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Crisis in Iraq; U.S. Prepares for Next World Cup Match; Bowe Bergdahl Recuperating

Aired June 20, 2014 - 15:00   ET

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

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour starts now.

You are watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Right now, finally, Jihadists too extreme for even al Qaeda are in control of the former chemical weapons facility in Iraq. Inside this plant, you have these stockpiles of old weapons. Once produced here, mustard gas, sarin, VX. That's a nerve agent.

In fact, you're looking at video that we have pulled from the CNN vault today shot by CNN's Nic Robertson and his crew back in 2002. CNN has this exclusive look inside.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Numbered and tagged, rows of rusting chemical warfare equipment lie in a rotting warehouse, this site, Al-Muthanna, birthplace of Iraq's biowarfare program and heart of its chemical research and production in the 1980s, apparently left in ruin.

(on camera): What Gulf War bombing didn't destroy in 1991, U.N. weapons inspectors did in the mid 1990s, filling containers like this with cement and putting U.N. tags on them.

The sheer scale of this site, 25 square kilometers, is an indication of Iraq's previous commitment to weapons of mass destruction. Now containers like these are put across the door to stop it continuing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: He was there in 2002. Here he is right now, Nic Robertson, our senior international correspondent, joining us from Baghdad.

Now, we should reiterate the State Department is suggesting that this is not a huge threat. But take me back to that trip there, Nic, in 2002. What do you remember about it?

ROBERTSON: This was a very derelict-looking site. We know that it had been bombed in the first Gulf War in 1991. The weapons inspectors had been there in the mid-'90s as well to kind of cement that stuff up.

This was sort of an inspection check. It was really -- it was a place that felt -- it was just being unused. It wasn't really getting any attention. And you can tell, comparing me to comparing then, how long ago it was. And looking at the munitions then, they have only gotten older and rustier since then as well.

But the reality is, ISIS, these fighters are fighting with tribal fighters, but also with men who were in Saddam Hussein's army who built that base, who put the weapons systems in there, who helped manufacture those weapons. So possibly there are people on board with ISIS and the tribes, and these are the Sunni rebel groups who may know something about these weapons.

But from what we can see back then, it would be incredibly dangerous to try to use them. And it does appear very much that these are not -- these are not sort of weapons-ready. They're just decaying there, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Yes. That corroborates with people I have talked to. They say it would be highly unlikely they could weaponize these chemicals. But perhaps it's less about the chemicals inside this area and more about the facility, the compound itself, using that as a launchpad for who knows what for ISIS.

ROBERTSON: It's a big area.

It's out in the desert. I mean, look, one of the things that stands out to me right now is, we're talking about the possibility of airstrikes. Well, guess what? That is out -- you know, there aren't really civilian areas around it. It's in the desert. If you saw a lot of ISIS around there with their equipment, you would think that that would be a pretty clear and easy target to strike.

Not clear what would happen to the chemical weapons munitions there. But it's certainly somewhere that they can -- that they have control of, that there are hardened bunkers, that they can avoid at least an onslaught by tanks and artillery by the Iraqi army. It's certainly somewhere that's got safe shelter for them from ground-based weapon systems. Drone strikes, heavy bombs, Tomahawks, cruise missiles, that sort of thing, could have a more deadly impact there.

BALDWIN: Nic Robertson live for us in Baghdad. Nic, thank you for your reporting today and from what you shared with us from 2002.

Now, the outlines of the president's newly announced plan to send those military personnel, those advisers back into Iraq are firming up today. We have just learned that these first so-called advisers will come from U.S. contingents in Iraq already. And they will be a boost to what amounts to an intelligence surge.

They want to find out where ISIS fighters are lurking and where they hope to strike next. Eventually, they would be guiding Iraqi forces toward military targets, potentially laying the groundwork, potentially, for U.S. airstrikes, as Nic was just discussing.

Spider Marks is with me now from Phoenix, Arizona. He is the former commanding general of the Army's Intelligence Center and was a senior intel officer during the second Iraq war.

General, nice to see you.

BRIG. GEN. JAMES "SPIDER" MARKS (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good to see you, Brooke.

BALDWIN: When we talk about these special operators, what is their training? What is their M.O. here?

MARKS: Well, these are exceptionally talented, very senior, trained soldiers.

What they bring is a level of maturity that can be placed at the very lowest levels, great judgment, incredible experience, situationally aware, culturally very much aware of the environment. They have been there before.

They will speak the language. And in many cases, what we are doing is renewing relationships that have been in place before we might have had a hiatus of a couple of years. So you have familiar faces showing back up and embedding themselves with ISF units, but at a very specific level.

To your question, Brooke, about the intelligence capabilities, the United States has an incredible intelligence apparatus. And right now, we could strike, if we chose to, from the air a number of targets that the ISIS terrorists and their group have presented.

Remember, ISIS has presented itself as a very conventional force. So we could go after targets right now. But what we are doing is, by embedding these special ops guys with units, we can now share that intelligence with the ISF in a very specific...

BALDWIN: Right.

MARKS: ... way to help them out in terms of targeting.

BALDWIN: With the -- with the intelligence could lead to targeting, could lead to airstrikes, could be something the U.S. explores down the road. But in order to do that, you have to have these eyes on the ground. And my question to you is, why do you actually need that? Because you know how -- satellites, drones, there's spy planes, all with incredible resolution. What can human eyes detect, Spider, that these machines cannot?

MARKS: Right.

Brooke, really, what we have is multiple functions being performed here. Certainly, as we just discussed, the United States could strike today without these -- these folks on the ground. They could go after targets right now with incredible precision and with results.

BALDWIN: That's what I thought.

MARKS: So that can happen.

Because we have this apparatus, which -- it's a clear sky environment. You can get great imagery. We can read their signals. We can do a whole bunch of target mensuration, so we can really go after them quite precisely right now if these individuals are not there.

What these guys bring is that targeting down to the Iraqi units. And, primarily, it shores up these Iraqi units, and it gives them a sense of confidence, hopefully, so that they will rejoin the fight. Many of them have already taken to the streets and have taken their uniforms off. We want them to come back together and to re-engage with the presence of this capability.

We hope that will happen. And it gives them an additional level of clarity when you have got some Iraqi eyes on some targets that can now find targets that are now intermingled and, in many cases, hidden away and difficult to go after because they're mixed in with civilian populations.

BALDWIN: Interesting. I hadn't heard that perspective yet.

General Spider Marks, thank you, as always. Thank you.

MARKS: Thank you, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Coming up, Bowe Bergdahl back in the U.S. recovering at a medical center in Texas. One of the key points of his recovery, we're hearing today, telling stories of what happened to him in those five years of Taliban capture. We will talk to a former military psychiatrist about this process, how it helps him.

And next, Sunday's World Cup game between the U.S. and Portugal, the players will be taking on one another, but also the sweltering Amazonian heat in Brazil. Could the U.S. use this to their advantage?

And, later, Pope Francis weighing in on recreational marijuana.

Stay with me. You are watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: This year, World Cup fever means welcome to the jungle for some of these teams. The U.S. squares off against Portugal Sunday. Players have to beat the heat inside the Arena Amazonia in the jungle city of Manaus, Brazil.

The mayor assures folks there are not poisonous snakes and tarantulas roaming around the streets and falling from trees.

Well, that is good to know. The heat and the humidity may be dangerous enough to Sunday's game. With me here to discuss, sports medicine specialist Dr. Jeffrey Webb, here in studio, a team physician for NFL's Atlanta Falcons. And joining me from Rio in Brazil, host of CNN International's "World Sport," Lara Baldesarra.

And, Lara, let me just begin with you here, because when we're talking heat and humidity and Manaus Sunday, how hot is hot there?

LARA BALDESARRA, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's going to get very hot. The average temperature in Manaus in June is 88 degrees Fahrenheit. But it's beyond the heat that's the big concern. It's the humidity.

We're talking about a city that's located in the Amazon rain forest, where this type of humidity, it can make it feel hard to breathe. It can almost make it feel like you're suffocating. When FIFA announced that Manaus would be one of the host cities, there was outrage. This was quite controversial.

No one wanted to play there, because it's so physically grueling on an athlete's body. Now, when England and Italy, they played the first match in Manaus, and afterwards, an Italian player, Claudio Marchisio, he said it was just so hot and so humid and so unbearable that he actually felt like he was hallucinating out there.

So, really, what it might come down to is really a question of fitness and just conditioning. Now, luckily, for the U.S. team, they have left just a short time ago. So, they're going to be arriving in Manaus from their base in Sao Paulo. So, they have about a day-and-a- half to acclimatize to this environment, which will be very tough, Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK. I was wondering if they would be getting down there and up there, I should say, earlier. Lara, stay with me.

Doctor, so you deal with football players in the dome and elements outside, wherever they're playing for the weekend. But we're talking soccer players. And these guys are incredibly fit and conditioned, I would have to think. The notion of, though, hallucinating in that kind of humidity is nuts.

DR. JEFFREY WEBB, SPORTS MEDICINE SPECIALIST: That is crazy.

Yes, it's going to be hot and humid down there. That's -- there's no question about that. And it's going to have its effects both on the body and the mind.

BALDWIN: What specifically? I mean, I hear a lot about cramps. How does the humidity affect that, make that happen?

WEBB: Yes, we saw a lot of cramps in the last game that the U.S. played, too. Several players went down -- well, with muscle injuries, anyway. And some of that would be cramping, too.

So, as you get dehydrated, the muscles start to spasm up, cramp. And that's something you have to watch out for. And it's important to stay hydrated to prevent that.

BALDWIN: Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.

WEBB: Hydrate.

BALDWIN: How much?

WEBB: So, a lot of water, a lot of water, a lot of Gatorade, a lot of sports drinks. You want to get electrolytes along with your water. It's important to start a couple days ahead of time for sure to get real acclimatized to it, and definitely on the day of drinking lots of fluids, whether you're running a race or whether you're playing a soccer match.

BALDWIN: Lara, back to you, just going back to Clint Dempsey, and I know you have been talking about him and his broken nose. But how is his breathing? I heard you on the TV earlier saying he could only use one nostril.

BALDESARRA: Yes, that's not that great of a sign. And his nose is broken. He has a nice kind of shiner happening because of that broken nose. He can only breathe out of one nostril.

So, clearly, his breathing might be impaired a little bit. An athlete is conditioned to always intake through the nose and then output through the mouth. So, seeing as that might not be that great, and, plus, you couple that with that severe humidity that we're talking about, it's going to be quite the strain on him.

But I will also add that FIFA is allowing two time-outs to be used in matches where this heat reaches a point where players might need to take five minutes to then get some water. Those time-outs could come in the 30th minute and the 75th minute.

We haven't seen them used yet. But if the temperatures do reach above 30 degrees Celsius, that's when that rule will be implemented. And then players will be given a chance to breathe.

BALDWIN: To breathe. Can you imagine? Just hearing that.

BALDESARRA: And drink, yes.

BALDWIN: And drink lots of water, as Dr. Webb is pointing out.

Just finally to you, if you were down there and if you were standing on the sidelines, watching these guys play, what would your piece of advice number one be?

WEBB: Keep hydrated every time you get a chance to. Take those water time-outs. If they get those water time-outs, I would take advantage of those. Stay well hydrated ahead of time. And just look out for things. Be aware of your body. Be aware of when you're feeling fatigued, when you're feeling exhausted, when you're starting to cramp up.

BALDWIN: OK. Dr. Jeffrey Webb, thank you very much for coming in and sharing your expertise with us

WEBB: My pleasure.

BALDWIN: Lara Baldesarra, thank you so much in Rio. We will be watching on Sunday USA vs. Portugal.

Coming up next, Bowe Bergdahl recovering at that medical facility in Texas, we will tell you why one of the key points of his recovery involves him sharing his story from those five years in Afghanistan captured by the Taliban.

Also ahead, everyone in Georgia is talking about this, this tragic story. This child dies in this hot car after his father allegedly just went to work, forgot about him. So, this dad now is charged with felony murder. We will talk to someone who has been through this herself. She lost her child in a car as well -- her story and what this means legally state by state coming up here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: It has been a week since Bowe Bergdahl returned to the U.S., three weeks since he walked into U.S. custody into that Black Hawk helicopter in Afghanistan out of the Taliban's hands.

And now Bergdahl is focused on opening up, not just about what happened to him in the nearly five years he was a POW, but also opening up about his daily life, do all the little things we take for granted, down to personal hygiene, recreation, leisure.

Overall, we're hearing that the focus of his life in this whole reintegration processes, this program at Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas is routine. He eats and sleeps to what's being called a normal schedule. And routinely he is encouraged to speak and speak quite often about his time in captivity.

Joining me now, Dr. Elspeth Ritchie, a former Army psychiatrist.

Doctor, welcome.

DR. ELSPETH RITCHIE, FORMER ARMY PSYCHIATRIST: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here, as always.

BALDWIN: Here's my first question when I heard about all these details. And knowing that he is talking about his time with the Taliban from the very beginning, I'm wondering, to you, could that information -- I mean, I know it has medical use right now. But could that information ever be used against him legally?

RITCHIE: That is a good question.

I would assume that he has lawyers and attorneys advising him. I think it's very important, though, that we learn about the details of his captivity. We, I mean both the American public and the intelligence community, because having spent five years in the Taliban, he's going to be a gold mine of useful information.

BALDWIN: And then, in this treatment room, I know it's fewer than 12 people have contact with him on daily basis. As he's telling these stories, as I have read it being described, of his time in captivity, I have to imagine that the way in which these people are questioning of him and speaking to him is very important, very nuanced. How do staffers do that?

RITCHIE: Yes. They are going to be careful.

Most of the people who do that type of work have had a lot of training. They may be what's called a SERE psychologist, which is survival, escape, resistance, evasion, and be trained in working with hostages and prisoners of war or have additional training interrogation skills. And then, of course, a mental provider, psychiatrist and psychologist, also have been trained for many years in how to talk to people as to not retraumatize them again.

BALDWIN: Can you give me an example of what they would be saying or asking?

RITCHIE: Well, as you mentioned, they are probably asking about the little details of life and also eventually about how he felt about them.

You know, you don't necessarily want to go to the trauma right away. People often have a hard time holding themselves together. And if you go to the traumatic events too quickly, they may literally fall apart. So, you might simply want to ask them about the daily routines of life and what were the positive things he did to survive. He must have done something positive to survive five horrible years, at least from what I have heard, being kept in the dark in cages.

It sounds like an awful experience. So when I'm talking to him, I wouldn't go right to that awful experience right away. But I would start with mundane details.

BALDWIN: That's interesting, and then gradually work your way. We do know that, you know, here he is back in the U.S. in Texas. He still hasn't talked to his parents from all the information we have. I'm just curious, Doctor, what you make of that, because apparently it is Bowe Bergdahl's choice.

RITCHIE: I don't know the answer to that.

One can speculate that there may be some shame or guilt or anger. I also do believe that he was very fragile psychiatrically, psychologically. From what I know of his past, of him being discharged from the Coast Guard because of psychological problems, the writings that have been published in "The Washington Post" and other places, sound like he may actually have been delusional, hearing voices before he deployed.

So, again, if I was working with somebody like him, I would be very careful and take my time, allow trust and rapport to develop as well. That's very important. And I want to say that, again, because he's been held by people that he thought would kill him at any time for five years. As he gets to know another human being, he's got to learn how to trust them as well.

BALDWIN: Relearning trust. That was a fascinating read in "The Washington Post." And there clearly seems to be a darkness from those journal entries that that woman shared with that reporter.

Dr. Elspeth Ritchie, thank you for joining and your expertise.

RITCHIE: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Coming up next, just a tragic story out of Georgia. This toddler left in a hot car died. His father told police he totally forgot the child was in the back seat, total accident. But now that father is being charged with felony murder. Coming up next, we will talk to someone who has been through a situation just like this. My next guest lost her own child in a car as well. Hear her personal story next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)