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Growing Belief Inside Trump Administration That Iran's Missiles Intentionally Missed Areas With Americans; Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Says Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) Should Publish Senate Trial Rules Immediately. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired January 08, 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]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: It is top of the hour. I'm Poppy Harlow.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Jim Sciutto.

One hour from now, the president will address the nation after Iran launched missile strikes on Iraqi bases where U.S. troops are stationed. U.S. defense officials says now they have confirmed there were no U.S. casualties, injuries or dead and no major damage on that base and that may have been intentional. Iraq's prime minister says they received an official verbal warning from Iran before those missile strikes and that Iraq passed that warning on to the U.S. so they could prepare.

And I'm told there was a growing belief inside the administration and the Pentagon that Iran deliberately missed areas with Americans and more broadly that Iranian leaders may have chosen to send a message rather than take significant enough action to spark a substantial U.S. military response.

HARLOW: We want to show you some new images. These are just into CNN. Look at this. What this is showing is two of the missiles of the dozen launched by Iran that did not explode. They did land, we're told, very close to Al Asad base.

But it's a different story in the media inside Iran. Iranian media are reporting U.S. deaths and casualties that by all accounts did not happen according to U.S. officials.

The question this morning is what is the president going to say in one hour's time and what is the U.S. going to do.

We have a team covering all angles of the story as only CNN can. Let's begin with our White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins. Do you have a sense, Kaitlan, of what the president will say?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, the question and what we know that the White House is looking at last night, Poppy, is whether there are going to be any American casualties in all of this. And so far, the indications, of course, have been that there are not. So the question is if that's going to play a factor into the president's speech here in the next hour.

Now, for the last five days, the president has been promising that America would retaliate if Iran did respond by attacking American assets in wake of that killing of the top commander there, so the question is going to be whether or not the president pursues that option or if he goes for that de-escalation that the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has been saying the president wants to pursue in the wake of all of this.

We know he's been huddled with his national security team. He's also been speaking with his allies on Capitol Hill, including Senator Lindsey Graham, who notably last night said that he believed what Iran was doing was an act of war.

And look at what he tweeted just a few moments ago, which could potentially be an indication of where the president's head is on all of this. He said, in my view, retaliation for the sake of retaliation is not necessary at this time. What is necessary is to lay out our strategic objectives regarding Iran in a simple and firm fashion.

I think that's something that not just people like Senator Lindsey Graham, who have been advising the president on this, but other officials have been wanting the president to lay out is essentially what their overarching larger mission here is going to be when it comes to Iran and what he wants to do going forward.

SCIUTTO: So the national security team there briefing him over the last 24 hours. Would additional military options for response be part of how they would brief the president now?

COLLINS: I think because of what the president has been saying over the last few days, saying that if Iran did do something that the United States would respond, that is likely something that came up in the briefing last night that the president had with these officials in the Situation Room where his defense secretary was there, his secretary of state was there, the vice president, the national security adviser, really all of the president's top officials. And they have been here for about two hours so far this morning as well meeting with the president, going over what he plans to say.

Now, the question is going to also be how long is this address, what exactly does the president say beyond just how the United States is going to respond in the short-term, what's the long-term going to look like and whether or not the president uses a prompter can play big factors into how these messages come across.

SCIUTTO: Kaitlan Collins, yes, those messages delivered via prompter, via script different than the ones he will often do off the cuff. We'll see where he goes.

Let's go to Baghdad now, CNN's Sam Kiley live there.

Sam, tem us what the Iraqi military is saying about damage to these sites from the Iranian missiles. [10:05:00]

I mean, we know there are no casualties on the Iraqi or American side. Physical damage to equipment, planes, et cetera?

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So far, jim, the Iraqi military have said only that Iraqi territory was attacked with 22 rockets, 17 hit in or near the Al Asad base, two did not explode and five more were in locations in Erbil in the Kurdish-controlled north of the country.

Now, they're also saying there was no significant damage, no casualties, which is consistent with what the Pentagon has said. Our own sources inside the base, the Al Asad base have confirmed that indeed. One security contractor said, we're used to rockets and it's business as usual. They were back out to join on patrols with Iraqi and American forces at first light this morning at Al Asad.

And the concern really in terms of security though is that two of the main hard line Iranian-backed militias here, Jim, have said that this is the first phase of retaliation for the death of Soleimani. The president of the country has condemned the Iranian attacks. The prime minister has said he rejected them and the speaker has condemned them too. So there's a little bit of division on a political front.

But the issue really now is how will these militias act. Will they make good on their threats to take unilateral action for the killing of their leader in the Soleimani strike?

HARLOW: Sam Kiley, thank you for that reporting live from Baghdad.

Let's go now to the Pentagon where Barbara Starr is. What are you learning, Barbara, about the intelligence calculations from within the Defense Department?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, what we now know is the Pentagon, the U.S. Intelligence Community did have its own high-tech early warning that these missiles were on the way. Yes, they got information from the Iraqi government, certainly valuable, but there are high-tech tools that the Pentagon and the Intelligence Community have that were already in place.

What we are told is, as you would expect, there are U.S. satellites overhead that are very capable of picking up the heat signature, the heat signal, if you will, when missiles like this are launched. They see that heat signal and then other intelligence assets begin to calculate very quickly and they did last night what kind of missile it is, its range, its distance, its time to target and what a likely target might be.

All of those calculations were very quickly made overhead. There were U.S. aircraft also essentially scooping up telemetry, electronic signals moving through the atmosphere, intercepted communications, getting a full picture of what was happening. That all contributed to the U.S. military being able to tell troops in these two locations to get to safe places. So what the bottom line is here, with that early warning, the U.S. was really able to avert disaster. Whether the Iraqis intended to hit them directly or not, they were able to ensure that U.S. troops were safe. That is a big part of the calculation here.

Moving ahead, they're going to have to see where it goes from here because, as you mentioned, the Iranian regime is one thing, but Iranian-supported groups still inside Iraq, what they might do is something else again.

SCIUTTO: And we should know that Iran would know that U.S. has those tracking capabilities, so they would know the U.S. would have advance warnings with these missiles with these speeds. Just another thing to throw into the mix as we assess Iranian intentions. Barbara Starr at the Pentagon, thanks very much.

Let's go now to Tehran. Fled Pleitgen, who's on the ground, he's been there for the last several days. Fred. Interesting messaging, is it not, coming out of Iran? On the one hand, bluster, this will never end, we will not forget this. On the other hand though, some public offers of an off-ramp perhaps?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think you're absolutely right. I think messaging is actually the key word here, Jim. And if you look at this entire operation, that certainly seems to be what the Iranians were trying to do.

Now, they launched these ballistic missiles towards those bases that obviously had those U.S. soldiers on them at around exactly the same time last night and early morning hours, around exactly the same time that Qasem Soleimani was killed in that operation last friday by that U.S. missile in Baghdad.

At the same time, they used their ballistic missiles, which is a technology that they have been talking a lot about here in Iran. They have expanded their ballistic missile program a great deal.

The operation yesterday, by the way, Jim, also started at about the same time that Qasem Soleimani's body was actually laid to rest in his hometown of Kerman. So everything about this seems to be laid out by the Iranians.

Now, the Iranian supreme leader seems to indicate also that this is clearly a former messaging by the Iranians. He came out earlier today and gave a speech where he called this simply a slap in the face to the United States and nothing more.

[10:10:01]

However, the Iranians are also saying their strategic goal is to get the U.S. out of this region. He was saying the people of this region, as he put it, will never accept a U.S. presence.

Interestingly, the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, he came out earlier today and he said pretty much exactly the same thing. And that's when we get to this off-ramp and that comes in the form of Iran's foreign minister, Javad Zarif, who is essentially saying, look, the Iranians have retaliated. It could stop here. But he's also saying right now the ball is very much in the court of the U.S. and specifically President Trump. Let's listen in to what the foreign minister had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAVAD ZARIF, IRANIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: We did not start this process of escalation. The United States waged an economic war against Iran. The United States has to come to its senses.

Europe can play a useful role by informing the United States of the serious error in their analysis, that they should stop listening to clowns, that they should base their policy based on realities and not some illusions of some clowns who have ambitions elsewhere.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: So there you have Javad Zarif, the foreign minister.

The Iranians, by the way, also saying that if the U.S. does retaliate, this come with a form of Iranian military, that there would be what they call a crushing response by the Iranians, Poppy.

HARLOW: Fred, before you go, if you can believe it, in the middle of all of this, these strikes last night, news that a Boeing 737 jet, a relatively new one, went down, all 176 people onboard died, this was shortly after takeoff from the Tehran main airport there, Jim just got reporting that it was a Ukrainian airliner, that Ukraine is sending their own experts in to be part of this investigation. What do you know about what took that plane down and what is not being ruled out this morning?

PLEITGEN: Yes, Poppy, you're absolutely right. It was actually very difficult to believe. We were up here reporting about the missile strikes and we heard that this jetliner had crashed, that all of a sudden, in Tehran, there was also a major aviation disaster that took place really not very far from where we are right now. The plane took off from Imam Khomeini Airport, which is the general international airport that we also use to get in and out of the country.

Right now, what's not being ruled out is that the plane might have been hit by some sort of rocket or something. Although all sides are making clear that at this point in time, it really is unclear what hit this plane. However, what we do know is that it took off and after about two minutes, the plane crashed. The plane apparently crashed very quickly. There was not even a distress signal that was sent.

We saw some footage of what seems to be that plane going down and it does seem to be engulfed in fire as it's going down.

Right now, the Iranians obviously sifting through that debris field that was left. The area down there at Imam Khomeini is really a lot of flat farmland so the plane wreckage pretty easy to get to. They found the black boxes. Very important though to note, guys, the Iranians are saying they're not going to hand those black boxes over to Boeing because it's an American company. They obviously say they are in charge of the investigation, guys.

HARLOW: Our thoughts with all of those families. Fred Pleitgen, thank you very much.

Much more on the breaking news, the president will speak in just a few minutes. He'll speak at the top of the hour. This is after Iran attacks those bases in Iraq holding U.S. troops. We'll bring you the president's remarks live.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Does he talk of de-escalation?

Plus, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell responding to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after she insists that he detail the rules of a Senate impeachment trial, hasn't done that yet, live on the Hill with his comments and reaction.

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[10:15:00]

SCIUTTO: A short time from now, President Trump will address the country from the White House, this following an Iranian missile strike on two Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops. Will the president say what's next?

HARLOW: We're waiting for the President. Of course, you'll see it live here.

Let's bring in retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton, who once served as a Deputy Training Director at the NSA, David Sanger also, our National Security Correspondent for the New York Times, is back with us as we wait for the president. Gentlemen, thank you both for being here.

Colonel, let me just begin with you and ask what you hope to hear from the president this morning. At least reporting from a senior administration official is sort of a moment of pause and what sounds like an indication of a de-escalatory approach.

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, Poppy, I think that the idea of a de-escalatory approach is a really good idea. And if the president takes up this opportunity to ratchet down tensions, that is something that I'm waiting to hear.

We don't want the country to be embarrassed by what's going on, but we do want a way forward in which there is no real threat of a big war, big conflagration with Iran.

SCIUTTO: David Sanger, the president has repeatedly promised to end the endless wars in the Middle East, and yet he has taken a step with this killing Soleimani that previous Democratic and Republican administrations did not take, Bush and Obama, because they thought the consequences would be too great. And by the way, he sent thousands more troops to the Middle East. We'll just put it up on the screen. 2,800 troops after the killing there, 750 troops prior after the embassy protests, 1,800 to Saudi Arabia, that's more than 5,000 troops in just the last couple of months here. It seems to be that the moves running counter to his messaging.

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: It sure does. And that doesn't even count the additional 14,000 or so in Saudi Arabia, which are fundamentally to contain Iran. Consistency has never been the strong point of this administration when they are discussing strategy. And when they pull -- when the president made the decision to pull us out of Syria, where we had a tiny number of troops by comparison, 500 or 600, he said it was because he had to end the endless wars and wouldn't send in more.

[10:20:05]

When you hear the administration now talk about the strategy that we heard Secretary Pompeo describe, which, of course, was to confront and contain, the lesson of the cold war is containment is labor intensive, right? And the president has to go realize that now.

I suspect that in the talk, the speech that we hear in a little while, you're going to hear a lot of threats from the president about what he will do if Americans die, if there are more attacks and so forth. But the trick is to look for the small opening. Diplomacy, outreach to Iran has not been their strong point, to say the least, but we have seen moments where the president has said that he's open to talk to Iran without precondition and actually tried to set up a phone call once.

HARLOW: Colonel, an official of the State Department telling our reporters, Jim among them, that the major question now is do Iranian proxies follow suit. And if history has taught us anything with Iran, it's that their response can last for years and it can be on soft, unsuspecting targets, like Buenos Aires, et cetera.

So Americans waking up this morning, should they think, okay, Iran has responded, this is it for now?

LEIGHTON: Not at all, Poppy. This is really one of the most dangerous times because with the one hand, you'll have Iran doing something officially, which may seem very conciliatory. With the other hand, you'll have from Jim's book, The Shadow War, you will have things happening in the shadows that are really important and perhaps more consequential than what's actually happening in something that we can actually see.

So this is a very dangerous time. We have to be prepared for all the different things that can happen. And the proxies that you mention, Poppy, they are the ones that provide plausible deniability to the Iranians.

SCIUTTO: And delay is possible, is it not, David Sanger? Iran waited -- you talk about this in your book, speaking of books, waited months to attack Sheldon Adelson for his public comments with a cyber attack. There's precedent for keeping their powder dry and the striking when you're not expected.

SANGER: Well, that's right. And so in the cyber arena, that's the one area where they know they can reach the United States itself and actually affect Americans. Their missiles can't reach. They never had much of an infrastructure here that were seeking to launch terror attacks.

But Sheldon Adelson you mentioned was really fascinating. Sheldon Adelson suggested at a university talk in the midst of the previous nuclear crisis, well maybe we should just drop a bomb in the Iranian desert and tell them Tehran is next. And a few months later, the Sands Casino in Las Vegas, which Mr. Adelson owns, went dark one morning and it took them a long time to put it back together.

SCIUTTO: And the U.S. later attributed that to Iran.

SANGER: They publicly attributed it, yes.

HARLOW: Let's talk about Iran's capability a few years ago and their capability now, because you have a General Joseph Votel, who ran Cent Com until March saying what's most disturbing to him right now is the maturation of the systems and how quickly the Iranians are learning.

And if you look at their airstrikes on the Saudi oil fields in September, I believe all but two of those 19 missiles hit precisely. So the precision with which Iran is increasing its capability.

LEIGHTON: Absolutely. The precision is very interesting to me being partly from an Air Force targeting background. We have always prided ourselves as being very precise in how we deliver weaponry, how we put it on target and make sure that we minimize civilian or collateral casualties. The Iranians seem to be learning from our playbook.

And if you notice all the different things that they're doing right now, it seems as if they are minimizing civilian casualties. They're even minimizing military casualties in this case, both of U.S. and Iraqi forces in this particular case. And doing that shows a very interesting capability that may be related to their ability to exploit GPS or the Russian System, GLONASS, which is similar to GPS.

And if they can do that, their missiles can be much more of a guided precision strike weapon than has been the case before.

SCIUTTO: Look at the strike on the Saudi oil facility a few weeks back. I mean, they literally dropped a dime on several right where they needed to hit them and from great distance. They have some capabilities.

Cedric, David, always good to have you on.

Senate Majority Mitch McConnell, he just responded to Speaker Nancy Pelosi's demands for a fair impeachment trial. What did he say? We'll be live from Capitol Hill next.

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[10:25:00]

HARLOW: Later today, the Trump administration will brief both the entire House and Senate on what is happening with the U.S. and Iran right now. This comes as Congress is going back and forth over the rules of the president's impeachment trial in the Senate.

Democrats just wrapped up their caucus. But according to one member who was there, the articles of impeachment actually didn't come up at all.

[10:30:01]

SCIUTTO: That's remarkable. CNN Senior Congressional Correspondent Manu Raju is on Capitol Hill.

So Speaker Pelosi is silent on when she plans to send the articles --