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Gaza Bombardment; Crisis in Ukraine

Aired July 29, 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: And here we go, hour two. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Let's show the picture -- here it is -- of the White House and just remind you we're watching and waiting for President Barack Obama to speak from the South Lawn. We don't have specifics. What we do know is, he will be talking about Ukraine.

Ukraine thus far today has denied that their military has been firing these short-range missiles at the pro-Russian rebels in the eastern part of the same country. And it was those pro-Russian rebels is the group suspected of taking down that plane, Malaysian Air Flight 17.

As soon as we see the president, we will bring that to you live.

But first let's go the Middle East. A top Israeli official tells CNN that Israel is -- quote -- "prepared for a cease-fire," but that nothing has been agreed upon as to yet. But there are no sure things we all know when it comes to Middle East peace.

Earlier today, in fact, Hamas rejected a truce proposed by Palestinian leaders. People in Gaza spent the day recovering from the most intense Israeli bombardment in this three-week conflict. You will see that the smoke, the flames -- this is a fuel storage tank at Gaza's only power plant took a major hit, although Israel insists it was not a target. This was just one of several areas damaged in what was a very long night in Gaza.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The Israeli military has accused Hamas of...

(EXPLOSIONS)

PENHAUL: We do have to hit the ground, hit the ground very quickly. We have already taken the windows out of this side of the building.

If you give me two seconds, I'm going to look out. And I can't tell you exactly where that was, but if any of my colleagues have got information in the next few moments, I will let you know. Another huge explosion going on in the vicinity of our offices in central Gaza right now. If you had been with us just about a minute earlier, Poppy, you would have seen the same -- OK, I'm going to move out of the way.

(CROSSTALK)

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Stay with Karl Penhaul. Let's have him move as far away as we can. Folks, you can see how incredibly close that blast was to Karl Penhaul.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Power is out across much of Gaza City. Here he is standing by for us, Karl Penhaul, just after 10:00 at night there, your time in Gaza. I'm not even sure you have slept since the last time we talked.

Can you just tell me, compare what you saw last night into the night to what you're seeing this evening?

PENHAUL: Yes.

First of all to the question, have we slept, we have catnapped, Brooke. We have got through the day on catnaps and sugar highs, and really today is -- right now is a little bit different scenario. We're not seeing the kind of artillery pounding, the kind of bomb strikes of 24 hours ago.

We haven't seen any repeat of those illumination flares going up into the sky to guide the drones to their targets. We have, of course, as we always do, hear Israeli drones up in the air. They sound like large lawn mowers. About an hour-and-a-half ago, we did hear artillery pounding that sounded to me like coming from southeast Gaza. I can hear F-16 jets overhead right now. They are marauding. They are almost certainly will be looking for some targets. I will let you know if there's any development there.

BALDWIN: Karl, you mentioned the lawn mower, almost sounding like a lawn mower noise from the drones. Can you just explain to me, as you have done so perfectly before? You have these illumination flares. This is as Israel is lighting up the sky, finding their target and then discuss the role of the drones. What are they looking for before the rockets are deployed?

PENHAUL: Yes. Those illumination rounds are fired by an artillery piece and the artillery pieces they're firing, the guns, they are back on the Israeli-Gaza (AUDIO GAP) eight or 10 miles away.

But they are such big guns that they fire these artillery rounds into the air and as they explode, then they pop out this illumination round that float down on a parachute and casts a great light below.

Now, last night was a moonless night. And that's why we need -- or the Israelis needed that light on the ground so that the drones that are equipped with a high-resolution camera could start scanning below, and they will fly overhead in some kind of grid pattern to look what's down below to see if there's any specific moment.

They might also from intelligence sources been looking for specific targets. And then once their operators detect those targets, they will call in airstrikes either by artillery or by the F-16 fighter jets that we heard in action yesterday and in the course of today. The targets last night, for example, as we discussed, some mosques that the Israeli military accuse of being weapons dumps.

We have no independent confirmation of that. Some homes of senior Hamas leaders and other targets. But, of course, across this confrontation, we do know a lot of the targets have simply been civilian homes. And that's why, according to the United Nations, 75 percent of the casualties have been civilians -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Karl Penhaul and crew on catnaps and sugar highs to stay awake to cover this conflict for us in Gaza, Karl, we truly appreciate it. Thank you for standing by.

Let's broaden out the discussion. Let's bring in Fareed Zakaria, a very smart voice we love having on the show. He's the host of CNN's "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS" on Sundays.

So, Fareed, let me begin this with Secretary of State John Kerry. just last hour, I talked to "The Washington Post"'s David Ignatius about a column he just wrote. And the headline of the column was this: John Kerry's Big Blunder, Big Blunder in seeking an Israel-Gaza Cease-Fire." Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID IGNATIUS, COLUMNIST, "THE WASHINGTON POST": But in some ways more damaging he in the process undercut not simply Israel, which is furious with him, as you said in your introduction, but also moderate Palestinians who hoped that the Egypt approach would work, and other key friends of the United States in the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia, such as Jordan, such as the United Arab Emirates.

I have been talking to diplomats the last two days and I hear real unhappiness with the way that Secretary Kerry went about this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: So, Fareed, I'm sure you have seen the column talking about, you know, Israel accusing the U.S. as more solidifying the role of Hamas, the fact that, you know, the U.S. has talked to their friends Qatar and Turkey. Is that a fair assessment of the criticism of secretary of state?

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN WORLD AFFAIRS ANALYST: I think there are some tactical issues that Secretary Kerry undertook that were probably not the wisest, that were not -- you know, he didn't get all the tactics right here.

But here's the fundamental problem with the criticism people are making. What Secretary Kerry is trying to do was to stop the violence. You have, you know, 1, 200 Palestinians in Gaza dead. You have about 56 Israelis dead. On the Gaza side, at least 75 percent of those are, as Karl was saying, civilians. He's trying to stop that from happening.

BALDWIN: As quickly as possible.

ZAKARIA: The only people you can talk to the stop that from happening are the Israeli government and Hamas, because at the end of the day the people who are firing the rockets are Hamas. So if you want them to stop firing the rockets, doing the kind of thing that people have been suggesting, which is wait and let Hamas be slowly destroyed, then start talking to the Palestinian Authority, find new Palestinian moderates, it's a great long-term strategy, but in the short run, the only people who can stop the rocket fire coming out of Gaza are Hamas.

And that's the only condition under which or at least that's the preamble to conditions under which Israel would be willing to stop its bombardment. So, Secretary Kerry was I think on an urgent mission to try to stop something from happening.

There's a broader issue, which is that people have been trying to shut down Hamas by destroying it "militarily" -- quote, unquote -- for 2.5 decades now. It hasn't worked, right? And why hasn't it worked? Because Hamas is, in some part, in some measure, thriving in an atmosphere in which Palestinians feel desperate, they feel they are never going to get their state. They feel like there are periodic Israeli incursions.

And if you don't solve that problem, the idea that you can just keep whacking Hamas on the head and somehow it will disappear...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: You don't think that is possible, decapitating Hamas? Bob Baer, former CIA, said absolutely it is. His fear, though, that you would these other al Qaeda cells and the like, like we're seeing in Iraq, popping up.

I guess you're damned if you do, damned if you don't.

ZAKARIA: Well, that's precisely the point, which is if you were to decapitated Hamas, a new leadership would come up and it might be even more radical and more extreme. That's my point, that the way you will eventually decapitated Hamas or marginalize it is to change the conditions under which it thrives.

That is, change the conditions of the occupation and the no peace process and the sense of hopelessness that exists that fuels it. Trying to do it militarily, look, it's been tried three times in major ways for the last 20 years, and at least 20 times in minor ways. It hasn't worked yet.

BALDWIN: Let me just bring what's happening in Ukraine and Russia into the fold here as well, as we're watching and waiting for the president to talk about Ukraine. We're hearing about additional sanctions against Russia from the U.S.

Here you have in both of these conflicts the role of the U.S. The secretary flew to the Middle East. He wants to broker the cease-fire. Thus far, neither side seems to be listening or caring because we know the fighting continues. The U.S. is pushing possibly more sanctions against Russia. President Vladimir Putin appears to brush them off.

Has the U.S. -- Fareed, has the U.S. lost some of its clout that it once had?

ZAKARIA: You know, I think people have kind of a nostalgia about the kind of clout the United States had. I don't know when -- what period we're talking about. If you look back during the Cold War, the Soviet Union used to veto everything United States did. China for most of it never listened to the United States.

You want to cherry-pick an example here or there, but it's always been a struggle. In Ukraine, I would point out, Brooke, that what is happening is actually the Europeans are coming on board. Quite surprisingly, you have managed to get some degree of unanimity among this 20 different member states, very different, you know, countries with very different orientations. And they do seem to have followed the United States in putting sanctions on some individuals.

They put sanctions on Russia bonds, which is a very big deal and will hit the city of London, London's financial center very hard. And they have begun to put sanctions on Russian industry, on dual-use technology in military, unfortunately, not yet on the French sale of warships to Russia, but all in all, this is a lot more than most people expected, you know, a month ago.

It's a step in the right direction. It's clearly happening because the United States has been organizing, cajoling, persuading. So I think this is one area where you have to give Secretary Kerry and President Obama of course some credit for moving the Europeans.

BALDWIN: OK. I appreciate the optimism. Perhaps it is just that, nostalgia, looking at the past.

As we look ahead though -- Fareed Zakaria, thank you so much.

As we look ahead, we're waiting for the president to step out onto the South Lawn and speak specifically about the Ukraine, 60-second break. Don't go anywhere. CNN's special coverage will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Live pictures on the White House. We're waiting for the president to step out on the South Lawn to talk about Ukraine.

And as we wait for that, let's open this up to a couple of voices. Let me bring in Michelle Kosinski standing by for us at the White House, Jill Dougherty, a former CNN Moscow bureau chief, and Nick Paton Walsh in Donetsk, Ukraine.

Nick, the first question to you is this. We have been hearing from U.S. officials that the Ukrainian military has absolutely fired these ballistic missiles at the pro-Russian rebels in Eastern Ukraine. But to contradict that, we have heard from the Ukrainian foreign minister saying absolutely not. What are you hearing where you are?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's hard to pinpoint exactly what kind of weaponry is used here.

I should point out the real leader of the separate militants last night, a man called Igor Strelkov, gave an impromptu, six-second -- at times bizarre press conference. But one of the points he did make was that actually the Ukrainian army have been using a lot of heavy weaponry he said in the last 48 hours.

That matches the time frame U.S. officials are talking about for the use of these pretty heavy weapons. I should also say too that we ourselves heard round about 2:00 in the morning some very loud long rumbling blasts on the outskirts of town. Don't quite know what they were. But it would make sense, frankly, given the kind of opposition that the Ukrainian army is facing here, the heavy weapon that U.S. officials say the separatists have been supplied by Russia, that they would be using everything in their arsenal, despite the fact most Western powers don't consider these kind of missiles appropriate in any kind of conflict.

BALDWIN: Again, Nick, just to stay with you, it's because of this war zone that day three those Australian and Dutch investigators trying to get to the crash site, they have thus far been unsuccessful, correct?

WALSH: Absolutely. Day three, as you say. Day one, you could perhaps say they weren't necessarily prepared enough. Day two, they said they had a perfect agreement in place. We drove down the road and we heard the shelling. We saw them turn back.

Day three, we went out ahead of them, went to the town on that main road between here, Donetsk, and the crash site, this called Shakhtarsk about 30 kilometers away from the wreckage of MH17, very heavy shelling that we saw around there, black smoke on the horizon. That's quite simply called off their trip today.

And, yes, now I think we're about to hear Barack Obama at some point discuss sanctions because of Russia's role here, very wide-ranging. A lot of potential moves against three key banks in Russia. These are big players on the Russian high street and potentially now we hear moves against these institutions.

That means some Russians could wake up tomorrow and find that their MasterCard, their Visas on cards issued by these banks simply don't work anymore. That's a huge impact for ordinary Russians who looked at the Kremlin the people who gave them financial stability and a place in the kind of global community -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: That's what's anticipated.

And speaking of, let me just pivot to you, Michelle, at the White House. Just give us the 20,000-foot view as we listen for specifics, perhaps on those additional sanctions from President Obama. Remind us what sanctions he has already slapped on Vladimir Putin and these Russians and what else we could anticipate.

MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Right.

It's been similar to what we have heard today from the E.U. The E.U. tends to be a step or two behind what the U.S. does in terms of sanctions and that's something that the U.S. has really promoted in the last few days, wanting to hammer it home that the U.S. has been a leader in taking action against Russia.

I think that's because public opinion on the large part says, what do these sanctions really do? I know our guests right now have been spelling it out, how they have had some effect. In fact, just yesterday, the White House really listed a long list of effects, what they called key strategic effects of sanctions already.

Capital flight I think is a big one, that there have been tens of billions and by the end of the year more than $100 billion in investment money leaving Russia and going elsewhere. That's going to have a long-term effect. The U.S. has really wanted to be at the forefront of taking action and imposing sanctions.

That said, it's easy to forget what the U.S. has already done because it's not as if we see these effects in our daily lives or hear about them coming from Russia on a daily basis. We know the U.S. has already identified multiple what they call Putin cronies. I think banks as we have mentioned have been the biggest one because they freeze these institutions out of doing business in the U.S. dollar and now out of the euro because Europe has taken a similar measure.

Yes, that's a huge deal for those companies. How far-reaching they are, though, it's definitely a long-term process. That's what the U.S. wants to do more of, it says, and we expect to hear more of that today. It's going be sectoral sanctions, as they describe it, affecting things like the energy industry, military operations and equipment flowing back and forth.

But keep in mind, the U.S. doesn't do a lot of trade with Russia. And even when you look at bans on arms deals -- and keep in mind these are just new arms deals that Europe has now banned with Russia -- there's not a huge amount of trade between those two entities in general. So I think it's possible to say, yes, this is a step and in some ways it's a big step, but it's also possible look at this with a kind of cynical eye and say really what is this going to do now?

You can look at it in the long term, and that kind of economic isolation is a big deal to Putin. It is a big deal to people who are powerful and have money in Russia. But the U.S. admits again and again that, no, these sanctions which seem to be the West's only option at this point short of military involvement, which is clearly off the table, they aren't having any effect on changing Putin's calculus.

BALDWIN: OK.

So as we wait for the president to talk about Ukraine, Jill Dougherty, let me just go back to original point, because I would love to hear your perspective having covered Putin and Moscow and Russia for year and years. As we are hearing these reports from U.S. intelligence that, yes, indeed, you have the Ukrainian military fighting and gaining ground in Eastern Ukraine against these pro-Russian rebels and these ballistic missiles or these short-range missiles that the U.S. says that Ukrainian military indeed fired, the foreign minister denying this, what's Putin's response to all of this? JILL DOUGHERTY, HARVARD KENNEDY SCHOOL OF GOVERNMENT: You know,

what's going on right now, I think, Brooke, is a great example of the confusion, the charges and the countercharges.

But the real fear right now is that Russia might, even at this point, go into Ukraine. And there have been messages, obviously, Secretary Kerry saying that if Russia did move into Ukraine, and this is not just Crimea, we're talking into Eastern Ukraine, that there would be complete isolation.

There's a great deal of concern as you look at this fighting. It's getting more and more serious. More and more heavy weapons are coming in, and this latest example of the charges about ballistic missiles being used by the Ukrainians. There's more concern that this is going to, if it hasn't already, spin out of control and that will encourage Vladimir Putin to come in and defend the rights of Russian speakers in Ukraine. It's very dangerous.

BALDWIN: Jill Dougherty, Michelle Kosinski and Nick Paton Walsh, can I get just all three of you to stand by as we wait for the president?

Quick break. You're watching CNN's special coverage. We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Coming up on live pictures of the South Lawn there at the White House. We're still waiting for President Obama.

We do know he will speak specifically about Ukraine, presumably about additional U.S. sanctions against Russia. We don't know that for sure. We're watching. We're waiting. That's one conflict we're following in one part of the world.

Let me pivot to another, Mideast, Israel striking hard at symbols of Hamas power in Gaza, a building housing several media companies including a radio station hit. The night sky illuminated. More people running. More people displaced. A power station spewing heavy black smoke after taking a hit here.

This, what you're look at, is the only power plant in Gaza and officials say it could be another year before it is back online.

Let me bring in senior military analyst Colonel Peter Mansoor.

Colonel, welcome back to the show.

And just let's begin with just talking through the kinds of pictures we have seen over Gaza. And just walk me through the strategy, because we know Israel chooses a target, waits for the night to fall, sends in these illumination flares, and then what?

COL. PETER MANSOOR (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, that's a good question, because Israel hasn't allowed embedded reporters with its tactical units. We don't know how discriminate they have been in the use of firepower. The closest thing we can compare it to is for the battle for Fallujah

in 2004, when thousands of U.S. and Iraqi forces cleared the city, but they used a great deal of discrimination in their tactics. And given the amount of firepower and the level of civilian casualties in Gaza, it's an open question how discriminate Israeli forces have been.

But to the strategy, it's clear that recent events have been a major escalation by Israel. Up to now, they have hit military targets, but what we have seen today is they are hitting political targets, economic targets and informational targets.

It's a signal by the Israeli government that they will continue this campaign and they will extend it until Hamas gives in.

BALDWIN: You mentioned extending it. We heard from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The word he used was protracted, as in the military campaign will last a while. In addition to taking out those tunnels, they are striking power plants, the homes of political leaders.

I mean, ultimately, isn't the goal, if you're talking to Israel, really to decapitate Hamas?

MANSOOR: Well, I think the goal of Israel is to force Hamas to recognize the state of Israel and to disarm.

Those are very lofty goals, and I don't think they will be achieved in a military sense. But that is the goal of the Israeli campaign and it's the reason, I think, that the prime minister of Israel has extended the target list well beyond the initial target set, which, again, was sharply focused on military targets, the rocket sites, the tunnels and so forth.

But now you're hitting power plants. You're hitting politicians' homes. You're hitting TV stations. This is a major escalation. And again they are going to continue this until they get what they want or until Israel unilaterally decides to disengage, as it did in Operation Cast Lead back in 2009.

BALDWIN: On the other side, Colonel, Hamas, clearly, they are outgunned. What's their strategy here?

MANSOOR: Well, their strategy is to fight Israel and to show the Arab world and the Palestinian people that they are standing up to Israel and that they are trying to do their best to carry the good fight forward, the good fight in their view.

In the meantime, every Palestinian civilian that's killed drives more Palestinians into their camp. When you have this kind of bloodshed, you already have massive poverty in Gaza, and with all of this humanitarian wreckage, it actually increases political support for Hamas.

And so they have no incentive right now to agree to a cease-fire, at least as long as their arsenal of rockets remains intact.

BALDWIN: Colonel Peter Mansoor, thank you.

From one part of the world to the other, we watched what's happening in Ukraine and Russia. We are watching the White House.