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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

President Outlines Strategy Against ISIS; Former FBI Chief to Probe NFL

Aired September 11, 2014 - 05:00   ET

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

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: How to destroy ISIS. The president revealing his plan to take down the terror organization, from airstrikes in Syria, to training rebel fighters and sending more troops, more U.S. troops back to Iraq. Is this new strategy enough?

We are breaking it all down with live team coverage from around the world starting right now.

Good morning. Welcome to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans.

BERMAN: I'm John Berman. A lot going on this morning. It is Thursday, September 11th, 5:00 a.m. in the East.

And an urgent call from President Obama for a stepped up commitment in the fight against ISIS. In the nationally televised speech he gave late last night, the president unveiled a series of steps to degrade and destroyed the terror group, including an expansion of airstrikes into Syria, although we are told that those strikes will not begin immediately. The president also increasing the number of military advisers on the ground in Iraq and calling for moderate Syrian rebels to be trained and equipped and calling on Congress to vote on that.

All of this after months of brutality by ISIS, and a lot of people here are concerned that the terror group could be plotting to infiltrate and attack the United States.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I made it clear that we will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country wherever they are. That means I will not hesitate to take action against of ISIL in Syria as well as Iraq. This is a core principle of my presidency. If you threaten America, you will find no safe haven.

In Syria, we have ramped up military assistance to the Syrian opposition. Tonight, I call on Congress again to give us additional authorities and resources to train and equipped these fighters. And the fight against ISIL, we cannot rely on the Assad regime that terrorizes its own people, a regime that will never regain the legitimacy it has lost.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: So, will the president face resistance in Washington? And did he sell his plan to the American people already weary of U.S. involvement of conflict overseas?

Mark Preston knows. He's executive editor of CNN Politics. He joins us now from Washington with an early reaction from Capitol Hill.

And, you know, even John Boehner earlier saying this week, a lot of Republicans are saying, well, we don't know. The president doesn't have a strategy. He said he doesn't have a strategy.

Now, they've heard his strategy. What do they think?

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICS: Well, John Boehner, in fact, says that he would support going in and training and arming the Syrian rebels. However, the criticism about President Obama and we're hearing from the House speaker as well as many other Republicans is that they are unsure about his long term strategy.

By and large, Christine, they are happy by the fact that President Obama is engaging in this, that he will be increasing airstrikes, that he will be providing more humanitarian assistance, that they are putting these technical advisers, more technical advisers that are already there on the ground to try to train the forces, the Iraqi army, as well as the Syrian rebels about how to deal with ISIS.

What's most, though, important right now, President Obama said he would not put U.S. combat troops on the ground. That is something the American public does not want to see. We've seen that in polling just in the past week. We certainly heard this loud and clear from Congress just in the last couple of days.

BERMAN: Mark, you're certainly right. The president went to great ends to tell the American people what this is not, mainly troops on the ground inside Syria. But what it is, is still a very big departure from what this president ran on in 2007, 2008. It was a withdrawal from Iraq, an ultimate withdrawal from Afghanistan as well.

And for this president who made restraint a pillar of his foreign policy, this is a big shift, now essentially admitting that this effort to continue into the next presidency.

PRESTON: No question, and perhaps beyond than that, John. You know, the fact of the matter is, he has handed a situation right now where the U.S. has to take some action. That is something that is believed not only here among the American public. We've seen certainly in the past month or so where the war-weary American public has decided that, in fact, they would be supportive of the measures that President Obama outlined just hours ago.

We are also seeing that from Congress as well. By and large, for this to be successful, I think the understanding is, is that there needs to be a broad-based coalition. The United States won't put the ground troops in there to fight hand-to-hand combat. However, they are expecting that their coalition members, specifically those in the region to do so.

ROMANS: Arming the so-called moderate Syrian rebels, I mean, it is hornet's nest of conflicting alliances and switching teams. That's going to be --

BERMAN: Training inside Saudi Arabia, too.

ROMANS: Well, well.

All right. So, Mark Preston, thank you.

Nearly 500 additional U.S. personnel are being deployed to Iraq. When they arrive in about a week, 1,700 soldiers will be on the ground in Iraq.

The president making it clear they are not there to fight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: We will send an additional 475 service members to Iraq. As I've said before, these American forces will not have a combat mission. We will not get dragged into another ground war in Iraq. But they are needed to support Iraqi and Kurdish forces with training, intelligence and equipment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: Let's go live to Irbil, Iraq, bring in our Anna Coren, who's been watching as the U.S. strikes over the past days and weeks have been stopping ISIS in tracks, most recently around the Mosul dam.

How important are these extra -- extra U.S. personnel going to be in this fight?

ANNA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Christine, certainly, welcome news to the senior Kurdish officials that I have spoken to here in Irbil, and then the Iraqi officials in Baghdad. They were looking for a commitment from President Obama and he certainly gave that to them as he outlined his strategy to degrade and then ultimately destroy ISIS.

Those U.S. troops, 475, that will be joining the already 1,500 -- I beg your pardon -- 1,100, making a total of 1,600 U.S. forces. They are going to be taking on the role of advising and assisting and training. This, of course, is critical. That leadership has been lacking here in Iraq. The Kurds and Iraqis have been very much operating separately, the two militaries.

So, to see them come under the leadership, the umbrella of the United States will make a big difference in the way that they attack ISIS and the effectiveness of the fights. Obviously the U.S. air strikes critical. They have been changing the situation on the ground and not necessarily defeating ISIS, but containing them, stopping that rapid advance that we've seen over the past few months, to the point where ISIS now controls one-third of this country.

But, obviously, the intensification of the air strikes by the systematic campaign that we heard the president outline, an indication that we're going to see it ramp up over the coming weeks, which will hurt ISIS a lot more and really take out those enemy oppositions -- Christine.

ROMANS: All right. In Irbil -- Anna Coren, thank you, Anna.

BERMAN: It was the rapid expansion of ISIS. It really caught so many by surprise this summer, including some global leaders. The terror group managed to recruit from around the globe, including the man heard on the videos during the executions of James Foley and Steven Sotloff. He is believed to be from Britain.

And it's that kind of global reach that the president says needs to be curtailed before it's too late.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: While we have not yet detected specific plotting against the homeland, ISIL leaders have threatened American and our allies. Our intelligence community believes that thousands of foreigners, including Europeans and some Americans, had joined them in Syria and Iraq. Trained and battle hardened, these fighters could try to return to their home countries and carry out deadly attacks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Parts of Europe have already taken action with the terror threat level now raised in London. That's where Arwa Damon is standing by with reaction to the president's address.

Good morning, Arwa.

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. And that threat level was actually raised earlier this month in the U.K. from substantial to severe, of the estimated thousands of Westerners who have joined the ranks of ISIS, fighting both in Iraq and Syria. About 500 of them are believed to be from Britain.

We spoke to an ISIS defector who had a few interesting insights into why it was that ISIS chose to use a Westerner and individual with a British accent of British origins to front the horrific executions of those two American journalists, but also to front the videos they are putting out to recruit. And its defector was saying it was to send a message that ISIS is not just an entity that is made up of Iraqis or Syrians. But it does have the global reach and that people, Westerners, can in fact support ISIS in their various respective countries without needing to travel to the battle grounds of Syria and Iraq.

He also said that during his interactions with various Westerners that were fighting on the battlefields, that they said they would, in fact, return back home and carry out attacks if they believed they could do so because at this point in time from the moment that they joined ISIS, they considered their home countries to be infidels and therefore legitimate targets.

But this is not just a battle that is going to be won through airstrikes, nor is it a battle that is just going to be won in Iraq and Syria. The west needs to look at the various factors that are allowing for this radical Islam to take over. Why is it being nurtured so greatly in these different nations and to expand beyond that, we need to look at countries like Libya, for example, that is running various training camps for fighters for extremist fighters, both in the east and south. At this stage, there is, in fact, an entire Libyan brigade that is fighting alongside ISIS in Syria. So, this is definitely a multilayered, incredibly complex battle to defeat this very powerful terrorist organization.

BERMAN: Complex battle that will not be over within weeks or months, but we are talking years.

Arwa Damon for us in London, thank you so much.

ROMANS: Complex and well-funded.

The U.S. Treasury Department is trying to go after the fund-raisers and freezing some of those assets. But, of course, there's a lot of funding on the ground from the oil the group has managed to steal.

All right. Not lost on anyone is the timing of the president's remarks. It's delivered on the eve of the 13th anniversary of 9/11.

A ceremony today at the World Trade Center in New York begins at a moment of silence at 8:46. That is the minute the first plane hit the North Tower and changed American perception forever.

President Obama will mark September 11th at the ceremony at the Pentagon. Another ceremony will take place in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where a fourth hijacked plane crashed after passengers against terrorists.

All right. New claims this morning that the NFL saw the video of Ray Rice punching his girlfriend months ago. Who is now on the case as the Ravens owner explains why it too so long to cut Rice from the team?

BERMAN: Plus, new video and new witnesses in the Michael Brown shooting. How they say the unarmed black teenager was killed. This is very interesting. You're going to want to see this, coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Former director of the FBI being brought in to investigate the NFL's response to the initial domestic violence complaint against Ray Rice. The league's spokesperson says Robert Mueller will conduct an investigation into the NFL's pursuit of evidence and how it handled evidence.

Why is this announced now? Well, it follows an "Associated Press" report saying a copy of the video showing Rice punching his then- fiancee was sent to the NFL in April. The "Associated Press" cites a voicemail reportedly from someone in the league office confirming that they watched the tape.

For its part, the NFL now says, we have no knowledge of this. We are not aware of anyone in our office who possessed or saw that video before it was made public on Monday, we will look into it.

While this is going on, the Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti is speaking out for the first time since Rice was cut this week. He says he did not see the video either and admits he made assumptions about the incident.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE BISCIOTTI, BALTIMORE RAVENS OWNER: I was picturing her wailing on him and him smacking her and maybe her head was this far from the wall, and with her inebriation dropped. So, why did I conclude all that? Because I wanted to, because I loved him, because he had a stellar record, and the cops had already seen the video. So, I assumed it wasn't a forceful blow that moved her head three feet into that wall.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Rally interesting level of introspection right there. Of course, it is assumptions, though, that are the problem so often in domestic abuse cases.

The Ravens take the field tonight for the first time since that new video emerged.

ROMANS: The assumption is that she did something to deserve it. And that is the bottom line of all of the outrage in the weeks and months since then, that it always goes back to the victim and she did something to deserve it.

The owner of that team, an intelligent and wealthy man, he admits she did something to deserve it. He had no evidence. He assumed she did something to deserve it. It's shocking.

BERMAN: It's really interesting.

ROMANS: I wonder if he has daughters. I'm actually curious about that.

All right. New witnesses, new video and new protests emerging in the Michael Brown case. This cell phone video obtained by CNN shows two construction workers in the moment after officer Darren Wilson shot the unarmed teen. One contractor can be heard saying as he was gesturing how Brown had his hands up.

Watch the video. Hands are up. He's showing.

Meanwhile, police arrested 35 protesters went yesterday after they threaten to shutdown Interstate 70 near Ferguson. Police say some demonstrators threw bricks, rocks and bottles at officers. The protest was aimed at persuading Missouri's governor to appoint a special prosecutor in the Brown case.

BERMAN: All right. Happening right now in South Africa, the judge in the Oscar Pistorius trial is reading her verdict in the case. This will take a long time, but she has already given the Pistorius defense some reason for hope. She's knocked down three key pieces of the prosecution's case, including really the timeline of events.

The judge also says she thinks it was Pistorius whose screams were heard coming from the home. Again, this process takes several hours. We don't know the final decision yet. But the indications are from the judge, she seems to be leaning at least towards the defense timeline here. We're going to keep monitoring these proceedings in Pretoria and bring you the latest as they come in.

ROMANS: Eighteen minutes past the hour. Time for an EARLY START in your money this morning.

European stocks down. U.S. stocks futures lower, too.

Stocks climbed yesterday, Apple leading a surge in tech shares. Those shares up more than 3 percent. They are back above $100.

Your information is for sale on the dark web, and not just if you went to Home Depot. At least of 5 million Gmail addresses and passwords appeared on a Russian bitcoin forum. Google says its systems were not hacked. The log-ins seemed to have been collected through phishing and hacking over several years. A lot of this information are out of date, thankfully. Still, Google has locked you out if your information was leaked, redirecting you to reset your password. Google is also advising users to create stronger passwords and use its two-step authentication feature.

All right. A line of powerful storms moving across Ohio. There were reports of at least four tornadoes Wednesday, strong winds, damaging homes and bringing down trees in a town of Stow, that's near Akron. No injuries have been reported, but the severe storm system is now said to be moving east.

Indra Petersons has the look for your forecast today.

Hey, Indra.

INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, we see a couple of showers so close to New York City right now. You can actually see the line of storms extending really all the way from the East Coast, all the way back even in through Texas.

So, this is what we're going to be monitoring today, looking for some amounts of rain. As we go through the weekend, everybody is wondering, where is this guy going? I just want to point out, there are actually two systems out there. The second one even colder.

Look at all of the snow that currently is up even out towards Billings this morning. That's the concern as two systems make their way through. We're going to be seeing some cooler air, making its way in.

So, yes, by Friday, nicer in the Northeast. But, of course, you see another in the Midwest. By the time we get through Saturday, that system does make its way into the northeast, extending really all the way down, even into Southeast, bringing you more showers for the weekend. But this is what's so crazy. Look at this temperature difference. It's like the colors of the

rainbow, right? Except it's temperatures, currently seeing 30s. Yes, very beautiful. Not in the blue, John.

Thirty degrees right now and you're talking toward Bismarck. Meanwhile, 80 degrees if you're walking in Memphis. Right now, that's the change we're going to be talking about.

Look at the temperatures drops, 20 degrees cooler. In towards St. Louis, you are going to feel that. Meanwhile in the Northeast, you're going to be feeling it as well. It's going to take a little bit longer. It's not going to get quite as cool, but either way, the roller coaster keeps going.

ROMANS: All right. Thanks, Indra.

BERMAN: Players from around the NFL speaking out about the latest twist in the Ray Rice case. What they are saying about the league's response. Laura Rutledge with the "Bleacher Report", coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: Reaction coming fast and furious from current and former football players as the NFL grapples with the Ray Rice scandal.

BERMAN: Laura Rutledge has more now in the "Bleacher Report".

Good morning, Laura.

LAURA RUTLEDGE, BLEACHER REPORT: Good morning.

And, yes, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell started drawing heavy fire on Twitter last night, after the "Associated Press" reports #firegoodell quickly began trending. The uproar towards Goodell and the league also came from current and former NFL players.

Now, recently retired James Harrison who's had several run-ins with the NFL front office for illegal hits tweeted to Goodell, "Ain't no fun when the rabbit got the gun, huh?"

And former Saints linebacker Scott Fujita, who was suspended for a game during Bountygate, also worked for the players union, didn't hold back, saying, "I guess everyone is just catching up. Credibility went out the window a long time ago."

And the always outspoken punter Chris Kluwe reacted to the news that the investigation will be overseen by Giants owner John Mara and Steelers owner Art Rooney. He said, "So glad this independent investigation is being overseen by two NFL owners. No conflict of interest there. No, none at all."

Roger Goodell isn't the only one feeling the heat. Panthers owner Jerry Richardson broke down in tears while discussing domestic violence in an awards gala last night. This was his response to what critics have called a lenient stand in handling Carolina defensive end Greg Hardy's domestic violence case. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JERRY RICHARDSON, PANTHERS OWNER: I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge this issue weighing heavily on our sport and our society. And when it comes to the domestic violence, my stance is not one of indifference. I stand firmly against domestic violence, plain and simple.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RUTLEDGE: Hardy was convicted of domestic violence in July and is currently in the process of appealing the verdict. He was found guilty of assaulting and threatening his ex-girlfriend.

And, John and Christine, neither the league nor the Panthers have punished Hardy at this point.

BERMAN: That makes the owner's response so very interesting.

All right. Laura Rutledge, great to thank with you with us, Laura. Thanks so much.

RUTLEDGE: Thanks.

BERMAN: Twenty-six minutes after the hour right now.

ROMANS: The Ray Rice story just keeps going.

BERMAN: President Obama revealing his strategy to go after ISIS, using force and diplomacy. But will it be enough and how is the world reacting this morning, the morning after his big address? We're live next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)