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Chemical Plant Seized; Iraq Citizens; Bergdahl's Daily Life; World Cup Humidity

Aired June 20, 2014 - 14:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Wolf, thank you so much.

Here we go on this Friday. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

We begin with this new development just into us here at CNN. Russia's Vladimir Putin has called Iraq's prime minister, Nuri al Maliki, pledging his support for the Iraqi government. This development as the first contingent of as many as 300 U.S. military advisers heads to Iraq. They could land as early as tomorrow.

Really the big headline today here on this story, chemical weapons. Extremist fighters have taken a former chemical weapons production plant that still contains a stockpile of old weapons. In fact, you are looking at pictures. We went into the CNN vault today. This is back from -- a CNN crew shot this and went there back in 2002.

Also, the State Department quick to shoot down the threat of these chemical weapons, saying it would be, quote, "very difficult if not impossible" to safely move the materials. But we did a little digging today. So according to this 2007 CIA report, this facility is anything but safe. Let me just read part of this report for you. Quote, "the most dangerous chemical munitions have been declared to the U.N. and are sealed in bunkers. Although declared, the bunkers' contents have yet to be confirmed. These areas of the compound pose a hazard to civilians and potential black marketers."

Among the chemical agents once produced in this sprawling complex, you have mustard gas, sarin and VX. This is a nerve agent. So, bigger picture, Arwa Damon, let me bring you in, our senior international correspondent, and Lieutenant General Mark Hertling rejoining us again this week, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq from 2007 to 2009.

So, welcome to both of you.

And, Arwa, let me just begin with, you know, you have been to this -- this plant. What was it like? And could these terrorists, could this ISIS group weaponize the chemicals?

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, to start with your second question first, it's highly unlikely that whatever chemical materials have been left behind could in their current form be manufactured into some sort of chemical weapon. That's not to say, though, that it's entirely impossible. Frankly, I'm not an expert. But from what we know about the materials that are stored there, this was a site that was visited by the United Nations weapons inspectors back in 2002. Our own Nic Robertson going along with them. And even back then they were deemed not to be of chemical weapons manufacturing grade in the sense that they were not actually immediately capable of turning these into any sort of weapon that would potentially be delivering that deadly load and that they do pose more of a danger to those who might try to move them at this stage.

That being said, the complex itself, massive, sprawling. Went there a few years ago. Turned into an Iraqi air base. Meant to be the headquarters for the Iraqi air forces. The fact that ISIS has taken it over, I think, is just another indication of how little control the Iraq security forces have in parts of the country. But also the potential dangers, the very real dangers that lie out there by having these materials in the hands of that kind of an organization.

BALDWIN: OK. So, Arwa, stand by. I've got another question for you.

But, general, just on this same notion that they have this -- this compound, this chemical weapons compound. State Department doesn't seem too concerned. You said you heard Arwa say highly unlikely they could weaponize them. Are you concerned at all?

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING, COMMANDER, U.S. FORCES IN IRAQ 2007-2009: I'm not, Brooke. I've been to Muthanna as well. In fact, we had military forces stationed near there out of the first armored division in 2007. It has been a cleared compound. There are some remnants of items there but not anything that's dangerous. I think Arwa put it quite frankly, that this is not something to be of a major concern. It's dangerous because some of those areas are sealed. But I actually think part of the reason for these terrorists going there is because of some of the facilities are there that they might be using and the potential for using that as a staging area for perhaps attacks into western -- excuse me, eastern Baghdad.

BALDWIN: So less about the actual chemical weapons and more about just the sheer physicality, the compound itself.

General, let me stay with you because I'm about to talk to Michael Holmes in a minute and I know he was imbedded with you some years ago. And he was bringing up this great point, which is, we have this, you know, 300 or so military advisers, U.S. military advisers headed to Iraq, but what is it that they will share with, teach, work in tandem with these Iraqis that the Americans didn't do for a decade?

HERTLING: Well, you're likely going to see these troopers, very confident special forces, special operating forces, not only helping the Iraqi forces in their maneuver, perhaps in their synchronizations of various aspects of combat power, even things like close air -- helping them with close air support, artillery firing, maneuvering against the enemy. But we had the similar forces there in 2007, 2008 and for most of the conflict there.

These are great soldiers. They will not only help the Iraqis, but truthfully they will also provide some significant intelligence forces - or intelligence to the United States, too. They have extremely good communication packages, both satellite intel packages and conventional packages, which can link into all of U.S. intelligence assets. So I think they're feeding information to the United States on the status of the enemy and also the status of the Iraqi security forces.

BALDWIN: And - no, I was just saying, that therefore that intelligence could possibly use down the road for these targeted air strikes that have been discussed, but not -- not definite, right?

HERTLING: Exactly right. Well, I --

BALDWIN: Arwa, to you -- go ahead. Go ahead. Finish your thought, general.

HERTLING: No, part of the president's comments yesterday were - we're helping with intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. It's not just for the Iraqis. It's for us.

BALDWIN: Yes.

HERTLING: Because as he also said in his speech yesterday, that the movement of ISIS forces and other insurgents are a national security concern for the United States.

BALDWIN: Of course.

And, Arwa, on ISIS, we know, we've talked a lot about the sophistication. Also as it pertains to their role in social media. And so they've, you know, posted these videos. Among them this recruitment video here out recently. Are you getting a sense that these -- these videos are successful, that people are defecting to ISIS, particularly the Sunnis who may feel they have no other choice but to join?

DAMON: Well, Brooke, when it comes to ISIS' activities on social media and those fairly slick videos that they are putting together, targeted specifically towards a western potential jihadi audience, they are exhibiting a much greater level of sophistication than we have seen as of yet. They are significantly more sophisticated than al Qaeda and Iraq, for example. And ISIS has managed to attract more foreign fighters, more Europeans and westerners into the battlefield than al Qaeda and Iraq ever did. So it's a much more developed organization that the Iraqi security forces are up against than the American military was ever facing during its -- its plus -- decade plus in Iraq.

So that being said, what kind of an impact is it having in terms of recruitment on the ground? Look, most people who are going to join ISIS are not necessarily going to join it because it has a very slick production video that's out there or because they've launched a massive Twitter campaign.

BALDWIN: Right.

DAMON: They're going to do so because they buy into the radicalized ideology. And that's where if one wants to defeat ISIS, one needs to eliminate the factors that allow that radical ideology to exist.

BALDWIN: I did find it interesting that this most recent recruitment video, of all languages they chose, it was in English. Arwa Damon, thank you. Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, thank you very much. And I mentioned I have someone else here sitting next to me because

deadly clashes in the streets, bombs dropping from government planes, militants seizing control of their towns, this is the life of Iraqi citizens. We have just learned the United Nations estimates more than 1 million Iraqis have fled their homes since the start of this year. Half of those got out this month. And many are forced to live in these makeshift refugee camps. Doctors, teachers, children, wary from fighting for years and years are now facing this new possible threat of a civil war.

Michael Holmes joins me now.

We've been talking all week long. You were in Iraq every year of the war. Been there 14 times. And I so appreciated you e-mailing me after we were on TV one day this week because you said, Brooke, we need to focus -- we talk so much about military and figureheads and leaders. The people of Iraq are suffering.

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN INTERNATIONAL: Yes. It's something I think we need to remind ourselves every now and then. And I think you can look at something like Iraq and say, a bunch of Iraqis fighting each other and killing each other, you know, why should we care, you know? And we do. We talk about armies and militants and attacks and things like that. And I'll tell you, in 30 years of going to conflicts from Rwanda to Libya to Afghanistan to the West Bank to Gaza to Iraq, the one thing I always come home most impacted by is the regular people.

You know, the vast majority of people in Iraq, and all these other places, in the West Bank or Gaza, they want nothing of the nonsense of war. They want what you and I want. We want to go to work. We want to take the kids to school. Want to go and do the shopping. And have a reasonable expectation that you will get home alive that night or have a home to come home to.

And I just think it's worth remembering that every now and then and we don't just look at this sort of blanket thing of a bunch of Iraqis killing each other, leave them at it, because it's not like that and there's a lot of unbelievable people there who don't want any part of this.

BALDWIN: So let's take a look at something that you and your crew shot. How recent was this?

HOLMES: This was when I was there in January in Baghdad and it was - you know, I always -- it's one of my things when I go to these places, I always try to tell part of the story through the eyes of regular people. And we came across this -- this family who had been through the most unbelievable agony and were continuing to live that unbelievable agony through no fault of their own. I think we've got a clip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES (voice-over): A father's unimaginable grief. A mother's endless tears. And three children who barely comprehend what has happened to their family. Abu Ali is no insurgent. Umm Ali, not a politician. They are a

visceral human portrait of Iraq's grinding violence.

UMM ALI, MOTHER (through translator): We don't work with the government. We're simple people. We have nothing. We sell watermelons.

HOLMES: Their descent into agony began on July 23, 2007, when a bomb exploded at the family's humble watermelon stall merely 50 meters from their home. Son, Ali, 19 years old and about to get married, was killed instantly.

"I was a week away from marrying him off," says Abu Ali. "Instead, I buried him."

Life went on such as it was until July 20 last year. Two other sons of Abu Ali, Ala and Abbas, on duty at the watermelon stand, when another bomb went off. Ala, 23, and by now a father of three, and brother Abbas, just 17, were killed in the hail of shrapnel. Evidence of its power still etched in nearby walls today.

The funeral turnout was huge. No one could believe what had happened to this family. Ala and Abbas taken to be with their brother.

"They are all gone," Abu Ali tells me. Three sons. Two bombings. A family destroyed.

"No one will call me dad anymore," he sobs. "They were also our breadwinners. They supported us. Now I have no income. I haven't paid the rent for seven months."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: And you know what? He and his wife continue to look after the children of their sons. They've got these little kids, like four or five years old, and a baby that they're taking care of and they're in their 60s. They have nothing. Watermelon stand. And it's not an unusual story. That's the horrible part.

BALDWIN: Just seeing the father and the tears and the pain.

HOLMES: Yes.

BALDWIN: Doesn't matter what language you speak. Just our heart goes out to them.

HOLMES: It's harder to take than bodies and things, you know, when you see what people go through, regular people.

BALDWIN: Yes. Yes. Thank you for telling the story and I'm glad we found it and reshared it.

HOLMES: Thanks for hearing it.

BALDWIN: Michael Holmes, thank you.

HOLMES: Yes. BALDWIN: Still to come, routine. His personal story. This is what Bowe Bergdahl is focusing on right now at a Texas medical facility. We have new details from inside his treatment room.

Plus, a fourth grader is suing another fourth grader. The lawsuit claims he was bullied over and over. But is that even legal to sue someone so young?

And then, the U.S. faces Portugal in the World Cup. How Portugal's top player, Cristiano Ronaldo, could be out of the game.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: It has been a week since Bowe Bergdahl returned to the U.S. Remember this video? Three week since he walked into U.S. custody, into that Black Hawk helicopter somewhere in Afghanistan and out of the custody of the Taliban.

Now, Bowe Bergdahl is focusing about opening up, not just about what happened to him in the nearly five years as he was a P.O.W., but also about opening up his daily life to all the little things you and I take for granted. You know, brushing our teeth, hanging out, leisure activities, et cetera. Bergdahl is undergoing the Army's reintegration program at Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas. And CNN's Martin Savidge has been digging into the program, what Bergdahl has been up to since he's been in Texas.

So let's just begin with what we know is happening inside this room.

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, let me start off by saying, first of all, the military is not going to reveal to me the personal things about his diagnosis or anything that is rightly kept to him.

BALDWIN: Of course.

SAVIDGE: However, they do talk about some of the details of his daily life. Routine is very important now. He gets up at a normal time. Eats his meals at a normal time. Goes to bed at a normal time. He does that day in, day out. He's in a regular hospital room, they assure me. He is on a floor with other patients. He doesn't interact with a lot of them because primarily he's only interacting with less than a dozen people. These are the specialists that are there to help him recover. He's also got security. And I asked about that.

BALDWIN: Uh-huh.

SAVIDGE: And they say, look, it is not to keep him as a prisoner. It is not to keep him under guard. It is to prevent others, unauthorized people, from coming in, maybe surprising him. Remember, they say, he's in a very delicate mental state. Shock is not something they want.

BALDWIN: It's interesting, we were talking before we came on TV and you were saying he's also learning there were coping mechanisms that he essentially taught himself, you know, while he would have been in the Taliban hands for all those years.

SAVIDGE: Yes, well -

BALDWIN: He's having to unlearn.

SAVIDGE: He is. And the way the military will talk about that is that that's -- they won't talk specifically about him. They will just say all returnees that they have dealt with, including Bergdahl, have had coping skills, mechanisms they used during their captivity to help them through the horror of what they were enduring. Some people talk to themselves. Some people go off to a place in the sky. Whatever. But once you come back to normal life, if you were to act out those same kind of protective forces that you use, you seem weird. If you start talking to yourself in public, people are going to say, look out, he looks crazy. So this is what they're talking about, unlearning those coping skills they needed during captivity. It's part of the process.

BALDWIN: Fewer than a dozen people having access to him, contact with him, working with him.

SAVIDGE: And he tells them his story, which is also important.

BALDWIN: Yes.

SAVIDGE: Recounting in his own words for the first time.

BALDWIN: From the beginning.

SAVIDGE: Yes. And it's not a 30-second synopsis. It is five years. As best he can tell day to day.

BALDWIN: And as we were talking, it's a matter of, is this all for medical purposes, because this is about what he says happened to him and at what point could it be used in a court of law? We're going to talk about that next hour with a military psychiatrist. Don't know if we have the answer yet.

SAVIDGE: Legitimate point, yes.

BALDWIN: Martin Savidge, thank you very much.

SAVIDGE: You're welcome.

BALDWIN: Coming up here on CNN, World Cup fever is hot, hot, hot and the temperature in Brazil even hotter. How steamy and sticky the humidity could get for the game in the Amazon over the weekend. But the U.S., not too worried.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATT BESLER, DEFENDER, U.S. SOCCER TEAM: We're used to it. We have teams coming over from Europe that never play in humidity. And they -- they're cramping and complaining about it. And so, for us, we're trying to use it to our advantage.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: We will talk to Rachel Nichols, who is standing by for us. Does the U.S. have a chance against Portugal. We'll break it down. Talking World Cup, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: World Cup fever is scorching hot. Really hot. Deep in the steamy Amazonian jungle of Brazil, the U.S. will take on Portugal for World Cup glory. Sunday's showdown in Arena Amazonia, set in the jungle city of Manaus, Brazil. The mayor of Manaus assures folks, quote, "there are not poisonous snakes and tarantulas roaming around the streets and falling from the trees." So, you know, no bigs. Well, that's a good thing. But the heat, oh, the heat.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATT BESLER, DEFENDER, U.S. SOCCER TEAM: The humidity, it's no joke. We - I play in Major League Soccer. So I play sometimes down in Houston. And I'll have to say, the humidity down here is actually worse than it is in Houston. So that's saying something.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: That is saying something, isn't it, Rachel Nichols, host of "Unguarded" here on CNN? I mean this is serious stuff, this soccer playing. I mean I heard our sports reporter in Brazil reporting earlier on the number of nostrils that Clint Dempsey is able to breathe out of with his broken nose. Answer, one. That can't be easy in the Amazon.

RACHEL NICHOLS, HOST, CNN'S "UNGUARDED": Exactly. And, look, there's all kinds of concerns here. We've seen, Brooke, players play through all kinds of injuries. They say, hey, your arm is falling off, stick a Band-Aid and some tape on it and get back in there. It's the World Cup. We've seen players, unfortunately, play through concussions in this World Cup. Guys who probably shouldn't be out there. But the thing you cannot play through is cramps. And that is what can come up in these - in these hot and humid conditions.

BALDWIN: Huh.

NICHOLS: Cramps are basically your body's way of locking up, shutting down, saying we do not have the energy and hydration left to keep going at this pace. If you do, you will suffer heatstroke. So, instead, we will immobilize you. The whole point is to get your body to shut down. So that is a huge concern. There are players who cramped throughout the last game. You have players who, yes, have played in Major League Soccer. But there's also a lot of U.S. players now who are - who are better, frankly, who are playing over in Europe, who've been in Europe for five or six years and they may be from the states where we have heat and humidity, but they don't play in those conditions very often. So in some ways they're just like the European players. It's going to be interesting to see how this shakes out.

BALDWIN: And to hear him say it's hotter than Houston, I mean, that's not nothing. When it comes to this match here, it's U.S. versus Portugal. Portugal star Ronaldo playing with this hurt knee. One U.S. player says he's not worrying too much about Ronaldo. Here he was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATT BESLER, DEFENDER, U.S. SOCCER TEAM: I know there's reports out there that he might not play. But we don't believe those. We assume he's going to play. We feel like he's going to play. You know, he's the best player in the world right now. So there's no denying that. He's a great player. But at the same time, you know, we're not really focused on him. We're mostly focused on ourselves. We truly feel if the U.S. plays our best soccer, we're going to be able to win the game and advance to the next round.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: What do you think, Rachel? You think he'll be playing?

NICHOLS: Yes. I mean, look, they're right, they've got a plan for him to play. The expectation is he's going to play, try to give it everything that he can. Pictures surfaced today from practice of him in a knee brace, raising new questions and a Portuguese newspaper this morning had an article quoting his personal doctor saying that he had advised Ronaldo to sit down for the next two months, take himself out of the World Cup. Nobody expects that to happen.

But it is a bit of a break, if you want to say that, about another player's injury, it is a bit of a break for the United States to be facing the best player in the world at less than 100 percent. They're also facing a Portuguese team missing its best defender because that player got a red card in the last game. The team has other key injuries. So they are hitting Portugal at not Portugal's strongest moment. Not at Ronaldo's strongest moment. That could be good for the Americans.

BALDWIN: Nostrils and knee braces. Somewhere John Berman is smiling of the minutia that we are getting into on the World Cup.

Rachel Nichols, thank you so much.

And, of course, just a reminder to all of you, don't miss Rachel's World Cup special edition of "Unguarded." Rachel has an interview with Alejandro Bedoya, plus an exclusive with New York Yankee Derek Jeter. We'll watch you, Rachel, tonight, 10:30 Eastern here on CNN.

Coming up next, #alleyesonisis. The terror group using various forms of social media to get their message out. They even released this YouTube video today in English. Who are they trying to recruit? What does this video say about their sophistication level? Coming up on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)