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U.S. Conducts Air Strikes on Iraq; Thousands Have Fled to Mount Sinjar; Congress Wants to Guard Against Mission Creep

Aired August 08, 2014 - 09:00   ET

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

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, good morning, everyone. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. We do start this hour with breaking news out of Iraq.

The airstrikes President Obama authorized just hours ago have now begun.

Let's begin with White House correspondent Jim Acosta.

Jim, what can you tell us?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, what we can tell you is that in just the last several minutes the Pentagon press secretary, Rear Admiral John Kirby, announced on Twitter, basically announcing on behalf of the U.S. government, that the airstrikes have begun in Iraq. Rear Admiral John Kirby saying on Twitter, "U.S. military aircraft conduct strike on ISIS artillery." That artillery according to that tweet was used against Kurdish forces defending Erbil near U.S. personnel.

Carol, the last part of that is critical because as we've been hearing from White House officials and as the president said last night, when he sent those U.S. military advisers in to Iraq back in June, he made it very clear at the time and officials have made it clear since then that were those U.S. personnel to come under threat, that the U.S. would launch airstrikes or take action, and that is what has occurred. At the same time, the White House is making it pretty clear that they are also keeping a very keen eye on a potential humanitarian catastrophe, really a real humanitarian catastrophe that is unfolding.

And now White House officials and administration officials right up to Secretary of State John Kerry are saying that this could be a genocide, those 40,000 some-odd Yazidis, that ethnic religious minority sect that is really taking refuge in those mountains in northern Iraq. They're trying to really avoid being slaughtered by ISIS fighters, who have said they have to convert to their form of Islam or die.

The White House is also saying that if it's necessary to take strikes against ISIS positions to defend those people, to end that siege, that that is also necessary. Now one thing that we should point out, it was on a background call with reporters here at the White House, senior administration officials were really describing this as a limited campaign, that this is not going to be a long, sustained campaign, but really, you know, Carol, to be quite honest with you, there were some mixed messages in that conference call last night as to how long this will go on.

We should point out that the president is scheduled to leave for a vacation in Martha's Vineyard tomorrow. According to White House officials, that is still going to take place but he will be taking national security advisers with him on this trip to keep him up to speed on what is happening on the ground in Iraq.

It is changing literally hour by hour, Carol, and that may really guide what the president decides to do next along with the U.S. military -- Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Jim Acosta, stand by. Thanks so much.

I want to go to Colonel Rick Francona right now. He's our military analyst. He also advised General Schwarzkopf during the Gulf War so he knows what he's talking about.

How dangerous is this mission?

LT. COL. RICK FRANCONA, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: I think it's the right mission. There will be an element of danger there but -- and it's really interesting that ISIS chose this target right after the president announces that we're going to defend Erbil. They have artillery strikes on Kurdish positions around Erbil. It might have been a test to see if the president meant what he said and obviously he did because they're taking out those artillery now.

Artillery is a good target to hit with the laser guided weapon. It's fairly easy target to hit and it really sends a message. This is -- this is I think the right move.

COSTELLO: All right. Let's go to Barbara Starr, our Pentagon correspondent, because I was curious as who what weapons ISIS had to fight back.

Barbara, do you know the answer to that?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Carol, by all accounts they do have these artillery pieces, they have heavy weapons. The belief is also that they may have some limited shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles and rockets, whether they could reach to the altitude that U.S. military war planes would be flying at I think is pretty doubtful at this point.

What we know is two F-18s off the deck of the carrier George Bush out in the Persian Gulf were patrolling over Iraq, came in and had the mission to take out this ISIS artillery piece. As Rick Francona was just saying it's a difficult target set to be able to isolate and know exactly what you're hitting. There are so many civilians in the area. But this artillery piece they could identify. They knew that it was -- they say that it was shelling Kurdish personnel near where the U.S. personnel are and that was the concern, that's the president's red line, protecting U.S. personnel, diplomatic and military in Erbil. I think it is very fair to say there are likely to be more of these

so-called limited strikes because they have laid out two sort of rationales as of last night for doing them. Protecting the U.S. personnel in Erbil from the ISIS advance, but also potentially airstrikes against ISIS, which is advancing on those Iraqi minorities that are trapped up in that mountain area in northern Iraq.

You know, where does it all end? I think the calculation now by the intelligence community is going to be how much fire power does ISIS really have, how do we get to their personnel, what do we do, what are the threats that they pose? All of these questions now are being debated in Washington, a real possibility of more airstrikes to come -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Yes, when you talk about Erbil, the U.S. consulate that's in Erbil, and that's where these Americans are that President Obama is trying to protect. There's also, what, 750 American troops on the ground in Iraq? Some of them are advising the rather inept Iraqi military and the others are doing what, Barbara?

STARR: There are a number of other personnel. You're absolutely right, back down around Baghdad, others advising the Iraqi military on this fight. A number of them at the embassy in Baghdad conducting security, regular embassy missions, but also beefed up in recent weeks due to the security situation. There is another American military contingent at Baghdad airport, also conducting security and clearly ready to move all the capability to evacuate Americans, these American personnel, out of Iraq if it comes to that.

The U.S. has been watching northern Iraq and the ISIS advance for some time. Erbil, a bit of a surprise. They thought Erbil was going to hold with Kurdish control, but they are watching down in Baghdad as well. They know that ISIS continues to march towards Baghdad and a good deal of concern to make sure everything is in place to protect the Americans who are there.

The linchpin for any military action by the U.S. is very likely to be the aircraft carrier Bush. It's got F-18s on board. They can patrol 24/7 over Iraq fully armed in addition to reconnaissance aircraft, gathering intelligence, looking at where their targets are, looking at where the threats are, and those F-18s can move in very, very quickly to strike when ordered. So it's going to be the George W. Bush aircraft carrier -- the George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier that is the thing to watch right now for any further action.

COSTELLO: All right, Barbara, thank you. Stand by.

I want to go to Paul Cruickshank, our CNN terror analyst, to talk about this terrible, brutal terrorist group ISIS that's creating this havoc within Iraq.

I have heard that ISIS has a well-organized military per se, 10,000 soldiers. I've heard they're also well-armed and well-financed. How difficult will it be to contain them?

PAUL CRUICKSHANK, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Extremely difficult, Carol. They're not only advancing in Iraq right now but also in Syria. This is a stronger and stronger group. They have significant cash resources, tens of millions of dollars, thousands of fighters and they're really surging in these two countries right now.

COSTELLO: And where are they getting their weapons? I've heard that they've stolen American-made weapons from the Kurds, the Peshmerga, who were friends of the United States, frankly.

CRUICKSHANK: Absolutely, they're getting their weapons, the American weapons which were given to the Iraqi military, weapons that they've seized in Syria as well, and they're using these now in this campaign.

COSTELLO: All right. I want to go to Matt Hoh right now. Do we have Matt? He's a former Marine Corps Captain who served in Iraq.

Welcome, Captain Hoh.

Matt, when you look at what's going on in Iraq right now, what goes through your mind?

MATTHEW HOH, FORMER MARINE CORPS CAPTAIN IN IRAQ: Good morning, Carol. Thank you for having me on. I think it's a mistake and I think the White House and the president said it best yesterday when they said and the president said American military action is not a solution for Iraq's political problems and what we see here is we see an organization, ISIS, that is being supported by the Sunni population, and that's what worries me. It's not the fact that they've gotten these weapons from the Iraqi army, it's that they are getting support from the Sunnis.

So when we say the Kurds versus ISIS or the Shia versus ISIS, it's really the Shia versus Sunnis, the Kurds versus Sunnis. So what my fear is, is this. When we enter this conflict, when we start bombing on behalf of the Kurds or behalf of the Shia, that plays right into ISIS' propaganda. That plays right into their narrative of the west being involved with these other sects against Sunnis.

What we should be trying to do is separate the Sunni population of Shia -- from ISIS. I'm sorry. I'm afraid, though, by bombing ISIS -- so by bombing Sunnis, we are reinforcing that narrative, and we are pushing the Sunni population further towards ISIS, making them reach out to them. We've seen for a long time now the Sunnis feeling disenfranchised, feeling marginalized in Iraq --

(CROSSTALK)

COSTELLO: Matt, I'm going to have to interrupt you for just one second.

HOH: Sure.

COSTELLO: Our Pentagon correspondent just Barbara Starr got new information about the kinds of bombs we're dropping from the skies over Iraq.

Tell us, Barbara. STARR: Carol, we're just getting word from the Pentagon it was a

mobile artillery piece manned by ISIS outside of Erbil as we said and these two F-18s off the deck of the carrier Bush dropped laser-guided 500-pound bombs on the target. Laser-guided, key words. That means they were directed very precisely to this artillery piece. They knew exactly what they were aiming at and they were able to aim with precision as the munition, the bomb is guided by laser to the target.

That is the way they are going to avoid as much as possible the potential for civilian -- unintended civilian casualties in the area. I think it's also important to note, and it's an extraordinary moment in military history, the man who authorized this -- pardon me, who gave the order for the airstrike after the president authorized it last night, the man who gave the order this morning was, in fact, the head of the U.S. Central Command, he made the decision to strike, that is General Lloyd Austin.

An extraordinary moment because about two and a half years ago, Lloyd Austin was the general commanding in Iraq. He was the last commanding general in Iraq. He was the guy who wrapped it all up with no anticipation that U.S. troops would ever be going back there, even into the skies over Iraq, so kind of an extraordinary moment.

COSTELLO: You're right about that.

I want to take our viewers now to northern Iraq, to Ivan Watson, because we're about to lose his shot. Ivan is at a refugee camp.

Ivan, tell us what it's like on the ground.

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Carol, I'm actually in a church, St. Joseph's Church. It's packed with refugees, Iraqi Christians. Amid this discussion, let's just show you what's at stake right now.

This is a 40-year-old -- 40-day-old Jeshua. And he is one of an estimated 100,000 Iraqi Christians displaced people, refugees, with his mother Itlas, and 2-year-old sister here. They have fled their home in the last 48 hours and they've have spent their second night in this church. This is just one family.

We're going to try to spin around and show you a little bit of the scene here. There are hundreds of people who have been sleeping in the pews of this church, Carol. This is of course a highly symbolic scene. We are in a place of worship. In this part of Iraqi Kurdistan I have been to community center, a youth center, full of thousands of Iraqi Christians. In the yard of this church, there are more thousands of Iraqi Christians.

Everybody tells the same story, that the Kurdish Peshmerga militia withdrew from their towns, a town called Parakush, a town called Hamdaniya, and after they withdrew, these families literally had minutes to pack whatever they could, find whatever vehicle they could, and flee. And now they've taken shelter in the Kurdistan region. The United Nations says some 200,000 people have fled and it's not

just the Christians. It's any religious minority that is not a Sunni Muslim, that does not follow this particularly violent and harsh interpretation of Sunni Islam of the ISIS militants. So we are talking about a massive displacement of people and the Christian leaders we've talked to are warning of the threat of genocide, because the ISIS militants are only about 35 miles, 35 miles from where we are right now.

So the Kurdish leadership, the Iraqi Christian leadership, are begging for help from the U.S., begging for help, to protect them from what is already a massive displacement of people that I'm only starting to get my head wrapped around, and as the ISIS militants come closer, the scenes that we see right now will -- I can assure you will just be a drop in the bucket. But this is a humanitarian crisis that has literally unfolded within the last 48 hours and will likely get worse if the ISIS militants can come closer to this Kurdish safe haven -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Ivan, do these people have water and food?

WATSON: There is some distribution of water, of food to people. They have shelter here. We're going to take you outside, this is just a church that we're in. Again, it's just a snapshot of a much bigger problem. The temperatures out here are high above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, so people are looking for pockets of shade. I've seen other people yesterday who were taking shelter in unfinished construction sites, in parking lots of gas stations, and you see that the Kurdish authorities are making an effort to help, but they clearly can't handle this, and fight ISIS militants who they say outgun them at the same time.

So this is a really big problem. The aid drops, the humanitarian aid drops that have been going to reportedly tens of thousands of stranded Yazidis on a mountaintop, that might be helping those people, but we're talking about a much, much larger exodus that has taken place here.

The Iraqi Christians that I've been talking to have been saying simply they want to leave Iraq. They want to go. They think there's no future in this country. Many of them resigned to the fact that they think they'll never be able to go back to their villages and towns again, which isn't only a humanitarian disaster but a cultural one as well because this is one of the most ancient Christian communities really in the world. One that is being decimated by this latest eruption of violence.

And the people we've spoken to, some of them have been fleeing now for the second time in the last two months. First Christians who fled the city of Mosul which ISIS militants captured in lightning speed last June. They fled to nearby Christian towns, which have then been captured within the last two days. So amid this discussion, there is a very humanitarian element, big humanitarian element. These people simply don't know what they're going to do. They have arrived quite literally with the clothes on their backs. Carol?

COSTELLO: Ivan, the U.S. conducted air strikes earlier. Did you hear anything? Is it near where you are?

WATSON: We didn't hear it here in Irbil. The Kurdish leaders that I've talked to have welcomed President Obama's statement and they have openly calling for air support. They have openly calling for arms and ammunition to help them in this battle. So they are clearly, it's a boost of morale to hear that the U.S. now has intervened militarily to protect this Kurdish safe haven, the city of Irbil, that now tens of thousands of people have fled to. They're just part of a much larger exodus of 200,000 people who have fled, according to the United Nations, to the Kurdistan region.

So that will be a boost of morale and perhaps it can serve as a deterrent to keep the ISIS militants from pushing into this region, which has its own population, I'm told by the governor of Irbil, of some 1.8 million people. So again, it is a dire situation and the governor of Irbil told me himself, the ISIS militants are 35 miles away from where we're standing. So he is saying the situation is critical, because this displacement that we're seeing, these people --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These people!

WATSON: -- again according to the United Nations, some 200,000 people have been displaced in the last 48 hours. These scenes are nothing compared to what we would see if ISIS militants were able to break through more Kurdish Peshmerga front lines to break into the city of Irbil. Here's another room. This is a scene we have seen again and again, as we move through Irbil, which has been taking in this exodus of civilians. There's not a plan that's been put together here. People are kind of just helping at this church out of the goodness of their heart. So probably these people will be sleeping again on the floor here tonight, Carol.

COSTELLO: All right, Ivan Watson, thanks for, it's just a sad look at what's happening in northern Iraq.

And Colonel Francona, I'm going to ask you this. So the U.S. trained the Iraqi military. It's fallen, thanks largely in part to Nouri Al Maliki because he threw out all the trained generals, right? The good ones. And kept his own inept people in place. What will happen? I mean, I know the United States has advisers there right now to advise this military that's seemingly helpless against ISIS.

LT. COL. RICK FRANCONA (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Unfortunately there's no short term fix for this. There's a long-term fix, and that's get their Iraqi army reofficered again, get some qualified people in there. We could help with that, with more advisers, maybe even put some people in the active duty units down at the brigade level and get them back on their feet, but this is not going to happen overnight. While you're trying to do this, ISIS is keeping an advance. So it's like you're trying to stop the flood while trying to patch the work. It's just too hard to do. So right now the air will have to make up for the ineptness of the Iraqi army. Hopefully they get enough air in to do that. Air power is not the end game here.

COSTELLO: Colonel Francona thanks, so much. I have to take a break. We'll be back with much more in the NEWSROOM. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: To stop the advance on Irbil I've directed our military to take targeted strikes against ISIL terrorist convoys, should they move toward the city. We intend to stay vigilant and take action if these terrorist forces threaten our personnel or facilities anywhere in Iraq. Including our consulate in Irbil, and our embassy in Baghdad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: And as of this morning, we have taken action. It has begun. Two American F-18 aircraft have dropped 500-pound laser-guided bombs on a mobile artillery piece used by ISIS in Northern Iraq. This went down at about 6:45 a.m. eastern time. That's according to Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby. ISIS apparently, this terrorist group in Iraq, was using the artillery to shell Kurdish forces trying to defend Irbil, and of course that's where the U.S. consulate is and as the president said we're trying to keep Americans safe in Irbil, Iraq.

Let's head out to the White House now. Jim Acosta has new information for us. Tell us, Jim.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right , Carol, we caught up with Ben Rhodes, who is the deputy national security adviser to the president. He was just talking with reporters out here on the north lawn of the White House. Not something you see every day. But he did say that the president did not make an additional decision to launch these air strikes, that decision was really implicit in his authorization to use these air strikes last night, but what Ben Rhodes said that was very interesting is ISIS shelling, according to Ben Rhodes, on Kurdish positions around Irbil trying to defend that city in Northern Iraq, triggered these air strikes from the U.S. military.

And according to Ben Rhodes, the military has been given "a green light," a green light from President Obama to launch air strikes on ISIS if they threaten either Irbil and those U.S. personnel who are there, those U.S. military advisers, diplomatic personnel with the U.S. consulate there in Irbil, or to break the siege at Mount Sinjar. So it is possible that while we have already seen air strikes against ISIS positions around Irbil, we may see in addition to that, if you're hearing what Ben Rhodes is saying, additional air strikes to break that siege, to assist those people, those people taking refuge on Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq.

And that was basically all we got from Ben Rhodes. He was quickly heading into what he called a principal's meeting of national security advisers, the president's national security team. I'm sure this is at the top of the agenda at that meeting.

In addition to that, just want to mention, that we also heard from the national security spokeswoman at the White House, Bernadette Meehanm, in the last several minutes that the White House is planning to send what they call a war powers notification to Congress to inform leaders in Congress that the president is now taking military action against ISIS in Iraq.

So the wheels are in motion, not only seeing these air strikes taking place, we're getting indications that more may be coming and that the White House is now doing the legal requirements that have to be taken in order to make this really in compliance with the constitutional powers of the office, Carol.

COSTELLO: Which means they'll be talking to Congress?

ACOSTA: That's what that means. It means that in cases like this, when the president launches air strikes, the president said this last night, national security officials said this last night, if he launches air strikes, Congress will be notified. He's been saying this for the last couple of months, as you know, Carol.

A lot of Democrats up on Capitol Hill, even some Republicans have been saying we want to guard against mission creep, and so in order to do that, they want President Obama to come back to them at every juncture to keep them informed, keep them apprised of what is happening in Iraq. Because obviously a lot of Americans out there are deeply concerned about mission creep, that one thing could lead to another, and that you could have a protracted military campaign in Iraq that is obviously something that a lot of Americans don't want.

That's why you heard the president say last night in his comments that he's not committing combat troops to Iraq. Officials have been very clear, no boots on the ground in Iraq, and the president making it quite clear last night in his comments that he is not launching the United States into another military campaign, a long military campaign, a ground war in Iraq.

They feel like they have no choice at this point, Carol. After the president committed those military advisers to Irbil and Baghdad, he basically put U.S. personnel in harm's way, and so to do that they have to be backed up with the force of the U.S. military. That's why part of this is taking place but something that was unforeseen is this humanitarian catastrophe, what Secretary of State John Kerry called potential genocide last night.