations coming out of those briefings, as well.