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Obama Administration Considering U.S. Air Strikes in Iraq; Entire Country of Liberia Now Under a State of Emergency

Aired August 07, 2014 - 14:00   ET

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

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR, SITUATION ROOM: Thanks very much in watching. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. NEWSROOM with Brooke Baldwin starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: You're watching CNN and I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Let's begin with this breaking news specifically out of Iraq, as we come to you right now live. The big question at this hour, is the U.S. about to conduct air strikes on Iraq? The Pentagon is confirming to us, it is considering making emergency air drops. These humanitarian air drops, to be precise, food, water, for people of northern Iraq. But a state department source tells CNN, it is also keeping the door open to quote, unquote, "other military options." What does that mean? The White House has yet to be more specific. We'll get into that in a moment.

Here's the backdrop. This is what you need to know. All of this comes as religious minorities are on the run in the northern part of the country. Christians, Shia Muslims, others, forced out of their homes, out of their villages, as brutal ISIS militants, these terrorists, are storming through all of these different towns, and with these people with nowhere to go, they're fleeing into the mountains, where we're told some 40,000 people are now without food and medicine and water. Dozens of children are dying in the sweltering heat, women being sold into slavery, and now new reports that 500 men have been slaughtered.

Let's go straight to the White House to our senior correspondent there, Jim Acosta, who has just stepped out at that briefing.

And Jim Acosta, let's begin with that question. There was a bit of a back and forth with you and Josh Earnest. I was watching, trying to get him to confirm, to explain when they talk about those military options, does that mean air strikes? We didn't get anything.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: No, we did not, Brooke. And there are a couple reasons possibly for that. But you're right. Make no mistake, there was a lot of tap-dancing going on in that White House briefing room. But White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, did not want to say when I asked him directly whether or not military air strikes are on the table when it comes to dealing with this humanitarian crisis in northern Iraq, a situation that Josh Earnest described as a situation nearing a humanitarian catastrophe, saying that the White House is greatly concerned about the fate of those religious Yazidis and Christians who have taken refuge in the mountains in northern Iraq.

When I asked Josh Earnest whether or not the United States military might have something to do with this, militarily, to engage in some kind of air strikes or something to ensure that those humanitarian supplies could go in, here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY: Well, I'm not in a position to provide you a tactical assessment of the situation on the ground. What I can do is, I can give you some insight into the presidents thinking in general about the kinds of principles that would apply to contemplated military action. That would include no combat boots being put on the ground in Iraq. The president has been clear about that. And that principle continues to hold. The president has also been clear that any sort of military action that would be taken in Iraq would be very limited in scope and very specific to addressing a core American objective.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Now a couple of important things to remember here. You heard Josh Earnest lay out some of the key principles the president has laid out in the last several weeks when it comes to dealing with ISIS, that there will be no boots on the ground, any military action would be limited in scope, that all remains the case. And Josh Earnest confirmed as much during this briefing. And so that's an indication that, yes, they're considering this.

But at the same time, Brooke, I want to caution you, back in June, you recall the president was in the oval office when it looked like Baghdad might fall, and the president was saying there might be -- there might be some short-term military things that need to be done immediately to stop that from happening. And then Baghdad did not fall, and the U.S. did not conduct air strikes. So it is possible that the White House is taking a wait and sees on this.

The other thing that we should point out is that Josh Earnest laid out a humanitarian component in all of this. If this humanitarian crisis reaches a point where they have to go in militarily or else these people will be slaughtered, that changes the calculus here.

You'll recall back in 2011, the United States and allies conducted air strikes in Libya. That was to prevent a humanitarian crisis in Benghazi. That was something that Josh Earnest talked about during his briefing as being one of the moving parts they're looking at in all of this.

The other thing we want to keep in mind, the reason why you did not hear Josh confirm this one way or the other, there is a possibility that he was waiting to see if perhaps the president or somebody else may be coming out later in the day or in the coming days to talk more about this, and in many cases like this, the press secretary does not want to get in front of the president, just another word of caution as to why we were hearing so much tap-dancing in that briefing room, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Understandably so. But he was very clear in saying that the situation in Iraq nearing a humanitarian catastrophe.

Jim Acosta, thank you so much, at the White House for us today.

Here's just a little bit more information, as we're talking about these different religious minorities caught in the middle of this. Let's talk about -- let's focus on the Yazidis. Because for generations, the Yazidis have lived in the northern Iraqi town of Sinjar. And so, this weekend, these terrorists, is militants, pushed through their town, forcing these Yazidis to flee to nearby mountains where they are now essentially stuck. They are living in these makeshift camps, their plight part of what is drawing international attention.

So let's go to Ivan Watson. He is in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil.

And Ivan, let's just begin with these what, 40,000 -- latest number I heard, men, women, children, stuck on the top of the mountain, and ISIS is right there, at the base.

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I've gotten all of this information from Kurdish officials. The numbers of people stranded there vary. But it seems to be in the thousands. The Kurdish authorities here are telling us that people have been dying as a result of exposure to the elements, the temperatures here in Iraq in August soaring above 100 degrees. They're dying as a result of exposure, no water, no food.

As of this morning, there had been some air drops of the humanitarian supplies. There was also an effort to get some Kurdish militia fighters to push through the ISIS front lines to reach these people, to help them. There are some, I'm told, Kurdish (INAUDIBLE) fighters with the stranded Yazidis that are trying to protect them. But their ammunition levels are running low, and the Kurdish authorities here say they are outgunned, their fighters, due to the fact the ISIS militants are using heavy weapons that they captured from the Iraqi army two months ago, heavy weapons supplied by the U.S. government -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Ivan, what is happening? The thousands are fleeing, but some are staying behind in these villages that are being taken by ISIS? And ISIS is essentially giving them a choice. Are they not, as far as converting to Islam or what?

WATSON: Let me just tell you what I've been seeing today here in Irbil. A stream of civilians, families, packed into trucks, into cars, traveling on foot, carrying babies, children. Some of these people walked overnight. And they're fleeing their villages, fleeing their towns, after ISIS mounted an offensive, reportedly on a number of different towns and villages that had been controlled by the Kurdish Peshmerga, and that Peshmerga of militia has been pushed out of. And as they pulled back, so have some of these civilians, at least 10,000 people passing through one border gate into this Kurdish- controlled city within the last 24 hours alone. And the common thread is that these people come from religious or ethnic minorities.

So they are the Yazidis. They are Christians. They are Shiites, as well. And they say that they -- their lives are at risk for fear that the is militants, who see them as a postage, who see them as unbelievers, could kill them simply because they're not sunny Muslims who adhere to the strict interpretation of Islam that ISIS militants have. So these people who fled to this city in the past 24 hours, they're sleeping in the open tonight. They are sleeping quite literally in the parking lots of gas stations and unfinished construction sites. It's a dramatic situation.

BALDWIN: Ivan Watson, thank you so much for sharing the pictures. Again, the White House announcing they will provide humanitarian air drops and considering military solutions. That's as far as we know right now.

Ivan, thank you so much.

Let's go straight to CNN international's Michael Holmes, who knows Iraq very, very well. He's been to Iraq every year of the war, most recently this past January.

And Michael, you know, you said you have seen this yourself. These religious minorities, Christians, others, they were, you know, they have been oppressed after Saddam Hussein fell because beforehand, they were actually protected by the dictators. Why?

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's exactly right. You know, it's such a tragedy what is happening, not just because the Christian community in Iraq is one of the oldest continuous Christian communities in the world. We should point out. And yes, before the 2003 U.S. invasion, there was something like one and a half million Christians in Iraq. It was five percent of the population.

But under Saddam Hussein, as we see in Syria, too, under Bashar Al- Assad, the dictators protected the Christian communities and their freedom of religion. In return, if you like, for their support, for not getting in the way.

Now, when Saddam Hussein fell, it didn't take long. I think it was like by 2008 or something, Christians numbered 400,000 instead of 1.5 million. Now I think the number is under 200,000.

When I was there in 2011, I did a story on Christian community there, and the priest at the church we filmed at, he had been kidnapped. Almost as soon as Saddam went, there was oppression, there was intimidation, there was murder and kidnapping. So yes, pretty much once the dictators left, they were on their own. This is worse, though. This is much, much worse, what's happening up in the north.

BALDWIN: Can you just -- when we look at and hear about the brutality from the ISIS militants, just given the brutality you saw for years, how does this compare?

HOLMES: Well, I mean, this is worse, because of how brutal ISIS is. What was happening after Saddam fell was it was very much a sectarian thing, but it was more threatening. There were instances of kidnap and murder that went on and bombings of churches, as well. But what's happening with is, they have basically said, you know, you convert on the spot or you pay a fine or you leave.

Now, last month, the fine went out the window. So now you leave or we will kill you. And they will kill you in horrible ways. We have seen them hung up from land posts, crucified, as well. These guys -- I mean, it just defies belief what these guys are like. And what they are doing right now.

BALDWIN: Exactly the point I was getting at with Ivan Watson in Iraq.

Michael Holmes, thank you.

We'll have much more on this in just a moment, all of the breaking news out of Iraq. But let's get to another breaking story right now. Because as Russia is building its troops along the Ukrainian border, Ukraine now is propping that pro-Russian rebels have just shot down another fighter jet. And we're hearing the missile came from that very same system that took down Malaysian airlines flight 17.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: We heard from the White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, just a little while ago, speaking on what he called the near catastrophic humanitarian situation that is happening there. A lot of religious minority groups, thousands of them. It is hard to precise on the number of fleeing the northern part of Iraq. And many of whom are stuck on top of a mountain, because of the militant organization called ISIS.

Jim Sciutto, our chief national security correspondent, let me bring you in. Because I was just talking to Jim Acosta from the White House, and he was really trying to press Josh Earnest on, you know, White House also talking about weighing possible military options, but was not specific. Would not, you know, put air strikes on the table. You have some information on this. Go ahead.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brooke, we can now report that the Obama administration is considering U.S. air strikes in Iraq. This is from the U.S. official. This U.S. official also tells me that strikes are something the administration had been considering for some time. In the latest developments in Iraq, might now meet that threshold. So not decided yet, but something that is very much on the table.

What are those latest developments that have changed the calculus here? One, you reference, Brooke, the situation of this religious minority, the Yazidis, tens of thousands of them, stuck on a hilltop in Iraq, under threat of a massacre. This is one. But also ISIS' advance and holding of territory in Iraq.

We learned today that ISIS has again taken over the key Mosul dam that supplies electricity to the city of Mosul, which has become the capital of its Islamic caliphate in Iraq. Because of that advance, because of the threats to the Yazidis, that now has the administration considering these air strikes on Iraq now, Brooke.

And I can also tell you this, that the administration is considering a number of options, one of them is the air drop of humanitarian aid to the Yazidis, because as they are under threat of a massacre from Isis forces, they are now surrounding them in northern Iraq. They're also starving to death. They don't have any water. They are considering an aid drop. And Brooke, they are also considering the possibility of how they would open up a humanitarian corridor, in effect, to get the Yazidis from this one oasis of safety they found to safer ground Kurdish control areas in the north of Iraq.

So, you have a lot of steps the administration is taking. But this is a measurable step forward here, Brooke, for the administration to be considering now U.S. air strikes in Iraq, something as you know, the president said he would not do a few months ago.

BALDWIN: Yes. And Josh Earnest at the White House, just a little while, it is very clear saying, you know, listen, this problem, these Iraqi problems, they are problems the reaction need to solve. These are not problems the Americans would solve. It seems that this new information just eking out, thanks to you and your sources. I'm going to guess that we have no idea as far as a timetable, be it the humanitarian air drops or possible air strikes?

SCIUTTO: We don't. I would say humanitarian air drops more immediate. There is an immediate need there. And they're looking at steps to establish this humanitarian corridor. There is no time frame on air strikes. So on U.S. air strikes if the president decides to exercise this option. And that's what it is now, an option.

But I will tell you, you know, the developments are moving very quickly on the ground in Iraq. It is one ISIS has advanced. They have taken over this power plant, this dam, this key dam near Mosul.

But in addition, you have, you know, thousands of Yazidis under threat of death now. And Brooke, you and I have talked about this before. We have seen what ISIS can do when it is left to its own devices. It slaughters innocents. It does not hesitate at all, and it's that urgency that may have put air strikes to pass this threshold, in effect, for ordering air strikes.

BALDWIN: Let's stay in close contact. You keep that phone close by. And as soon as you get new information, this is fast moving, just hop back on TV and we'll get you on the show. We just want to make sure we get the freshest information out there. Jim, thank you.

SCIUTTO: Will do.

BALDWIN: Let's talk now the breaking news out of Eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian government counterterrorism official says pro-Russian militants have shot down a Ukrainian fighter jet. According to preliminary reports, that indicates it was downed using a Russian-made surface-to-air missile system.

So let's get straight to CNN's senior international correspondent, Nick Paton Walsh, in Donetsk, Ukraine. And Nick, tell me more. NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, this

is supposed to have happened near a town called (INAUDIBLE) which is the north of the crash site of MH-17, where investigations are now at a halt, owing to the violence swelling around it.

Now, what's key, though, is the type of missile system the Ukrainian counter terror officials claim was used. That's the BUK, the same one that they say took MH-17 out of the sky. Now, downing the Ukrainian jet in this very violent war isn't particularly rare, but they use that missile system as they are bit trying link all these events together.

And Brooke, it comes on an extraordinarily busy day here. Where I'm sat now, we have been hearing small arms fire, this morning at dawn, heavy artillery on the outskirts of town, and a bizarre political development, too. The separatists' leader, haven't seen him around for a while. But he popped up today to announce his resolution, saying he was going to leave the post of self-declared prime minister, what they call the Donetsk People's Republic and hand it over to a man we hadn't heard of before, a militant leader who even Russian journalists asked, what's your biography, what have you done before this -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: So that was the news that happened today. We saw him being interviewed when Chris Cuomo was over there. Now, he is out. I guess my follow-up to you, because, you know, we have been talking so long with investigators trying to get into the crash site area and you said so many times they can't, because there is a war going on and we know that Ukraine ended the cease-fire right around that MH-17 crash site. What was the jet part of this renewed attack on the rebels in that area?

WALSH: Well, they have been using jets for quite some time. We don't know what it was doing in the sky. But we know that, really, the chance of investigators getting into the site for weeks possibly ahead is almost zero.

The Dutch have gone home. It seems or pulled back away from the site itself and even the monitors who are helping them get there, they're coming down in number too, and changing the focus their mission away from access the crash site back to monitoring this conflict here.

People feel, I think, particularly, given the political announcement here in Donetsk, we're entering a new phase, either it is the end of the separatist militants or is that final fight they are trying to hold on to territory.

All eyes still on Moscow, though, what its next call is going to be. It's got 20,000 troops, just on the other side of the border. The U.S. very worried. They're mobile enough to intervene. No one is quite sure what Putin's real idea or ambition is here. But we're into a very complex few days ahead, Brooke.

BALDWIN: All eyes on Moscow, wondering what Vladimir Putin is up to behind the scenes.

Nick Paton Walsh, thank you for your reporting there, for the many recent weeks in Ukraine.

More on our breaking news as the U.S. is considering air strikes in Iraq, as just reported by Jim Sciutto, as these ISIS militants are terrorizing religious minorities.

But also right now, the head of the CDC testing there in Washington on Capitol Hill, about the deadly Ebola outbreak. And this comes as the crisis has sparked the highest alert.

There is a lot going on, on this Thursday. Stay right with me. More on breaking news on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Just back to our breaking news here out of CNN on the situation in this Iraq.

The White House officially considering air strikes there, as militants tell thousands of religious minorities, convert or die. We'll discuss all angles for you, first.

But first, happening right now, the threat of the Ebola epidemic taking lives across the world, it is being debated, as I speak, on Capitol Hill. In fact, a top U.S. health official is about to testify at this special congressional hearing on this current crisis. And at the centers for disease control and prevention, it is high alert, now a level one emergency. This is the highest level in response to the Ebola outbreak. What does that mean? All hands on deck, at the emergency operations center.

Meantime, in Africa, the entire country of Liberia is now under a state of emergency. In response to that, we are hearing its neighbor, Sierra Leone, is putting up army blockades around some of the worst- hit areas, essentially quarantining these patients who are fighting for their lives.

So joining me right now, from Free Town, Sierra Leone is Oliver Johnson, a British doctor, who is treating Ebola patients in that country.

Dr. Johnson, welcome and thank you so much for just taking a minute to talk to me. I'm sure you are busy, busy. But what we are getting from the national institute of health, they're calling this, and I'm just quoting, they're calling this an epidemic out of control. You're there, is that what you're seeing?

DOCTOR OLIVER JOHNSON, TREATING EBOLA VICTIMS IN SIERRA LEONE: I think what we have seen in Sierra Leone is a much bigger outbreak than any of us were expecting. And for us, this has been going on since late February when the first case was identified in Guinea. And I think we thought we might see a few sporadic cases. I don't think anyone anticipated we would be seeing in many years as we have done over the last six months.

That said, at the moment, I think things are stable. And the international response is really getting into gear now. It's a much bigger response every day. So I think we're starting to get an increasing grip of this outbreak.

BALDWIN: Just talking to a doctor from Boston, who is preparing one of about two dozen to head over to help contain this epidemic. But Dr. Johnson, we were just reporting on these blockades, some of the rural areas that have been hit with this Ebola outbreak. How are authorities handling this? Do you think this took them too long?

JOHNSON: I think it was a very quick initial response from the ministry. The minister of health set up an emergency task force within days of the first case being found in Guinea and there was some initial preparations. I think what took it longer was the international response. So it's really only now we're seeing major shipments from the Red Cross, and other organizations arriving in the country.

The CDC team itself has had a small presence. But is really only now that the U.S. CDC is coming out to Sierra Leone. So I think it is the international community has been bit support the Sierra Leone government.

But in out writing, which is good news. And I think now we're going to see a significant shift in the response. But I think the news last week (INAUDIBLE), to declare a state of national emergency has shifted this from being an important issue to being the issue in Sierra Leone right now. Is what we are talking about on the streets. Every ministry of government is focusing on supporting this response, army, police, schools, information. So I think what we're seeing is a whole government response, and all of the organizations here coming together to support the government with that.

BALDWIN: I just have to say something. I read an interview with you, where a lot of us here far away from Sierra Leone don't really know what Ebola looks like. And you had something that surprised me, which basically said to the effect, just about until the very end if someone has it, is dying of Ebola, they look relatively healthy.

JOHNSON: I think we are seeing a whole mixture of different responses from with Ebola. But I think in our mind, and certainly even a doctor, I my mind among others training I imagine Ebola to be like graphic disease and a lot of bleeding and so one.