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Iran Vows Harsh Revenge After U.S. Kills Top General. Aired 10- 10:30a ET

Aired January 03, 2020 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:00]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. I'm Jim Sciutto in New York.

The breaking news this hour, the U.S. has killed the top Iranian general. Iran is now vowing revenge against the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says that killing Qasem Soleimani was crucial because of imminent threats to Americans in the region.

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MIKE POMPEO, SECRETARY OF STATE: President Trump's decision to remove Qasem Soleimani from the battlefield saved American lives. There's no doubt about that. He was actively plotting in the region to take actions, a big action, as he described it, that would have put dozens, if not, hundreds of American lives at risk.

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SCIUTTO: Now, Secretary Pompeo did not provide further details on whose lives, what those plots entailed. And despite saying that Americans are now safer in the region as a result of this attack, the State Department is urging all U.S. citizens to leave Iraq immediately.

Embassies across the Middle East are ramping up security now. A senior security administration official said that counterterrorism officials are already on the lookout for possible retaliation. Soleimani's body will arrive back in Iran tomorrow. Today, thousands are protesting in the streets of Tehran.

Soleimani was the head of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the Quds Force unit. He was a revered military, political intelligence figure in Iran, arguably, the second most powerful figure in the country. The U.S. military blames him and his forces for the deaths of more than 600 American service members in Iraq. Iran supplied powerful armor-penetrating IEDs to kill those American forces.

We're covering this story from every angle today across the region in a way only CNN can do. Let's go to CNN's Arwa Damon. She is live in Baghdad. Arwa, you've been monitoring the events of the last several days. Before this killing, it was already tense on the ground there. It is more tense today.

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that is something of an understatement too. I mean, the situation right now is very difficult to describe, Jim, because this is unchartered territory.

From the perspective of the Iraqi government, even though the U.S. says this was a targeted killing, this was an assassination that was carried out against not only a general, and I'm talking about Qasem Soleimani, who, from the Iraqi government's perspective, was instrumental when it came to the fight against ISIS and his appearances on the battleground here, when it came to how he was advising this Shia paramilitary group that, yes, has close ties to Iran, but also the support that Iran gave Iraq, whether it was funding or weapons or training when it came specifically to the fight against ISIS, but also because alongside Qasem Soleimani, you also had the killing of the leader Kata'ib Hezbollah.

Now, remember, Kata'ib Hezbollah is that group that was targeted by the U.S. on Sunday in those numerous airstrikes in both Iraq and Syria that then led to that massive demonstration outside the U.S. embassy, where the protesters tried to scale the walls.

Their leader, Kata'ib Hezbollah leader's name is Abu Mahdi al- Muhandis. Kata'ib Hezbollah is part of this Shia paramilitary force that falls under the Iraqi Security Forces for that leader to have been taken out, who is also the second in command of these Shia paramilitary forces. That from the Iraqi government's perspective is an act of aggression against Iraq itself.

This puts a country that is already extraordinarily vulnerable in an even more tenuous position. The prime minister himself has said that they are very worried about this escalating, about the cost in blood that Iraq is going to end up paying. And, look, this is a country that knows very well the price of U.S. aggression.

And even the protesters who have been in the Tahrir Square here, Jim, protesting against the government for months now, protesting against Iranian influence, put out a statement saying that they too condemned this targeted killing by the U.S. because they viewed it as being a violation of Iraqi sovereignty.

And one should not conflate. People here, some of them, at least, being anti-Iranian, wanting an end to Iranian influence to supporting what the U.S. has done, America's actions in Iraq have devastating consequences. The aftermath of the U.S.-led invasion has taught us that. America wasn't ready for the consequences of toppling Saddam Hussein more than 15 years ago.

[10:05:01]

And one would argue that they most certainly are not ready for the consequences of what this is going to lead to.

SCIUTTO: And Americans need to be aware of the potential here. Arwa Damon in Iraq, thanks very much.

CNN's Kaitlan Collins, she is in West Palm Beach, Florida with the president, where he remains. And Kaitlan, once again here, the president seemed to bypass at least some of the normal national security structure under normal guidelines and practice. He would have informed the so-called gang of eight. These are Republican and Democratic leaders on the relevant committees on the Hill.

It appears though he did inform someone he played golf with earlier this week. That is Senator Lindsey Graham that comes from the Judiciary Committee. What has been the White House explanation for that?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Those have been our questions for the White House yet, Jim, and we have not gotten a response from the White House about why the president made that decision to leave Congress in the dark here, which they mostly are saying that they were. We've only heard from Lindsey Graham so far who said not only that he knew about this beforehand, but that he was briefed days before this attack was carried out.

Now, he was here, the chances that maybe this was something he was in the right place at the right time and that's why he was briefed on this potential operation. He was here on Monday seen golfing by CNN with the president on the course riding in the same cart. Later, the two were seen speaking closely together, something they do often. And he said it was at that time that he was briefed on this.

And we know that on Tuesday, while the president was at his club, his golf club here separately from his Mar-a-Lago club right here behind me, the president said he had a meeting with his team, a briefing on the Middle East. Because that's as those protesters were breaking into and attacking the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. So that is potentially when that could have come and Graham was informed of this.

But as of last night, the gang of eight who typically would be told about something like this said that they had not had any kind of a formal briefing on this operation that was carried out.

SCIUTTO: Kaitlan Collins traveling with the president, thanks very much. Of course, the question now, what does the killing of a top Iranian general, intelligence leader, political leader in the view of many there on Iraq's soil do to the relationship between the U.S. and Iraq? Iraq's prime minister is calling the U.S. drone strike, quote, a flagrant violation of conditions for the presence of U.S. troops in his country. Secretary of State Pompeo on CNN this morning said that Iraqis will see it as a positive for their country.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POMPEO: He was driving bad outcomes for the Iraqi people. He was causing many Muslims in the region to be killed.

We have every expectation that people, not only in Iraq but in Iran, will view the American action last night as giving them freedom, freedom to have the opportunity for success and prosperity for their their nation. And while the political leadership may not want that, people in these nations will demand it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Joining me now is CNN Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward. She is live from West Palm Beach, Florida as well, certainly spent a lot of time on the ground and the region.

Clarissa, you see Secretary Pompeo there saying that Iraqis were welcome this killing, and it is true that some will welcome it, but we also know that large numbers will not. Muqtada al-Sadr, who has hundreds of thousands of followers there, many of them armed, has said that he is going to protest here.

You've been to Iraq. What kind of response should we expect, what kind of protests should we expect to this killing?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think that Iran and Iraqi government are going to have a hard time trying to rein in the passions of the followers of Qasem Soleimani. Make no mistake, Jim, as you have said before, he was a very popular man with many Shia Muslims. Now, of course, with many others, he was deeply unpopular, he was behind so much of the bloodshed that has captured this entire region for more than two decades.

But among those who followed him and followed him closely, he was seen as almost something of a cult figure, Jim. When I was in Tehran just at the end of last year, you go and you see on the streets people carrying images of him, sharing videos of him, reciting poetry. The gift stores at museums are full of photographs and souvenirs bearing his image. He really is seen as being something of a sort of cult hero, if you will.

So, now, I think you can expect to see some forceful response from Iraqi Shias on the ground. I think that militia leaders will have a very difficult time, as I said, trying to rein in the passions of people who saw Qasem Soleimani not just as a military leader but also as a figure head of Iran's expansionist policies throughout the Middle East, Jim.

SCIUTTO: I wonder what the position of U.S. forces deployed to Iraq is now. Because even prior to this killing, there was already opposition to that, there was already consideration in parliament of new legislation demanding the withdrawal of U.S. forces.

And I know that Iraqi leaders will often say something in public, while in private, they will say to Americans, listen, ignore that, we really want you here, but they also have domestic political pressures.

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Based on what you know, does it put the status of U.S. forces in Iraq at risk?

WARD: I think, potentially, it does. We have already heard from Iraq's prime minister saying that particularly the killing not of Soleimani, but another man who was killed in that strike, the head of Kata'ib Hezbollah, which is Shia militia Iraq, an Iraqi, that that is in direct contravention of the agreement of U.S. forces presence on the ground in Iraq.

This now puts Iraq's leaders in a very difficult and complex position, because while they are absolutely reliant in many respects on the U.S. military presence there, they are also very much reliant on the support of Iran. Iran is the major hegemon in Iraq. They enjoy an enormous amount of power in Iraq's parliament. So this creates a very difficult dynamic for Iraq's leaders to try to navigate. And, Jim, perhaps even more frighteningly, it really raises the specter of some kind of a reignited sectarian war which could spill well beyond Iraq, Jim.

SCIUTTO: That's something to be concerned about. Of course, Iran is promising harsh revenge in their words for this attack. But we have seen Iran is not a suicidal regime. And we have seen Iran calibrate their military action, for instance, when they attack tankers a number of weeks ago, they were attacks above the water line, not below the water line, right? They didn't sink the tankers, but they showed their ability to attack the tankers.

I just wonder based on your experience of covering the region, what kind level of retaliation does Iran feel it has to show here, right, because it will say that its credibility is at stake? And, again, a little bit of this is crystal ball here, but how should Americans look at this and what kind of reaction should they expect from Tehran?

WARD: I think precisely what is so frightening about this situation in many ways, Jim, is that we simply do not know. I'm not even sure at this stage whether Iran's leaders know exactly how they are going to respond to this. They know clearly that they have to response, if only to appease, as I was mentioning before, the passions of the people.

And by the way, an act like this is a galvanizing, uniting force in a country like Iran where the regime is coming under huge pressure. This is a distraction from sanctions. This is a moment where hard liners and reformers can actually agree and coalesce on one thing.

I did start to try to put together a list of some of the various scenarios that the Iranians could look at, assassinations, kidnappings, attacks on U.S. infrastructure, attacks on shipping channels, closing the streets of Hormuz, attacks on U.S. military installations, Saudi oil infrastructure, U.S. allies on the region, the list goes on. They have a panoply of serious options at their disposal, and it remains to be seen which of any of them they will take, Jim.

SCIUTTO: And they have threatened the U.S. homeland before. Of course, they would know the consequences of an attack on a U.S. homeland would likely be greater but Soleimani himself threatened that in the past. Clarissa Ward, thank you. We know we'll be talking about this more with you in the coming days.

Still to come this hour, so what could revenge from Iran look like? What's in store for the U.S.? We're going to discuss potential attacks, their capabilities against American interests around the world, coming up.

Plus, new documents are highlighting the president's direct role in the hold on military aid to Ukraine. Will this impact the upcoming Senate trial? It's evidence.

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SCIUTTO: This morning, following the U.S. drone strike in Baghdad, which killed the top Iranian general, President Trump tweeting just moments ago, people of Iraq don't want to be dominated and controlled by Iran, but, ultimately, that is their choice. Over the last 15 years, Iran has gained more and more control over Iraq and the people of Iraq are not happy with that. It will never end well.

Joining me now to discuss all of this, Vali Nasr, Professor for the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, and Major General Spider Marks, former Commanding General of the U.S. Army Intelligence Center. Thanks to both of you.

Vali Nasr, if I could begin with you, this is a major strike against Iran, against perhaps the second most powerful man in that country after the supreme leader there. What is Iran thinking about doing now to demonstrate its credibility, as its word, its domestic population, to exact revenge on the U.S.? Tell us about the pressure they're under and what are the range of possibilities for what they will carry out now against U.S. interests?

VALI NASR, PROFESSOR FOR THE SCHOOL OF ADVANCED INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: Well, there is a meeting today of Iran's national security council to discuss all of that. I think Iran has about three to four days to make a decision because there are the funerals, they have declared three days of mourning and then they said that their retaliations will come after that.

I know we're talking about a lot of scenarios of where Iran hit and what they might blow up. But I think Iran is also very incentivized to humiliate the United States. It's much more likely that they will focus on a Benghazi scenario of publicly putting pressure on the U.S. to leave Iraq, you know, use the kind of passion that earlier on Clarissa was talking about to bring large numbers of people into the streets, force confrontation between U.S. marines and the people, and ultimately put the United States in a very difficult position.

I don't think Iranians would want to do something that would allow President Trump to grandstand further and carry out more acts of bravado, but rather to entangle him in Benghazi scenarios. And that's really well primed now for Iraq.

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Soleimani is going to have a funeral in Iraq as well, and that funeral can end up being a rallying point for very large crowds gathering around U.S. facilities and creating serious trouble for the U.S. I think that's step number one. SCIUTTO: Yes. And as you know, he will have funerals in both Iraq and Iran. It shows he was a revered figure by some on both sides of the border. General Marks, Secretary Pompeo says this assassination, this killing saved American lives. We know that Iran has enormous capability to attack U.S. forces, but also diplomats, civilians in the region. Are Americans in the region safer or less safe today?

MAJ. GEN. JAMES SPIDER MARKS (RET), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, I think it's beyond being an academic discussion. We certainly don't know. My view is that Iran has never exercised any self-restraint. It's almost irrelevant in many cases what the United States chooses to do going forward in terms of its 40-year mostly violent non- relationship with Iran and, by the way, a relationship that could exist another 40 or 50 years after Khamenei leaves the scene and his son, the likely successor, who's in his mid-40s, and by all measures, probably a very healthy guy is going to be around for 40 or 50 years.

So the United States has an obligation to exert its presence, to remain a visible presence in the region. Clearly, there are risks associated with our presence in the region. We can go through the history. We all understand it. But the U.S. has a very legitimate role in the region and I think it would be foolish in a very tactical and an immediate sense if Iran chose to challenge the United States in a more aggressive way around the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. That would be disastrous for Iran tactically and the United States would simply be there to continue to assert itself.

So the long-term relationship with the United States and Iran does not look like it's going to improve, so the obligation belongs to the United States to do something about that, to provide a release valve so that there is some way that we can alter the arc of this relationship going forward.

SCIUTTO: Well, will Iran be even interested in a relief valve? I wonder. I mean, already before this, Vali Nasr, President Trump, he had mentioned publicly, hey, maybe we should restart negotiations, et cetera. Iran was not interested, in fact, ratcheted up the pressure. Will Iran be interested today after a killing like this in a diplomatic off ramp?

NASR: Well, I mean, Iran was interested in negotiations. They came very close in New York in September. But Iran had a condition that you have to relieve some of the economic pressure before we go to the table because we don't believe if we went in a room and you got your photograph that when we come out, you're going to actually relieve pressure afterwards. President Trump was not interested. So, in a way, it was not unlikely that the two might have entered into negotiations.

Now, that's off the table. Even within Iran, there is no political room for anybody to talk about talking to the U.S. And I think the American strategy with Iran took a turn yesterday. Until yesterday was about economic pressure, bringing Iran to the table, now we've entered a new phase of direct confrontation, military confrontation. We're talking about war now. We're not talking about economic sanctions. And also, Iran has another card to play, which is Iran now can very likely will say that there is no prospect of the United States ever dealing with Iran or we dealing with the United States around the existing nuclear agreement, why don't we leave it? January 6th was the date Iran had set a number of months ago as the time when they might decide to resume 20 percent enrichment of uranium.

After that, essentially, the nuclear deal is dead. If Iran takes that step in the next four or five days, that's a whole other pressure that would be brought under Trump administration to manage an Iran that's resuming nuclear program.

SCIUTTO: General Spider Marks, it's interesting, when you look at the president's tweet just then saying, ultimately, it will be up to the Iraqi people to decide whether they want Iran in there, kind of leaving it to them. We already know that there's a move in the Iraqi parliament to pass a legislation to stop allowing U.S. forces on the ground.

I wonder, President Trump has withdrawn forces from Syria, reducing the presence in Afghanistan. Do you think the president wants U.S. forces out of Iraq or would be willing to accept that?

MARKS: Oh, I think he would. And, look, the ball is in Baghdad's court. The status of forces agreement establishes how the U.S. presence militarily will be embraced or at least legalized in Iraq. If that's altered, in fact, we are there only because the Iraqis have invited us in. Let's be frank. We are there at the invitation of Iraq. If Iraq wants to change that, the United States is in a position to negotiate and we will determine whether we can go forward.

And if Iraq were to move us out, clearly, we would have to move out. We're not a rapacious nation.

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We're not trying to take overland. What we're trying to do is establish conditions that provide for our national security, and currently that includes the presence of U.S. forces in Iraq, albeit not many.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Vali Nasr, General Spider Marks, thanks to both of you.

MARKS: Thank you, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Top congressional Democrats say they were kept in the dark about the attack that killed Qasem Soleimani. So why didn't President Trump get congressional approval, not just from Democrats but Republicans? We're going to discuss, next.

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