Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Report: ISIS Captures Iraq's Largest Dam; U.S. Drops 500-Pound Bombs Over Iraq; Hundreds Hide From ISIS In A Church; New Round Of Air Strikes In Iraq

Aired August 08, 2014 - 15:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: Past the bottom of the hour, you're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Breaking news here out of Iraq, the strategic moves ISIS has made, perhaps the capture here of Iraq's largest hydroelectric dam. It is potentially one of the most troubling because when you look at the map here, and that really helps us visualize this, right.

So you have the Mosul dam. It supplies electricity to Northern Iraq and it is just a couple miles north of the city of Mosul. This is the second largest city in Iraq. The head of the Middle East forum tells CCN, quoting, "If you control the Mosul dam, you can threaten just about everybody. Its loss of this dam to the insurgents is triggering fears as to what ISIS will do with it."

So, our military analyst, Colonel Rick Francona has been here for many, many weeks in a row here. But I think this is incredibly special because you've been to this part of Iraq. You have been to Sinjar at that mountain, which so many people are hoping for their lives. But you know the region. That's my point.

So when it comes to this dam, we have had some people say this is bad because given the air strikes, they could use that strategically to flood cities. You say, no, no, no.

LT. COL. RICK FRANCONA, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: No. I think that's counterproductive to what ISIS is trying to do. ISIS is trying to set up a state. They have named it an Islamic state. It's a caliphate. They don't want to destroy it, they want to run it. They want to set up a government, which they've done.

They need power. They need electricity. This is one dam, there are three in the area, and they've tried to go for all three of them. They know these are strategic assets, strategic infrastructure. They would be silly to be self-defeating to open up this dam. And if they did it, where would the water go first?

The majority of the water would go right through the area that they have just taken, the Tigris Valley. So they would be wiping out all of their gains.

BALDWIN: What about -- as we try to dissect and understand who ISIS is, you were in Baghdad in the late '80s during the regime, during the time of Saddam Hussein. And it's many of those underlings, under Saddam Hussein at the time, who are leading ISIS today.

FRANCONA: Back then, the elite of the army, the elite of the military, the guys who were running things were all Sunnis. They were all cronies of Saddam Hussein.

BALDWIN: OK.

FRANCONA: And after the fall of Saddam Hussein, all these people were purged from the army and they joined the initial insurgency after the reconstitution of the Iraqi government, they thought they would have a chance at recovering their jobs.

And the government of Al-Maliki has marginalized them yet again and driven them right back into insurgence. This time, it happens to be ISIS so while they may not agree with the radical theology of ISIS. This is an anti-Shia operation. So they've joined it.

So ISIS has taken advantage of all of this military capability. If you look at what ISIS has done. Somebody in ISIS has had military training because if you look at the map and how they've moved, this is exactly how a military planner would do this.

BALDWIN: So how does one, and I say one, be it whether it's the United States or coalition of friends in the region plus United States, how do you not only stop ISIS but destroy ISIS?

FRANCONA: Well, ideally the Iraqi army would have done that.

BALDWIN: That did not happen.

FRANCONA: That did not happen because the leadership of the Iraqi army is no longer capable of doing this kind of planning -- planning this and executing these kinds of operations. We could do it and you would initially bring air power into to stop these guys and you'd have to go up there on the ground and root them out.

BALDWIN: On the ground?

FRANCONA: On the ground. The Iraqi army should be doing that and they're not. So now we have this dilemma. Who's going to do it? I know there's a lot of things, well, we need to have a more inclusive Iraqi government. We need to have an inclusive Iraqi government.

That's not going to solve the problem immediately. We first have to stop these people, maybe we can give some time and space to the Iraqi government to reconstitute themselves. But ISIS isn't going to stop and wait. You can't call a time-out.

BALDWIN: I'll be here tomorrow, I bet you will be, as well, and we will continue these conversations.

FRANCONA: OK.

BALDWIN: To see what the next steps are here in Iraq. Colonel Rick Francona, thank you very much. Coming up next, some people are definitely criticizing the president for his decision to approve these air strikes in Iraq. My next guest says we have a moral obligation to be there. Why is that? He'll tell me next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Welcome back. Breaking news on Iraq here because there are some who believe America should not be there. My next guest says, quote, "The reasons Americans want to turn away from Iraq are precisely the reasons we should not."

CNN political commentator, Peter Beinart, joins me now. Peter Beinart, nice to see you. Read your piece. I want you to outline for the viewers what those reasons are.

PETER BEINART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think that America's ability to solve Iraq's political problems, very, very limited. But what I think America can do is save the lives of the people who are on this mountain. This is a really unusual and really important case. Most of the people of this particular religion live in Iraq.

BALDWIN: Six hundred thousand of them across the country.

BEINART: Right. They are being targeted with death simply for their religious belief and the Kurds could get to them if we were to bomb the ISIS lines so the Kurds could get to them to save them. This is not about us rebuilding Iraq, saving Iraq in general. But we can save these people at a relatively low cost and I think there's a moral imperative to do it.

BALDWIN: Talking to someone from UNICEF a moment ago in the Sinjar area and he was describing to me how these children are dying on the mountain. And because it's so rocky, they're being buried in shallow graves by their own parents as they are hoping to survive just to paint the gruesome picture that exists.

The question though a lot of critics are asking of the Obama administration, the why now, right? Because ISIS has been taking control for eight months now beginning with Fallujah and we all know what happened what's been going on in Syria.

BEINART: Right. Arguably, it's true that the Obama administration might have wanted to be something more decisive earlier on. I've been critical of them for sticking with Nuri Al-Maliki in giving him a blank check while he was alienating the Sunni population for years, which is part of what allowed ISIS to grow.

Look, just because America can't do everything doesn't mean we shouldn't do anything. Syria is an extremely difficult case where I think our capacity to act militarily to do anything positive would be very, very limited. There are great tragedies all over the world. All over the world.

When you have a situation where at relatively low cost you can save people who are going to die and who are really at risk of genocides. It's an attack on the entire religious group. I think it says something good about us as Americans that we have an impulse to want to do something.

BALDWIN: I think it is great, but also, at the same time the president has said, it's up to the Iraqis to fix the Iraqi problem, not the Americans. We heard Josh Earnest talking about Bebe and we don't know the next prime minister who will be leading this country will be.

Yes, we keep hearing live from the White House needs to be inclusive and a lot of people agree with that. But really, that's not the solution imminently to stopping is.

BEINART: Right, stopping ISIS is a bigger problem than saving the people on this mountain. Stopping ISIS is going to require a more inclusive Iraqi government and it's also going to require strange kind of de facto partnership between the U.S., the Kurds and the Iranians.

The Iranians are very powerful opponent of ISIS given, of course, they're a Shia power. And viciously anti-Shia. There's much more of a de facto alliance going on here between the U.S. and Iran that I think is recognized.

And truthfully, the Iranians are a lot more -- a lot easier to do business with than the ultra-fanatics of ISIS. And I think that's a de facto decision we're already seeing the U.S. make.

BALDWIN: How about that? Peter Beinart, thank you. We'll see you next time. And coming up here on CNN, we'll take you live to Irbil to Northern Iraq. We have a correspondent there. He is Ivan Watson. He has been talking to these families, seeing these children. Their heart breaking stories next on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: In Iraq, an estimated 200,000 people have run for their lives in the last 48 hours. They are fearful that ISIS militants might behead them for religious beliefs. Remember? They have the choice. Convert or die. Families are worried that their young children might be captured or worse, tortured.

They have left their homes on a moment's notice. ISIS seized Iraq's largest Christian town yesterday, setting off just a total panic. All these crowds fled to the Iraqi city of Irbil trying to seek refuge.

And it's not just Christians being targeted here, but any religious minority who does not follow ISIS' strict version of Islam. Here's much more from Irbil is senior international correspondent, Ivan Watson.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis are on the run right now and hundreds of them have taken shelter here in a place of worship. This is St. Joseph's Church. It's in the Christian town in the Northern Iraqi region of Kurdistan. This is where hundreds of people have been sleeping for the past two nights after running for their lives.

Christian leaders in Iraq are warning of the threat of genocide against this ancient Christian community and it's not just the Christians who are under threat, basically any religious or ethnic minority that includes Yazidis, Shiite Muslims, they are all on the run right now.

Terrified of this strict and very violent interpretation of Islam implemented by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or ISIS. And this is the situation right now. Women like this, her family, have slept for the second night in this church with their 40-day-old baby right here.

And sadly, this is probably just the very beginning of this humanitarian crisis. Now we're in an unfinished building, basically a construction site where some of the displaced Iraqi Christians have taken shelter.

I met a young man. This is 22-year-old Andros, who you fled your house two days ago. Can you tell me, what was the scene like when you ran away?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know. I'm just too scared. There was thousand cars. Sorry. Thousand car. And we -- my father drove the car for six hours, three hours in the dust and three hours in the road. When we were in the dust, we couldn't see anything. Just cars running away. We didn't know where we were going. So I don't know.

WATSON: And you were running from ISIS from the Islamic State.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, Islamic state. They are monsters. Monsters are better.

WATSON: Do you think you can never go home?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think so.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BALDWIN: Ivan Watson joins us now live from Irbil and the notion of never going home and too in that church seeing that 40-day-old baby. It's wrong. Every way around.

WATSON: Yes, this is a humanitarian crisis. There's no other word for it because we're just seeing a little piece of it right now. The Kurdish leadership telling me perhaps there's more than half a million people across this region all forced out of their homes and all of them left really on a moment's notice.

So there's no real network set up to take care of these people especially at a time when the Kurds are fighting the ISIS militants at the same time. I do have to say that it sounds like the Kurds are breathing a sigh of relief since the U.S. began some air strikes against suspected ISIS targets.

Particularly here in Irbil where the militants had advanced to within 30 miles of the city that I'm standing in right now. There was real fear here. There were Peshmerga units that according to some people I've talked to were simply melting away, fleeing from the frontlines.

And since President Obama issued his warning not to attack Irbil, the fighting had calmed down for about 24 hours giving the Peshmerga militia of the Kurds time to regroup and reset their defenses and try to protect this what has become basically a Kurdish safe haven from the Islamist militants -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: Maybe more sighs of relief on the way. We're just now learning, breaking news, Ivan Watson, thank you. Breaking news, we are learning about a second round of U.S. air strikes on Iraq. Barbara Starr is joining me now. Barbara Starr, what do you know?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Brook, this information just coming into CNN right now. There have been two additional rounds of U.S. military air strikes against ISIS in Northern Iraq. Everybody bear with me. I'm going to detail it for everyone the information just coming into us.

Shortly after 10:00 this morning Eastern Time, a U.S. military drone, a remote piloted vehicle, struck at an ISIS mortar position. They hit that position and then they tell us when the ISIS fighters shortly thereafter returned to the site.

They were attacks again at that site by the U.S. military and that site we are told was destroyed. This is all, of course, just outside of Irbil. So the first strike 10:00 this morning. A U.S. military remote piloted vehicle, generally they carry hell fire missiles.

They are very precise echoing against very particular targets. They hit an ISIS mortar position. That was at 10:00 this morning. An hour and 20 minutes later, 11:20 this morning east coast time, four FA-18 aircraft we believe all off the deck of the carrier, George H.W. Bush in the Persian Gulf flew over Iraq and struck at a stationary convoy of seven ISIS vehicles.

So there were seven ISIS vehicles at a stationary or still position and a mortar position, with them near Irbil. These four aircrafts made two passes over the target on both runs, each of the aircraft dropped one laser-guided bomb essentially there were a total of eight bombs dropped by the U.S. FA-18s on this mortar position and the convoy of seven vehicles.

So we've had three strikes in less than the last 24 hours against ISIS targets in the Irbil area in Northern Iraq. The president's justification for these reasoning behind these strikes continues to be the protection in Irbil of U.S. military and diplomatic personnel as ISIS continues its advance on that Northern Iraqi City -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: OK, Barbara Starr with the news, stay with me. Let me just bring in Colonel Rick Francona, who is on the phone with me. To emphasize Barbara's point, three strikes in less than 24 hours, Colonel, mortar precision, stationary convoy of vehicles. Before that, it was the artillery targets. Tell me what the U.S. specifically is going after? FRANCONA (via telephone): Anything that composes a threat to Irbil, anything that composes a threat to the consulate or U.S. forces working in that joint command center in Northern Iraq. So it looks like they are looking for targets of opportunity if they see anything that's in that general area that has an offensive capability, they're going to go ahead and strike it rather than wait for ISIS to make a move, they'll try to set up a safe cordon there. Anything in that area, they're going to strike.

BALDWIN: What about the damage that would be done? We're obviously not there on the ground, but hoping to damage all of this completely.

FRANCONA: You know, each one of these aircraft, the way she described is if they made two passes and dropped one bomb on each. They're guiding each one with a laser. They can take their time. If they're high enough they're not worried about air defense. They can make sure that they hit the targets and coordinate with each other what they're going to strike. They'll probably hit all eight targets very effectively.

BALDWIN: OK. Barbara Starr, you want to jump back in?

STARR: I do want to just to remind I think what most Americans already know. These kinds of operations are extremely dangerous. The U.S. military takes all the precautions to keep its air crew safe. They try and fly out of the range of surface-to-air missiles that might attack them.

But look, we are now putting manned aircraft, U.S. military pilots, U.S. air crews over what is enemy territory, ISIS territory. There can be aircraft failures. There can be mechanical failures.

This is very dangerous business. There are U.S. pilots at risk, well worth remembering each and every day as they are out there now on these missions --Brooke.

BALDWIN: Again as we talked about the areas outside of Irbil, just to remind our viewers, we're talking about an area of the U.S. Consulate. There we go. You see the town of Irbil in Northern Iraq. And we have what, Barbara, about 40 Americans, delegates there stationed. Go ahead.

STARR: There's about 40 U.S. military advisors trying to help the Iraqi forces. They went up there several weeks ago thinking Irbil would be one of the safest places for them to be. U.S. diplomats who left the embassy in Baghdad to the south went there thinking it would be much more secure.

This is a Kurdish area that, you know, the Kurds had had pretty good control over for quite some time. What is perhaps in front of everybody's face somewhat surprising still I think is how fast this is unfolding.

And that the ISIS fighters have been able to make such rapid moves on places like Irbil. Really putting the Kurdish fighters, you know, on high alert and really struggling to push back. The Kurdish fighters haven't really been able to push ISIS back.

The Iraqi Air Force that the U.S. funded to a large extent has been doing some air strikes to push them back. But we're talking about the possibility of pushing it ISIS back just a little bit. We're not even talking about retaking territory.

These are militants that act as an army, fight like an army, have strategic objectives and right now, they appear to be on the march and meeting those objectives -- Brooke.

BALDWIN: To your point, the Kurdish forces Peshmerga no match for ISIS. Let me go back to Irbil, Iraq, to Ivan Watson. What is the reaction among the Kurds to this second round of air strikes?

WATSON: I lost you for a second there, Brook. But basically, there's been a lot of relief here among the Kurds who were -- their top officials were openly basically begging for the U.S. to intervene. Saying that this city, Irbil was very close to a catastrophe.

That the ISIS militants were only about 30 miles away from the city of more than a million people, a city that's been inundated by hundreds of thousands of refugees in just the last 48 hours.

A lot of Kurds now are starting to talk about how the U.S. basically protected this region for more than ten years with a no-fly zone up until the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and perhaps we're starting to see a fresh version of that, version 2.0 today with the threat of the ISIS militants in 2014.

BALDWIN: OK.