Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Middle East Cease-Fire Holding; U.S. General Killed in Afghanistan; Torture Report Delayed

Aired August 06, 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 we continue on. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Have to begin with the Middle East. That cease-fire, it is holding still today. This is day two for the cease-fire. But moments ago, we heard from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Here he was from Jerusalem addressing a room full of reporters, full of journalists, and said that the cease-fire plan is the very same one that Hamas rejected back on July 15. He said that makes Hamas responsible for nearly all the deaths in Gaza.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: Ninety percent, a full 90 percent of the fatalities in this conflict could have been avoided had Hamas not rejected then the cease-fire that it accepts now. Hamas must be held accountable for the tragic loss of life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: That truce formally ends this Friday morning, and really the big story out of the Middle East today, the talks now beginning in Egypt to try to cement this cease-fire, to extend the cease-fire.

Hamas is there, the PLO is there, Islamic Jihad is there. Those are the three big factions out of Gaza. Of course, the Israelis are there. And Egypt is mediating. Officials in Gaza say the month of Israeli attacks from air, land and sea caused $5 billion worth of damage. All of these estimates, by the way, run in the billions.

And it's unclear now whether restoring Gaza is up for discussion there in Cairo. Throughout this conflict, we have shown you not only the death and destruction out of Gaza. We have shown you how Hamas was firing rockets from Gaza at Israel.

In fact, we showed you this very picture. These are rockets being fired from Gaza, from an incredibly populated area, just as Israel has said. But now we have this today. Watch this closely. This is this journalist from his hotel room in Gaza peering out of this. You see this blue tent, right? And the comings and goings of this group of men who he has suspended were building a rocket.

At the very next morning, at the same site, we saw this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SREENIVASAN JAIN, JOURNALIST: So that's the rocket being fired today, morning, a day after it was assembled at the exact spot the rocket is being fired. That's the smoke. We just showed the video of it in the immediate aftermath.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: What you saw here, here's the journalist in the video. I talked to this man, this journalist, Sreenivasan Jain, at the top of last hour. I want you to just hear some of that conversation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAIN: We see the group of men walking in and out, very quiet, very assertive, doing something which looked pretty much -- they were running cables out of there.

We could see something protruding from the side of the tent. They covered the -- dismantled the tent. They covered it with a piece of shrubbery and walked away. And then the next morning, by a coincidence, this was the morning -- this was the countdown to the cease-fire -- 10 minutes before the cease-fire.

There was a boom and the rocket went off. And we managed to get that video as well. And then the two together was a dead clincher for us, and was pretty clear what we -- was the assembling and firing of a rocket, most likely by Hamas.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: That was Sreenivasan Jain on the phone with me from Israel. He had moved.

But just as a footnote to that story, Israel did not strike that rocket site outside of that reporter's hotel room as it did so many others. And as we showed you, it was next to a hotel where many international journalists were staying, to cover what's happening there.

Someone who is there covering the story for us here at CNN is Jake Tapper, live in Jerusalem for me right now.

And, Jake, I just want to turn the corner and ask you about a different strand of the story, because Israel is now saying it has this guy in custody. In fact, they're saying it is a senior member of Hamas in connection with the deaths, the kidnappings and deaths of those three Israeli teens back in June.

Can you tell me, just as far as the significance of that, what exactly is Israel saying about the suspect?

JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Israel and the Israeli government says that he's a senior member of Hamas, that he was not specifically one of the two suspects that Israel initially claimed and still says carried out the actual kidnappings and murders. But they say he is the brother of one of those individuals, and he

comes from a family, many of who the members are members of Hamas. They say that he has links -- not just links, they say, but he is a senior member of Hamas. It's all part of the Israeli government trying to make the case, as you saw Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, making the case for why those strikes were necessary in civilian areas, because so many rockets were launched from embedded within these population centers.

The war actually began on this premise of the -- of the search for these three boys, and, of course, a lot of people in Israel and abroad are saying, well, if you had this guy in custody for the last month, why are we only finding about it now?

And then there are other questions about the timeline, because, of course, once the tapes came out, it became pretty clear that Israel and the Israeli police knew that it was very likely that the boys were -- had been killed, even while they continued the intense search.

BALDWIN: There are questions about some of those facts, and when and why they didn't come out at certain times. Let me ask you this. Israel says it went into Gaza to stop the rocket attacks, which really sort of resumed in early July, after those three boys were kidnapped.

And yet we are hearing people saying, as you point out, that that absolutely triggered those kidnappings, this whole series of events because of that. But just to again underscore, we cannot say that conclusively.

TAPPER: Right.

And, look, I mean, if you talk to people on the street in Israel or elsewhere in this region, they will tell you, you know, only a little bit tongue in cheek that this is not a new war. This war has been going on since the 1800s. This is only the most recent explosion of it.

But, yes, I mean, the timeline is the three boys were kidnapped, and then Israel went into the West Bank, the Israeli military went into the West Bank, searching for them, even while there are questions about whether or not they knew they were already dead, they had already been killed. And there was a lot of arrests, a lot of interrogations.

That's when Hamas in Gaza started resuming the rocket attacks and then that's when Israel went back in ask started airstrikes and then a ground campaign in Gaza. That's the larger significance of this is whether or not -- why we're only finding out about this guy now. And Israel, of course, making the case again, look, this kidnapping was specifically -- kidnapping and murder was specifically a Hamas affair, again, making the case.

We don't know any of these -- any of these claims to be 100 percent true. We haven't seen evidence or proof. This is what the government is saying. BALDWIN: And, again, day two of a three-day cease-fire, very watching

closely those talks in Egypt to see if it's extended. Jake Tapper for us, thank you so much.

And just again, a reminder, please watch "THE LEAD." It's at the top of next hour. Jake will be live from Jerusalem again today 4:00 Eastern here on CNN, Jake Tapper there in Israel.

We are now getting some new details on this brazen attack that left U.S. Army Major General Harold Greene, left him dead. He was shot and killed at this military training facility in Afghanistan. And he is the most senior U.S. officer to be killed on the battlefield since Vietnam.

And now authorities say they think an Afghan soldier was the gunman and the way he carried out that attack is absolutely chilling. These are the details we're learning, that he was hiding in a bathroom, shooting out of this window some 100 yards away from this group at this facility.

So let's broaden out the conversation.

Chad Williams, a former Navy SEAL, and Nathan Hodge, a "Wall Street Journal" reporter for us in Kabul again today.

So, Nathan, let me just begin with you. Again, getting new information. Not only are we learning more about this major general. We're learning more about the shooting, 100 yards away. Do we know how many rounds?

NATHAN HODGE, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": We don't know exactly how many rounds, but what we're finding out now is that the shooter, we're told by Western officials, had served in the Afghan military for at least two years.

Yesterday, we were told by the Afghan Ministry of Defense that this was a terrorist in Afghan national army uniform, raising questions about whether or not this was, in fact, an insurgent infiltrator. The military today held a solemn ceremony for Major General Greene, what they called a ramp ceremony.

And we could hear a lot of helicopter traffic here today in Kabul as VIPs shuttled back and forth in this ceremony which was to honor Major General Greene before his remains were sent back home to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. So, again, the details are emerging. An investigation is ongoing.

But, certainly, the main question for everyone here is whether or not, as the coalition winds down its presence, and its footprint shrinks, whether these kinds of insider attacks present a heightened threat.

BALDWIN: You bring up the point about was he an infiltrator.

Chad, to you, when you hear just with your -- as a former Navy SEAL, when you hear, and we don't know the rounds, but the fact that this, you know, Afghan soldier, it's believed Afghan soldier shooting 100 yards away and hit perhaps a target, does that sound like it could be an assassination to you?

CHAD WILLIAMS, FORMER U.S. NAVY SEAL: Well, no doubt about it. It's pretty easy to take people out with an automatic machine gun from 100 yards away.

So I don't think it was a secret that the general was on base. Usually, there's a lot of commotion. A lot of guys will know, you know, that, hey, we have got somebody important arriving here. And I think this guy probably was waiting around for an opportune moment to take out somebody like that. And, really, this is just the concern and uncertainty of working with foreign forces.

You really never know when they might turn the weapon on you. And we're certainly a target that they want to attack.

BALDWIN: This is, as Nathan called it, sort of the Afghan version of West Point, training the next generation of leaders, officers for Afghanistan, as we hand this over, this mission over to them.

I was talking to Dan Rather, the legendary newsman Dan Rather, saying really there is no such thing as a safe place in Afghanistan. Do you agree with that?

WILLIAMS: Well, truthfully, I think that's kind of a false analogy. How can we really know that they are the equivalent of our officers? But, yes, there really is no safe place.

I remember, as we were preparing to go over there, some SEAL instructors that my team had, they were showing us a video, just kind of an eye-opener. You never know when one of these guys might turn on you. We were over in Iraq working with the foreign forces over there, and they had overheard one of the men was planning on turning the gun on our guys while on a shooting range.

So they removed the firing pin from his weapon. And as the guy went to the front line of the shooting range, he did turn his gun and try and take our guys out. Thankfully, there's no firing pin, so the rounds didn't go off, were able to apprehend him.

But this is just a real eye-opener. I remember my first encounter with the Iraqi special operations forces. These guys right from the get-go, they spotted me, they come running towards me. I think, oh, no, this is it. They're coming after me.

As it turns out, they had mistaken my identity. They thought that I was one of their buddies, my dark skin and beard, the complexion. They thought I blended in. But I started asking questions. Like, how do we know these guys aren't going to turn on us? And there really were no good answers.

So I think the best solution really would be to put a buffer between us and the majority of these forces by maybe working with a real minority of them, train up a minority of them, put them through a better screening process. It might, you know, bring about a little bit more sweat behind the desk, but it's better than shedding blood out there on the battlefield. And we will let them train each other. BALDWIN: Nathan, just on that point, and then we have got to go, but

as far as screening and training, I mean, everything I have heard about this, this assailant, he was screened. He was vetted five times over.

HODGE: Well, after this sort of outbreak of green on blue incidents in 2012, the Afghan military said that they had upped their vetting procedures, that they were doing a much better job of collecting information about people.

And what an Afghan senior security official told us today, they're concerned this is really going to erode trust, and it will make it much more difficult for them to have the important kinds of meetings that they need to have with their coalition counterparts so they can do their jobs.

BALDWIN: Nathan Hodge, thank you with "The Wall Street Journal" in Afghanistan. And, Chad Williams, thank you. And thank you for your service. Appreciate you very much.

WILLIAMS: Thank you.

BALDWIN: Coming up next, two Americans infected with Ebola now back on U.S. soil after getting this secret serum. But hundreds of other victims in Africa are still trying to battle their sickness without that kind of medication. We will talk to our next guest who wants to know why, why there isn't more of this Ebola secret serum and why it's not going to Africans.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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

Health workers in West Africa are struggling to contain this deadly Ebola virus, and that is definitely rattling some nerves around the world that this disease could affect other countries. The latest number we have as far as a death toll, it is 932. That is as of Monday.

And now Nigeria and Saudi Arabia have reported deaths suspected to be from Ebola as well. That would expand this. Spain said they will accept a priest who contracted the disease in Liberia for treatment. And when you look at the map, this helps understand where we're talking about. Liberia here is one of the three countries hit by the virus, Sierra Leone, Guinea also affected.

More than 1,700 cases reported in these areas. And it's Liberia where those two Americans initially had gotten sick, the two Americans who are being treated at Emory University, Emory Medical Center in Atlanta.

Today, I can tell you they are improving. And that may be because of this secret experimental drug, this serum they were given before returning to the U.S. They're getting additional doses, we're told, as well. It's called ZMAb. It's actually just been used on monkeys. It hadn't been tested on humans. Nor had it undergone any clinical trials.

But there apparently were only three doses available and those three doses were given to Westerners. And that is raising a lot of ethical questions about why. Who receives it and why is that? The World Health Organization will take up this issue in fact next week.

So Harriet Washington, she is a fellow at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas and she wrote this opinion piece for us on CNN.com, urging this drug to be made in quantity and given to infected West Africans in a trial.

So, Harriet, welcome. Thank you so much for joining me.

HARRIET WASHINGTON, UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA, LAS VEGAS: Hello, Brooke. Thank you for having me.

BALDWIN: You know, you bring up a point that I have certainly heard among friends of mine, just asking this question. You know, who is it to decide at the end of the day who lives, who dies, who gets this drug, if, in fact, it, you know, manages to help these Americans or not?

WASHINGTON: Right. Well, that is the obvious question.

And certainly, no one intends to with withhold the drug from Africans. But for economic and historical reasons, that is precisely what tends to happen. It's not an accident that they so far have not had access to it, which I hope will change as more becomes available.

There are economic reasons, a network which Westerners tend to have access, but not people from developing companies. That influences who gets scarce drugs.

BALDWIN: Let me flip the script, because we could be having, Harriet, a very different discussion if the headline instead were experimental drug only used in monkeys now being tested on West Africans.

I mean, I think that there would be outrage, that people would be saying they're being used as guinea pigs.

WASHINGTON: Well, those people would be wrong, because it happens all the time. We have to remember that the way our system of testing drugs is designed, someone, some people are always the first to get a drug.

And, increasingly, those people are people in the developing world, where now two out of every five clinical trials are being held in the developing world. So it's frequently the case that these people are the first to get a drug that's been tested in animals.

And that's perfectly acceptable. We have decided those are acceptable risks. What is important and what is not acceptable sometimes is the way in which the trials are administered and conducted.

BALDWIN: What about the drugmaker itself and the fact that, you know, this had only been tested, according to Sanjay Gupta, in monkeys and now this is the first time it's being used in humans? Your point just being that this happens; we just don't talk about it as often?

WASHINGTON: No, my point is that this is actually more akin to the normal course of things than it looks.

Our clinical trials are set up so that every drug that is tested in humans has to first be tested in animals. But if you think about it, some group of humans is always the first group to get the drug tested on them before any other humans. So there's always a case that there are -- there are people who are initially tested.

The questions arise when who these people are seems to be a product of some kind of bias, whether it's intentional or economic or some other kind of bias, and when the testing violates ethical principles that are very well-entrenched, like informed consent.

What we are frequently hearing about in the Third World are trials where there is not informed consent, as we would expect to have, in Connecticut, someone explain to us, according to our laws, what the drug is, what the known side effects are, what the possible results of taking the drug are, all the possible options of taking the drug.

These are very carefully spelled out in our law in the code of federal regulations. But once researchers begin testing drugs abroad, all too often, these rules fall by the wayside. And there's not as much oversight. So it's easy to cut corners abroad. That is actually the problem, not the fact that some group of people become the first group to get the medication.

BALDWIN: I got it. I hear you. And to your point, listen, hopefully these Americans are fine and hopefully the serum works and hopefully they're able to mass produce it for all of these people so in need in West Africa. Harriet Washington, thank you.

And let me just point our viewers to read your column. Just go to CNN.com/opinion.

We have much more on this deadly Ebola outbreak later this hour. You will hear from this American. He says he survived Ebola 40 years ago before it was even -- had a name, before it was even called Ebola. He sat down with CNN and he will explain his systems and what he did to survive.

Plus, a delay of the so-called torture report about the CIA. Now the Senate Intelligence Committee chair, she's crying foul, sending a letter to the White House, asking for major changes. What does the senator want and how is President Barack Obama responding? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: You are watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, she is standing firm in her battle with the CIA and the White House. She is fighting over her Senate Intelligence Committee's report on the CIA's use of torture. The report, which, by the way, is years in the making, was supposed to be released this week.

Feinstein is holding it up. She says the CIA blacked out, redacted too much of the report's findings.

Let me quote her. In this statement, Senator Feinstein says this: "I have concluded the redactions eliminate or obscure key facts that support the report's findings and conclusions." She goes on: "Until these redactions are addressed to the committee's satisfaction, the report will not be made public."

To Washington we go to our CNN chief political correspondent, "STATE OF THE UNION" host Candy Crowley.

Candy, there is no secret here. Even the president said last week that we tortured folks. This is some -- the report is like 6,000 pages. It cost taxpayers a lot of money. What is she really looking for?

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I think right now in the current push, what they most want is not to have this become part of the political partisan back and forth. It may be too late for that.

But when you read her statement, it says, look, a lot of the facts that we used to draw our conclusions have been blacked out. And then, of course, what would happen? Well, the conclusions would be open to interpretation.

Well, where was this, where was that? Additionally, what we are led to believe is that the use of torture was more widespread than the general public was led to believe, that it was more brutal than the public has been led to believe. We obviously have to wait for the report. But it's not just about that.

It's also about taking prisoners and sending them to other countries to be tortured. There's a number of things that happened post-9/11 at the CIA that this committee has looked at. So what she is looking for is to be able to say, we got this -- used these two facts and came up with this conclusion to try to take some of the politics out of it.

But, as you know, Brooke, that's all but impossible.

BALDWIN: Midterms around the corner. I hear you loud and clear on that, Candy Crowley.

But let me ask you this. The torture, Candy, it was carried out during the Bush years, not exactly a moment of pride. Here's one of the statements the president made Friday when he publicly admitted that the U.S. tortured people.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And when we engaged in some of these enhanced interrogation techniques, techniques that I believe and I think any fair-minded person would believe were torture, we crossed a line. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Feinstein is the head of the Senate Intel Committee, but there is no love lost between her committee and the agency.

CROWLEY: No. There isn't.

She heads a committee that is supposed to have oversight of -- the committee. They have been in a nasty fight, which only ended last week, where the committee accused the CIA of spying on it. It was complicated. The CIA apologized last week.

But, look, here's what I thought was really interesting about what the president said. And here's what I think the fighting is and you begin to understand both sides. The president said, but, you know what, let's not get on our high horse and judge those who post-9/11 didn't know what was coming, when, where it was coming from, the urgency that they felt, the pressure that they felt to find something before something happened again. Let's not judge what it was like in that time.

So -- and you also see the president and others, not essentially trying to protect the CIA, but, you know, it matters. They matter. They're doing tough stuff. So they don't want to deflate an agency for what may have been, and what appears to have been, clearly, some -- some real heavy-handedness, some real torture here.