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Investigation Continues Into Malaysia Airlines Crash; Israel Sends Tanks, Troops Into Gaza

Aired July 18, 2014 - 15:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. Top of the hour. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You are watching CNN's special live coverage of a rapidly developing story of this passenger plane shot out of the sky at 32,000 feet apparently by a surface-to-air missile.

Here's what we know. At least one American was killed. Here he is. Quinn Lucas Schansman, a Dutch and American dual national. Also on board this 777, a Dutch student who was studying at Indiana University.

President Obama commenting on the tragedy earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This was a global tragedy. An Asian airliner was destroyed in European skies filled with citizens from many countries. So there has to be a credible international investigation into what happened. The U.N. Security Council has endorsed this investigation, and we will hold all its members, including Russia, to their word.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: If you listen to the president today, he was very, very careful not to place blame directly on pro-Russian rebels, at least at this stage here in the investigation.

But I can tell you that the evidence is growing against them. CNN has obtained this video. Watch the space here between the trees, because you will see, according to Ukraine's Interior Ministry, here you go, the Buk anti-aircraft launcher, apparently with these two rockets missing from the truck.

Ukrainian officials citing this video here as proof that rebels are smuggling the launcher back to Russia to cover up their tracks. And we now have this video of European investigators -- this is the first time we're seeing this here on CNN there -- here they are arriving on the scene and what they are seeing is absolutely shocking.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL BOCIURKIW, OSCE SPOKESMAN: What we observed were already bodies starting to partially decompose in the hot sun. We saw a lot of debris. The debris doesn't look like it's been manipulated in any way, but there is lots of it.

The crash area is very, very big. But we were only given a very small area to actually monitor. And we were greeted almost with hostility. So it wasn't a visit that was done under the best conditions, and we hope to continue again tomorrow.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: That interview was just conducted by our own Christiane Amanpour, one of the spokespeople for this European investigator group.

CNN's Phil Black is on his way to this crash site.

And so, Phil, we now -- we see the video. These European investigators have arrived there on the scene. Tell me what -- this massive area, many, many bodies, what do they begin with?

PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it is a big area. That's what we have heard.

And it is very firmly under the control of these pro-Russian rebels. And they pose something of a challenge, as you just heard there from these European observers. They're trying to get in, were there briefly today. They also report, those same observers, that the rebels were firing their weapons into the air.

That is, as he says, almost hostile, certainly intimidating behavior. And for the world to get an accurate idea of precisely what has happened, what has caused this, what needs to happen is independent investigators and teams need to get onto the ground there and begin examining that wreckage. And then, of course, there is that far more sensitive issue, dealing with those bodies, which, as you have heard reported, are beginning to deteriorate, to decay, to decompose in the hot summer weather and days here so far.

And, already, this is only a day after this crash has taken place. So this is movement that we need to start to see fairly quickly. And so it comes down, really, to what degree these pro-Russian rebels are going to allow either Ukrainian investigators and recovery workers or international teams to come in here and to come in here quickly.

It's being negotiated. There are some local recovery and emergency workers on the ground. They're working around the clock. But it's a small local administrative effort. It's not being run by the central government in Kiev. There is no international connection to it just yet.

So these are the things that need to be sorted out, sorted out quickly, to try and determine what happened here, who did it, and also to deal with that very sensitive issue, those -- the bodies of those people that have died here in such terrible circumstances, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Two hundred and ninety-eight people on board that plane. And, as you have been reporting, the morgues in the area, even the refrigeration units cannot handle all of these people, all of these victims. Phil Black en route to the scene, Phil, thank you.

Ivan Watson, let me bring you in. You're in Kiev, capital of Ukraine. And so just another layer to this story, we are now hearing about a drive-by massacre about an hour away from the crash site, which just underscores the active -- the tension, the violence in this part of the world. What can you tell me about that?

IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Brooke. It underscores the fact that Southeastern Ukraine is a very active war zone, where there's now an attempt to try to investigate the cause of this terrible tragedy about an hour's drive, a little bit more than a hour's drive northeast of the area where the Malaysia Airlines plane went down, reports coming from the Ukrainian government, from local media as well, in the city of Luhansk, which is held by these separatists, of at least 20 civilians being killed there.

The video showing clearly civilians in shorts, in dresses, in an urban area, their bodies lying in the street in the neighborhood there, some of them near what appear to be the impact sites of some kind of artillery. We can't tell from that video. Ukrainian government claims that rebels basically carried out some kind of a drive-by shooting in the area.

But the video, the images we see do not look like small-arms fire killed these civilians. It looks like it was again some kind of artillery, and this taking place today. We also have to take in -- bear in account that there is fighting going on between the Ukrainian military forces in the southeast and the rebels.

On Thursday, at least one Ukrainian soldier killed., several more wounded in these clashes. We don't know the number of separatists who were killed or civilians as well. This is all going on as there are calls right now for a demilitarized zone around the crash site for international investigators to be able to go in.

It is a very, very chaotic situation, where people and civilians continue to die even in the hours after this plane went down -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Ivan Watson in Kiev, Ivan, thank you, the war clearly raging on.

But to the crash investigation itself, we were talking to Phil Black about the scene. We know the European investigators have arrived. Washington says it is sending two crash investigators to Ukraine, one from the FBI, one from the NTSB. But, as we showed you, the crash scene itself isn't just compromised. It's potentially dangerous.

So, with me now from New York, Mary Schiavo, CNN aviation analyst and former inspector general of the Department of Transportation, and Bob Baer, former CIA operative.

Really, first question can go for either of you, Mary, you first.

Is there even a procedure, is there even a precedent for investigating a scene of this nature that is clearly, as Ivan was explaining, in the middle of a war zone?

MARY SCHIAVO, FORMER TRANSPORTATION INSPECTOR GENERAL: Well, in the middle of a war zone, no, not quite like that. The closest thing to it is Pan Am 103 or -- or -- excuse me -- the shoot-down of Korean Airlines 007. That was in water. And the investigation there was compromised by great hostility from Russia, from the former Soviet Union.

But here, the people on the ground, the air crash investigators have one job to do. But that's only the start. Now -- and Bob can talk to this part. Now there is an international manhunt for the criminals. And that's what they are, criminals, that brought down this plane. And for that, I mean, in prior accidents, we have had international manhunts ongoing for the criminals of Pan Am 103, Abu Abbas and others who have done such acts in the past.

BALDWIN: Bob, before we even get to the manhunt, I just want to stay on the scene. Who needs to be there, who needs to be investigating, how do you investigate when this is a pro-Russia rebel stronghold area, where clearly rebels, you know, have held this site?

BOB BAER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, clearly, the entire site has to be blocked off. It's almost nine miles long.

You can't do just a partial investigation. And you do need locals. You just can't get enough people in there without the help of the locals. In Pan Am 103, you had the Scots all over the place. It was blocked off. And even then, the evidence is disputed until this day. So to get a clean investigation is nearly impossible, and especially with a lot of the people involved, potentially involved in this apparently fleeing the border to Russia.

And so far, I have seen no Russian cooperation in the investigation. At least there's been none public. And they are key to the answers, because, according to Samantha Power, our U.N. ambassador, they trained the people who probably shot down this airplane. And without their help, we're not going to get a complete story.

BALDWIN: In hopefully getting a complete story, Putin and the Kremlin is one other part of this conversation. I'm having that later this hour.

But in terms of piecing this together, there are reports -- and, listen, the facts are vague at this point whether or not Russia now has, Mary, these black boxes. So let's just say, for the sake of argument, the black boxes could be gone forever. How would these hopefully impartial investigators by looking at pieces of the plane figure out what hit it and how?

SCHIAVO: That part, they will be able to do. They will be able to figure out what hit it. TWA 800 was obviously not an act of a criminal. It was a center wing tank explosion. But they can tell by the pitting, they can do tests, forensic testing for what kind of explosive it was.

They can look at the telltale signs on the bodies, the nature of explosives. And they can get the signature of what it was that brought the plane down. So they will find out what brought the plane down. But then holding those accountable, and the tug of war that will go on with the black boxes, and, of course, the missile launcher -- Russia played this tug of war with the black boxes on KAL-007 for two decades, back and forth as to whether they had them.

At first, they said they never found the crash site. They found it three days after they went looking for it in the water. And then they said they didn't have the black boxes. And 10 years later, we find out they had them and they had all of the time. So there is going to be a big tug of war over these.

BALDWIN: And then finally, Bob, the nation -- I was talking to Les Abend, a 777 pilot. The notion of shooting down with a surface-to-air missile, shooting down a Boeing 777 from 32,000 feet, he said he and his colleagues considered it inconceivable.

And it got me wondering, if clearly this is possible, does this potentially change the strategy for terrorists in other parts of the world, knowing that this kind of machinery is available in other parts of the world to shoot down another airliner?

BAER: Absolutely, you're right. And there's also the question of all the missing shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, MANPADs. A bunch of them are missing from Libya. They're around Africa. American airliners, for instance, going into Lagos. They're all at threat, and this is just an awful precedent, because planes are so vulnerable.

And they're particularly vulnerable when they're taking off and landing. When the altitude doesn't go more than 10,000 feet, they're easy to take down.

BALDWIN: We all fly. This is incredibly disconcerting. Talking to Les, he said this will absolutely change flight plans around the world. Bob Baer, Mary Schiavo, thank you both very much.

And as we talk about this crash scene and as investigators are now there, beginning to arrive, combing through the evidence, more questions are surfacing about Russia's involvement in this tragedy. This is what Bob was just alluding to then. Did Russia provide militants with the equipment that shot down this 777 and did President Vladimir Putin, did he know about the plan? Did he call for the plan?

Our next guest says the Kremlin spent a lot of time and money to bring down this plane. He explains why next.

And remembering the victims on board; 298 men, women and children were on that flight, and today we found out one was an American, a dual national. We're learning a lot more about the victims' lives and the families they left behind.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Welcome back. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Just talking about Malaysia Air Flight 17, President Obama today condemned the attack, but was cautious about naming the attacker. When asked how much blame he places on Russian President Vladimir Putin, the president said -- quote -- "We don't know what happened exactly yet." And then he added this:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: A group of separatists can't shoot down military transport planes, or they claim shoot down fighter jets, without sophisticated equipment and sophisticated training. And that is coming from Russia.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Contrast that with the headline today, why Putin let MH17 get shot down.

In part, it reads: "The firing of these rockets and the shooting down of a civilian airplane are part of a pattern, a last-ditch, desperate attempt to salvage a win in Eastern Ukraine at any cost."

Joining me, the man who wrote those words, Daily Beast contributor and managing editor of "The Interpreter," James Miller.

James, welcome.

JAMES MILLER, "THE INTERPRETER": Thank you for having me on.

BALDWIN: As the president pointed out, we are still very early in the investigation, still gathering the facts. And while so many are saying this very easily could have been the rebels mistakenly shooting down a commercial airliner, thinking it was a military jet, you say no. You say the target was no mistake.

MILLER: Well, actually, I think the target was a mistake. But I don't think anybody cares.

So the issue at play here is, what could shoot down a jet flying at that kind of altitude? And the only kind of weapons that could hit a jet at that altitude, over 10,000 meters, 33,000 feet, would be a highly sophisticated missile system, which, by the way, we have now video evidence and eyewitness reports, including Associated Press journalists, who have seen these weapons in separatists' hands, OK?

These are a highly sophisticated weapon. It is not a shoulder-fired rocket. It's not the kind of thing that you could fire without significant amounts of training. So, look, the only way -- even if the separatists captured one of these weapons, they wouldn't be able to use it unless they had specialists from -- trained in a military in their staff, and the only place that could have come is Russia, if the missiles themselves didn't come from Russia.

So, essentially, these missiles are designed to operate within a military where you have an advanced radar system, an advanced command- and-control, where you could not make a mistake of firing at a jet airliner, because you would have hundreds of people involved in the decision to shoot.

What's happening is that these...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Forgive me, but having read your piece two times over, knowing I would be speaking to you, the fact that this was a commercial jet, this Boeing 777, and not some military cargo plane coming in from elsewhere in Ukraine, the notion that it was a commercial airliner, forgive me, but I thought you were positing that indeed that was on purpose?

MILLER: No.

What I'm positing is that essentially what could have happened is that when you take away the controls, when you give a small group of separatists this advanced missile system, OK, but you take away the oversight of the Kremlin, that, you know, these -- they knew, they would have to know that this could happen.

Look, one of the reasons -- we keep debating giving Syrian rebels anti-aircraft missiles.

BALDWIN: Right.

MILLER: OK? And one of the reasons why we haven't done it yet is because we know there is a chance that some of these missiles could be -- could fall into the wrong hands and could hit an airliner.

They know, the Kremlin would have to know that if these weapons were given without proper supervision that they could target any aircraft flying at almost any altitude, including civilian airliners that were routinely flying over this area.

So, actually, what I'm suggesting is that there is just a completely callous attitude on the part of the Kremlin that represents a desperate attempt to get back into the game. You know, the separatists in Russia have lost a stunning amount of territory in only the last two weeks. And Russia's own -- Putin's own popularity rating is very much at risk...

BALDWIN: Right.

MILLER: ... because of that.

So we are now seeing Russia take desperate measures. You know, we have seen tremendous amounts of military equipment cross the border. Now, when you identify this equipment, OK, you notice that, first of all, it doesn't match equipment that we know the Ukrainian military has lost. OK?

We also know that the paint job, the camouflage, the armament isn't exactly like that that the Ukrainian army is using. So the only place that you could get the -- this equipment is from Russia.

BALDWIN: Right.

MILLER: Just on Wednesday, we had video proof of Grad rockets being fired inside Russian territory into Ukraine. And this evidence, by the way...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Right. And now we have video proof apparently of this Buk missile system, sans two missiles now apparently being covertly brought back to Russia, so that too another piece of evidence there.

James Miller, thank you so much for coming on. Appreciate it.

Much more coverage of the MH17 crash throughout the hour. Coming up, we will take a closer look at the plane's flight path. Why was it taking a different route the day it was shot down? Should it have been flying over such a dangerous area, this war zone in the first place?

And another breaking story we're following here, flares lighting up the night sky over Gaza City, 10:22 there at night, and all of this here as Israel has launched its ground assault against Hamas. We have a correspondent on the ground watching all of this unfold. A live report is ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Just about the bottom of the hour. You're watching CNN. There is another huge story out there today that we have to cover.

It is no going back for Israel now. Israeli tanks have rumbled into Gaza, launching ground attacks after 10 days of aerial bombings did not stop Hamas from shooting their small rockets into Israel.

And just a short time ago -- you see this here over the night skies? Gaza City, flares, illumination flares, possibly for the Israeli troops to see, to begin to light up the night skies to see their targets. After ordering in the troops, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he exhausted all options, short of a ground incursion, and he warned his people to expect Israeli losses.

Israel says it's initially targeting tunnels beneath Gaza's tightly controlled border with Egypt, through which Hamas receives rockets and rocket parts. President Obama says he supports Israel's actions, but he is calling for restraint to minimize the civilian casualties.

Let's go to our correspondent now in Gaza City, Karl Penhaul.

Karl, tell me what's happening there.

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, tonight, a major Israeli assault is under way. It depends what they're doing right now as to what kind of activity is going on.

But in the course of this evening, we have heard heavy artillery bombardment just behind -- or over my shoulder there. That's the eastern border of Gaza with Israel. We have heard possibly tanks firing from there or other artillery pieces.

What we have also seen is a lot of illumination rounds going up there. Now, that could indicate either that the Israelis want to mark targets and then open fire on them, or it could be that now Israeli infantrymen are advancing through that area as well, because when we saw some of that green nightscope video of the first night of the Israeli ground incursion into Gaza, not a lot of those soldiers seemed to be wearing night-vision.

So, that is why they might pop up those illumination rounds just in the last moments of their advance so the soldiers can either identify a target or look around and see the area that they are in.

We're also seeing just in the last few moments rounds getting fired off again, indicative of some kind of artillery firing going on in that area. Now, what is the damage being caused by this so far? It is fast-moving. It's a little bit difficult to get a handle on. But just in the last few moments, we have heard from Palestinian health officials that in just one house that was hit in an Israeli strike up in the northeast, the town of Beit Hanoun, six members of a single family have been killed, we understand, including the women and children.

In that town, we have also had reports from people there, residents there that Israeli tanks have advanced into that town. Also, just coming up, we understand now, in about the next three minutes, Hamas' military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, they have said that they are going to make some kind of announcement on the Al-Aqsa TV station.

So we're obviously looking out for that to see what Hamas' response is to this Israel ground invasion, because Hamas has, after all, said that they will try and make the Israelis may -- pay heavy consequences for what they are doing.

Hamas has also warned that it has not sat by idle since its last confrontation with Israel. And we have seen that it has been investing in new tactics and new technology. It seems that this time around, Hamas fighters could be better prepared to fight the Israelis on the ground.