Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Malaysia Airlines Shot Down; Malaysian Flight Airlines Political Fallout; U.S.: Missile Likely from Pro-Russian Separatists

Aired July 18, 2014 - 09:00   ET

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

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks so much.

NEWSROOM starts now.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Happening now in the NEWSROOM two big breaking stories this morning.

First, horror at 32,000 feet, a passenger plane shot down, blown out of the sky. Nearly 300 people on board, among them women, children, and AIDS researchers.

NOAH SNEIDER, FREELANCE JOURNALIST: I mean, it's like it was raining body parts.

COSTELLO: As new details emerge from the crash scene, outrage grows.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bring to justice all these bastards who committed this international crime.

COSTELLO: Who did it? Ukraine got a hold of these intercepted rebel communications.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Major.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, we are 100 percent surer that it was a civilian plane?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Great. Are there a lot of people?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Major. The debris was falling straight into the yards.

COSTELLO: We'll play the whole tape for you. Then --

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The United States will offer any assistance we can to help determine what happened and why.

COSTELLO: President Obama offers help but what can the United States really do?

Plus -- ground invasion at Gaza. Israeli tanks roll across the border and the airstrikes won't relent, and the Israeli prime minister says the military is getting ready for even more action.

Let's talk, live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: Good morning to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Carol Costello.

U.S. intelligence out just moments ago with the first real take on responsibility for Malaysian Flight 17. A preliminary classified report concludes a missile fired by pro-Russian separatists, pro- Russian rebels most likely took down the plane.

Other major headlines. There is still no confirmation this morning that any Americans were on board Flight 17. Also American investigators are on their way to Ukraine to advise, to help in any way they can as the world tries to make sense of a passenger plane blown out of the sky. Also, Ukrainian rebels claim they gave the missile launcher used and the black boxes to Russia overnight.

Chris Cuomo is covering the story from Kiev, Ukraine.

Hi, Chris.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Hey carol, how are you? We're stopping here in Kiev. We're now going to make our way east towards where the plane was taken down, obviously. Now that's much more easily said than done. There are two very different realities --

COSTELLO: All right, we've lost our signal from Kiev, but I do know that Chris talked to the Ukrainian foreign minister a little earlier on "NEW DAY" and that Ukrainian foreign minister denied any involvement in the takedown of this plane. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CUOMO: The big question is, why does the Ukraine believe this happened? What do you think the cause was?

PAVLO KLIMON, UKRAINIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: Yes. We intercepted a number of calls between the terrorists and they are talking about shutting down the plane exactly yesterday and --

CUOMO: Terrorists yesterday talking about shooting down plane and the timing was close to when it happened?

KLIMON: Exactly and also put on their Facebook the message about shutting down the plane. So it's absolutely -- it's absolutely clear that it's up to us to have responsibility on that.

CUOMO: So why do you think they would shoot down a passenger aircraft?

KLIMON: I don't know. You never know what's in the head of terrorists.

CUOMO: There is nothing in the phone calls to suggest a motive?

KLIMON: It's indeed a real tragedy but for the terrorists it's a different thing.

CUOMO: Now the separatists, the militants, the terrorists, you know, depending on -- of your perspective.

KLIMON: Yes.

CUOMO: They say, they blame the Ukrainian government, that this was an attempt to take down the President Putin's plane and, you know, to basically hostile action from Ukraine to Russia. How do you respond to that?

KLIMON: Well, it's ridiculous. Almost all the separatist leaders are actually Russians. Some of them with Russian special services. If they're going to shoot Putin's plane, there's something wrong with the Russian system I would say.

CUOMO: Now they are saying that you did it, that Ukrainian government used their own assets to attack the Russian president. That's why this happened.

KLIMON: Firstly, we don't have such assets on the ground because we simply don't use any anti-air missile capabilities there and we don't have such capabilities in Donetsk, in Luhansk, and we checked, it wasn't our military forces. There's no way our forces could be engaged in any way in this incident or in any other incidents all around.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right. We'll try to reestablish our live signal from Kiev, Ukraine, but CNN is using its worldwide resources to cover this air tragedy. We have correspondents and analysts across the globe. More of their live reports as well just ahead.

Also want to tell you about this. Shocking tapes now released reportedly between pro-Russian militants moments after that missile brought down the Malaysian Flight 17. Now keep in mind these calls were released overnight by the Secret Service of Ukraine. Listen closely.

You will hear the slow realization that a passenger plane and not an enemy aircraft was shot down.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have just shot down a plane. That was Miner's group. It fell down outside Enakievo.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Pilots? Where are the pilots?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Set off to search for the shot down plane and take the picture of it. A plane of plume of smoke is visible.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How many minutes ago?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: About 30 minutes ago.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, Major.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So that were those from Chernukhinsk who shot down the plane. From Chernukhin checkpoint, cossacs, that are nearby Chernukhino.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The plane broke into pieces in the air, close to Petropavlovskaya mine. There is the first two-hundredth, we have found the first two hundredth. It's a civilian.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How are things going there?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, we are 100 percent sure that it was a civilian plane.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are there a lot of people?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The debris was falling straight into the yards.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What plane is that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I haven't figured out yet. I haven't got close to the main wreckage. Now I'm ready the place where first bodies started falling.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here are the remnants of internal brackets, seats and bodies.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are the any weapons?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nothing at all. Civilian belongings, medical scraps, towels, toilet paper.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are there any documents?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. One belonging to a student from Indonesia. From Thompson University.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As to this plane shot down nearby Snizhne-Torez. This turned out to be a passenger one. It fell down outside Grabove. There is a whole list of bodies of women and children. Cossacks are now looking around them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On TV they say like it is a Ukrainian AN-26, a transport plane but the writing says Malaysian Airlines. What was it doing over the territory of Ukraine?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well then, it was carrying spies. Why the hell were they flying? This is a war going on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right. Let's talk about this tape. Joining me now is retired U.S. Army Brigadier General Kevin Ryan, he is the former defense attache at the U.S. embassy in Moscow. He's now the director of Defense and Intelligence Projects at Harvard's Kennedy School.

Good morning, sir.

BRIG. GEN. KEVIN RYAN, DIRECTOR OF DEFENSE AND INTELLIGENCE PROJECTS, HARVARD: Good morning.

COSTELLO: As you were listening to that tape, what went through your mind?

RYAN: Well, I speak Russian, and I was -- I was struck by, just as you said, the realization that was slowly coming over the report, reporter, the guy reporting from the field, that what they had done was not what they intended to do.

You know, I think there is an explanation for this, and we'll find it out soon. I think there's probably a technical reason for this, and I do agree.

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: What do you mean a technical reason for this?

RYAN: I'm glad that the U.S. has been able to confirm --

COSTELLO: What do you mean by a technical reason for this?

RYAN: Well, the -- so the Buk or the SA-11 system operates really out of three components. It has a command and control vehicle, it has a launcher which is what everybody is focused on right now but it also has a surveillance radar which nobody has mentioned. This launcher operated evidently in isolation, by itself, not connected to a command and control unit, and not connected to a surveillance radar.

So the radar on the launcher is much shorter range and the crew probably did not have a lot of time between the time they first either with their eyes or through the smaller radar found this target. They didn't have time to consider the flight path, the trajectory, the altitude and so on.

Had they had that time they probably would have realized that this was not a military aircraft and would not have fired at it, but as it was, and I saw a conjecture but I believe this fits the facts as we know them.

COSTELLO: Right.

RYAN: As it was, they saw it, they launched and only afterwards were they able to determine what they had shot down.

COSTELLO: And General, let me just stop you here because I want to show people exactly what we're talking about. This is the surface-to- air missile we're talking about. It's called the SA-11. That, as you said, supposedly was used to shoot down this plane. It has the ability to take out a plane at 45,000 feet. It can launch missiles at four different targets.

Two questions for you. Did it appear to you that the rebels knew how to use this weapon and how did they get this weapon?

RYAN: OK, these are very important questions, and they go to proving that it could have been the separatists or the rebels. First of all, if you're looking at the picture you'll see a little what looks like a gum drop on the front of the missile system. That's a -- that's for the acquisition radar, this is the shorter range radar. That communicates between the missile and the launcher, and it tracks the aircraft but it doesn't give you the minutes and minutes of advanced warning that a surveillance radar would have.

Also when you're looking at this picture, this is just the launcher and it does not include the command vehicle and the other radar components so just the system by itself, although it's very capable and highly technical, is not as capable as it would be in a complete system, and it would take weeks or months to train American crews on a similar system when we train our soldiers. So the guys who operated this system either had to be former air defense professionals or they had to be getting advice on the ground from air defense professionals as they were operating.

COSTELLO: OK. That's what I want to ask you about next, because CNN has found out from sources that a preliminary classified U.S. intelligence analysis concluded that these missiles were shot from eastern Ukraine, and they were fired by pro-Russian separatists, right, and this is a Russian-made weapon.

RYAN: Right.

COSTELLO: Do you know if Russia was training these pro-Russian separatists to use this kind of weapon?

RYAN: Yes, I do not know in particular about this crew or Russian training of air defense personnel. I believe that Russia has been offering training and assistance to the separatists that started in Crimea, and it's now spread into eastern Ukraine. Whether or not they were actually on site and helping these separatists operate this system, I don't know.

COSTELLO: Mr. Putin, he was quick to express his sympathy but he's certainly not taking responsibility. What do you think his spin will ultimately be?

RYAN: Well, I think the excuse that Ukraine is responsible for this because they are combating the separatists is a little bit like the devil made me do it excuse. It's not an excuse that we allow our own kids to offer to us when they do something wrong, and it certainly isn't worthy of a world leader. The spin that Russia will continue to put on this is that they are in no way responsible for what's going on in eastern Ukraine, and that's just blatantly not true.

COSTELLO: All right, General Ryan, thank you so much for being here.

I want to bring in our chief international correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, to talk more about the Putin angle of this story, because we're going to be hearing a lot more about that.

So the Russian president, Christiane, he put in a phone call with the Dutch prime minister and he called for a thorough and unbiased investigation. Does he mean it?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, you know, just going to what General Ryan said, it is obvious that the Russians will deny it as they have denying it, but everybody from the United States to the main European leaders believe that it is only President Putin who has influence, actual tangible actionable influence with these separatist rebels. So does he mean it? We're not sure.

What we certainly do know is that this crime site is insecure, and therefore already we don't even know where the critical information, the flight recorders, the black boxes, whatever you want to say, is on the ground, we don't know where it's been taken, has it been taken to objective, not impartial investigators? We don't know what has happened on the grouped.

But more than that, European leaders, all of whom are meeting in all sorts of various different emergency situations in their capitals, for instance Prime Minister Cameron had his national security group meet today here in London. They're all trying to figure out what to do next, because just before this happened on Wednesday, here in Europe, two things happened.

Europeans again accused Vladimir Putin of not doing what he promised to do, and that is to stop the flow of material and fighters into eastern Ukraine through the shared border there, and not pursuing the peace process that the new Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, has proffered and has tried to put out there.

At the same time, we also on Wednesday, 24 hours before this tragedy, spoke to the Ukrainian foreign minister, and he told me chapter and verse of the kinds of heavy weaponry that have been coming across with the Russian knowledge over into eastern Ukraine -- tanks, heavy weaponry, and anti-aircraft missiles.

That is what he told me 24 hours before this terrible tragedy happened. So -- and there is a pattern, as you know. Three Ukrainian flights, military and transport flights, were downed in this same region since June 14th. So there is a pattern that has been established. Now everybody is crying foul, who did it, who didn't do it? But objective investigation absolutely has to happen.

COSTELLO: OK. Well --

AMANPOUR: And that hopefully will lead to some more definitive analysis.

COSTELLO: Well, let's talk about that investigation, because supposedly these pro-Russian rebels have turned some of the recording devices from the crashed plane over to Russia, and if Vladimir Putin is really serious about an objective investigation, shouldn't he turn over those tapes to the NTSB or whoever the investigating body is of this crash?

AMANPOUR: Well, as you say, whoever the investigating body is. Some are saying it has to be Ukraine to do it. As you know, some NTSB people from the United States are going.

But there is an international organization as well that can actually take charge of this kind of thing or be a big part of it. But there's also the OSCE, who are the Russian approved and contributed, plus all the Europeans a part of that, and they also have a security brief and mandate as well, and they're trying to get to that location.

So, yes, there are a lot of internationally approved organizations which can actually, you know, do the right thing here and try to do it.

But here's what's also very, very complex, and we've seen this over the last several months of this crisis in Ukraine and with Crimea. There is a massive propaganda war going on right now, but most especially inside Russia. And as you know, Russian state television and what's called "Russia Today" has been parroting a very specious party line of propaganda ever since this crisis began many months ago and going into overdrive right now.

One of the lead reporters for this channel has today resigned and said, "I am for the truth, and has been tweeting saying ever since this crisis began our mandate is it's always Ukraine's fault. So, this is not just something in the atmosphere. This is something that really affects Russian public opinion and is really directed from the top, and this is another huge thing that has to be coped with and taken into account as they try to have an objective investigation. It is not an easy process.

COSTELLO: Christiane Amanpour, thank you so much.

Also this morning, the air space of eastern Ukraine is shut down and Malaysian Airlines says the path used by Flight 17 -- well, they say it was used by other airlines on that day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LIOW TIONG LAI, MALAYSIA TRANSPORT MINISTER: The flight path taken by MH17 was approved by the International Civil Aviation Organizations and by the countries whose air space the route passed through. And International Air Transportation Association, IATA, has also stated that their air space, the air travel was unrestricted. Fifteen out of 16 airlines in the Associations of the Asia-Pacific Airlines fly this route over Ukraine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Joining me now is CNN aviation correspondent Richard Quest.

And in listening to the tapes released by the Ukrainian secret service, those rebels said on this tape, why was this plane flying over a war zone?

Should the plane or any plane have been flying other that air space?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, arguably not, but the ICAO, which is the international body responsible, had not closed the air space and, you know, when -- and the Ukrainians hadn't closed the air space above 32,000 feet. The Ukrainian authorities had the responsibility for that air space.

So, when Malaysia Airlines filed its flight plan, said it wanted to fly that route, there was no reason why it should not have flown that route. What you have here is a situation, Carol, where some are wanting to blame the car for being on the road, when the road was open, and that seems to me to be slightly back to front. Large parts of southern Ukraine and Crimea are closed, and are highly restricted at lower altitudes;

But this plane was actually at a safer area. It was further north where there had been no restrictions of those sorts of levels and so I believe other planes were on those flight paths, and the real issue is why ICAO or the authorities didn't close it.

COSTELLO: You know, it just makes you worry, we live in a global economy. People are flying all over the place, right? So, it just makes everybody worry about their safety in the air, even flying at 33,000 feet.

QUEST: Yes, as they should in this case. Absolutely. I'm not going to sit here and defend what happened.

It is absolutely abhorrent, because two things -- the plane is flying on a legal air route at a correct altitude in civil aviation, and it gets brought down by illegal weapon fire, by who ever it is, we are waiting for the final conclusion. That is the reality of the situation.

What ICAO will have to look at out now is why, once those other airliners from the Ukrainians, when other airline, aircraft had been brought down they did not constitute the closure they did yesterday. That's the issue here.

Why was Ukraine allowed to keep that air space open for as long as it did.

Now, quickly, on the question of the investigation, if I may, Carol, just to brief you on that, Ukraine says they will hold the investigation as the air traffic authority responsible for that area, where the crash or the incident happened.

The black boxes, if they are in Russia, properly speaking, should be transported back to Ukraine where they will have to be sent somewhere else to be decoded. But even if Ukraine does have the investigation as it's legally entitled, Carol, there has to be external input into this, and I don't care whether it's the Brits, the French, the Germans, the Australians, the Americans, a collection of them all, there is no way that one partisan party should or would be allowed to.

COSTELLO: Well, I know the NTSB and FBI, they are on their way serving in an advisory role. What exactly does that mean, Richard?

QUEST: Right, glad you asked.

The authority to investigate legally is the Ukrainians. The plane is a Boeing 777. Therefore, the state of design and the state of manufacture is the United States, and the authority responsible for there is the NTSB.

So, the NTSB takes part in most, in fact if not all crashes involving aircraft. The level at which they will be involved will be determined by how sophisticated the Ukrainians are. If they are very sophisticated, you won't need much help from other people. If they're not so sophisticated, then obviously the British, the Americans, the French, they will all be more involved.

Ultimately, though, credibility and transparency will be the watch words for this investigation. Legally the responsibility rests with Ukraine.

COSTELLO: You know, here is the thing -- there's been none of that so far, right? You have all those people who died aboard that plane. Their bodies are still there. What's being done with them?

QUEST: And that is the tragedy. That is the absolute, you've covered these things. You have to secure the area. You have to deal with the human remains, with the dignity that they deserve. You have to preserve the wreck annual for the investigation.

So, when the separatists say they now want a cease-fire so that international investigators can arrive -- well, you have to sort of negotiate and the Malaysian prime minister said that yesterday. Yes, there will have to be a negotiation to get those experts in.

What I can tell you is it's foolhardy for those people -- however, well-meaning people to be tromping over this ground. It's a bio risk. It's a chemical risk. It's jagged metal.

At all levels, Carol, the experts need to get in and they need to secure and deal with this safely.

COSTELLO: All right, Richard Quest, we'll get back to you. Thank you so much.

I want to bring in Gianni Walian, a friend of a passenger onboard Malaysian Airlines Flight 17, the one that was shot down. He's joining us via Skype from Amsterdam.

Gianni, welcome and thank you for being with me.

GIANNI WALIAN, FRIEND OF PASSENGER ON DOWNED PLANE: No problem, Carol. Thank you for having me.

COSTELLO: I'm glad you're here.

WALIAN: I want to thank you -- yes, go ahead.

COSTELLO: Tell us about your friend.

WALIAN: My friend was supposed to go on a backpacking trip in Asia, and he went together with his family, his family is supposed to visit family in Indonesia. And that was the plan for him. And, yes, I feel so sad it didn't go that way, because of the plane crash, of course, because of the missile, and we lost a good friend now.

We are all sad. Actually, I'm right now together with a good friend of mine and talking about it, thinking about it, and yes, we don't know what to do.

COSTELLO: And your friend's name was Daryl (ph), and he looks like a fun guy. Was he nervous at all about flying on Malaysian Airlines?

WALIAN: No, never. I mean, because of the last crash of the plane that was lost, it was weird, and I was also thinking like, when this plane crashed I thought again a Malaysian Airline plane, why?

And later I found out he was on it so then I was extra shocked because I didn't know he was on it. I felt so sad, and he was not scared to be on that plane, no. He was actually happy to go on a trip.

COSTELLO: And I would suppose it's even more shocking the way this plane came down.

WALIAN: Exactly. It's something you cannot describe. It's something you couldn't imagine. I know if it's like -- I have some friends who work with the Jordan Air Company. Sometimes they see rockets in the sky and then they go back, but I wouldn't expect it to be at the Ukraine site because all my friends, we go a lot of times to Asia, we flying the same route. So it's difficult for us and for all his friends to understand that this could happen.

COSTELLO: And I would suppose it's even more difficult to deal with because nobody can get close to the crash scene to actually investigate or do anything about anything.

WALIAN: Exactly. We are really scared what will happen with the black boxes, of course, and what will happen with the bodies, like Richard said, and we wonder what will happen, will we see his body? Is his body there? His parents' body, his sister's body?

So, I think we need to wait for the investigation until we know more about it.

COSTELLO: What would you like to see happen? Who should take the lead?

WALIAN: I think for me, I think a few countries should take the lead, like I know the U.S. and the Russia don't go really well together, so maybe like some countries that are neutral work together as a team, like you see on National Geographic, the airplane crash investigation. And a team that will find out the truth.

And of course it should be safety, so like the guy said, like a truce between separatists and the Ukraine side would be handy very, too, and to tell you the truth, I don't really know. I'm not a politician.

COSTELLO: It's frustrating. I know.

WALIAN: Yes.

COSTELLO: Gianni Walian, thank you for sharing your story. I appreciate it.

WALIAN: No problem. You're very welcome.

COSTELLO: Still to come in THE NEWSROOM: Israel launches a ground attack in Gaza. And Hamas vows to make Israel pay. What if anything can be done to prevent all-out war? We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)