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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

President Obama Admits ISIS Was "Underestimated"; Al Qaeda's New Warning; Pro-Democracy Protests in Hong Kong; Bodies Being Recovered at Japan Volcano

Aired September 29, 2014 - 04:30   ET

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

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: President Obama opening up about what the U.S. did wrong during the rise of ISIS. This as new airstrikes target the terrorists in Iraq and Syria. New air strikes this morning. We're taking you live for the very latest.

A chilling new warning from al Qaeda, warning the West of retribution for air strikes in Syria.

Violent protests in the streets of Hong Kong. Police using tear gas, pepper spray and batons. Pro democracy demonstrations out of control, things have taken a new turn this morning. We are live in China with what's happening right now.

Welcome back to EARLY START. I'm Christine Romans. Thirty minutes past the hour. John Berman sleeping in this morning. He has the day off.

President Obama is admitting that the administration was not prepared for the threat ISIS posed. The president acknowledging on "60 Minutes" Sunday night the one reason the rapid expansion of ISIS took officials by surprise is that intelligence agencies underestimated ISIS and overestimated the ability of the Iraqi military to fight off the terror group.

Our Erin McPike has more from the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ERIN MCPIKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Christine, in a new interview with CBS' "60 Minutes", President Obama acknowledges that the U.S. intelligence community did underestimate the strength of ISIS and what it was doing to set up its operations inside Syria. And then he said that that is the context for how the United States is going to have to go forward in battling terrorism in the future. This idea that terrorist groups can take advantage of a Middle Eastern nation torn apart by a civil war that has descended into chaos.

Listen here to more of what he said in that interview.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I think our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He didn't say -- just say that we underestimated

ISIL. He said we overestimated the ability and the will of our allies, the Iraqi army, to fight.

OBAMA: That's true. That's absolutely true.

MCPIKE: But a lingering question from this interview and what President Obama has said in the past month, this idea that the U.S. with some support was able to quash al Qaeda, but it has now reconstituted itself in Syria as ISIS by taking advantage of the chaos there. What is to say that another terrorist group won't take advantage of the ensuing chaos again -- Christine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: All right. Erin McPike, thanks so much for that, Erin.

Those overestimated soldiers now are getting a second chance from the Iraqi military, even though they were defeated or fled in earlier battles. Iraq's government desperately needs trained soldiers to fight ISIS and is now offering a de facto amnesty to former deserters. Officials say more than 11,000 have signed up. U.S. led attacks against ISIS from the air, they continued Sunday. U.S. Central Command saying air strikes in Syria hit an ISIS tank, four modular oil refineries and a command and control center.

In Iraq, targets included an ISIS safe house and checkpoints. But ISIS is still taking new territory in Syria. Shelling intensified Sunday on the town of Kobani, driving a wave of refugees up against the nearby border with Turkey.

I want to bring in CNN's Arwa Damon. She is there live now.

Let's begin -- let's begin, Arwa, with these new airstrikes in Syria. We are still seeing ISIS advance very, very close actually to where you are right now. What can you tell us about these new airstrikes and how the people on the ground want more of them?

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, just to the east of where we are right now, that was a location of one of these airstrikes, but it did not prevent ISIS from advancing into the town that is just behind us.

Literally within eye sight, we see ISIS fighters on the back of motorcycles. We were seeing some of their artillery that was mounted on the back of vehicles. We saw a couple of explosions in the distance. And that is why at the very least, here, people want to see the U.S. and the coalition do more.

Interestingly, though, we spoke exclusively, and this is very rare, to an active ISIS fighter from ISIS stronghold of Raqqa. He was scoffing at this notion of the coalition air strikes on oil installations and other locations as well were going to be having any sort of impact.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ISIS FIGHTER (through translator): We, the Islamic State, we have revenue other than oil. We have other avenues and our finances are not going to stop just because of oil losses. They hit us in some areas and we advance in others. If we are pushed back in Iraq, we advance in northern Syria. These strikes cannot stop us, our support or our fighters.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DAMON: But this fighter was also saying, he goes by the pseudonym of Abu Talhas (ph), that that the offensive we saw earlier this summer into northern Iraq that saw the rapid fall of Mosul to ISIS, that he said was carefully preplanned. They knew exactly what was going to happen when they swept through those swaths of northern Iraq. He also said that they were very aware of the fact the U.S., other intelligence agencies, other nations were tracking their locations. They knew where ISIS bases were inside Syria.

So, as a precaution, well before these airstrikes took place, they began moving out fighters, but also their equipment. They hid it, some of it, among civilians -- among the civilians and residential areas. Others dug part of an intricate underground network of tunnels underground.

This is an organization the fighter was saying that is not going to be easily defeated, and most certainly is not going to be militarily defeated. Boasting about how since these air strikes were taking place, more people were, in fact, he claimed, joining their ranks. But it is exactly because of the concern of the power that ISIS has and as we can see, the reality despite the fact that these air strikes are taking place, the organization does move around with a fair level of impunity. They are within eye sight.

So, that is why people around us fail to understand how it is the coalition can continue to allow this to happen. Right now, there are two villages that stand between ISIS fighters and Kobani, basically the last town standing in this portion of northern Syria.

ROMANS: Wow, unbelievable. Please stay safe, Arwa Damon. We'll talk to you again soon as ISIS continues to make grounds in that part of Syria.

All right. The head of al Qaeda's affiliate in Syria is calling the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS a crusader alliance and vowing to fight back. In a rare audio statement, the leader of the al Nusra militants warns his own fighters to reject Western help in Nusra's battle against ISIS. U.S. officials see al Nusra as a terrorist group. But Syrian rebels view it as an ally in their fight against both ISIS and Syrian President Bashar al Assad.

U.S. intelligence working to confirm this morning whether a leader of the al Qaeda-linked Khorasan group was killed in a U.S. strike on Syria last week. A jihadist Twitter account offered condolences over the death of the Khorasan operative.

But deputy national security advisor Tony Blinken said Sunday he couldn't confirm that report and that U.S. intelligence wanted to be sure that the Khorasan leader wasn't trying to fake his death and go underground.

Now to northwest Pakistan, where a U.S. drone strike has killed four suspected militants. Two of the dead are described as citizens of the Arab nations. No identities have been released. The Sunday afternoon attack targeted a vehicle parked outside a house in the Waziristan region. It is the second U.S. drone strike there in less than a week.

An American doctor exposed to the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone is back home this morning being kept in isolation at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. That's where health officials are conducting one of the first clinical trials on an experimental Ebola vaccine.

Meanwhile, Liberia's chief medical officer just quarantined herself and everyone in her office for three weeks after an assistant died of Ebola. The virus spreading so quickly now, there are concerns the U.S. military response may not be rapid enough to help control the outbreak. Navy troops in Liberia are just now working on building a dozen tent hospitals to treat the sick and dying.

But six months into this outbreak, the doctors, beds and medical supplies remain scarce in West Africa. The virus has now officially killed more than 3,000 people. The World Health Organization warns that number is vastly underestimated.

New details about a Secret Service security lapse that could have put the lives of President Obama's daughters at risk. According to "The Washington Post", it took the Secret Service four days to realize a man had fired seven shots from a high-powered rifle at the White House back in 2011. Oscar Ortega Hernandez of Idaho was caught and convicted only because he wrecked his car blocks away and left his weapons inside. One of the president's daughters was home at the time, the other was minutes away from returning home.

Time for an EARLY START on your money this morning. Global markets mixed this morning. Protests in Hong Kong sent the market there to the lowest level since July. Here in the U.S. futures are lower.

Senator Elizabeth Warren wants to investigate whether the Fed is too cozy with the banks. The allegations stem from secretly made tapes that allegedly show the New York Fed pushing back against tougher regulations on banking giant Goldman Sachs. Warren said the tapes raised disturbing issues and that hearings are now necessary. Tapes are part of a former Fed investigator suit over her wrongful termination. The New York Fed said it rejects the accusation and the former Fed was let go because of her performance.

Happening now: a major push for democracy in Hong Kong. Tens of thousands of protesters taking to the streets. We are live right thereafter the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: The streets of Hong Kong are filled -- filled with protesters this morning. Huge crowds of demonstrators began filling the streets there Saturday, becoming the target of police swinging batons and firing tear gas. This follows a week of student-led pro-democracy boycotts and protests.

At issue was the demonstrators see as the heavy hand of Beijing trying to control the outcome of the city's coming elections for chief executive.

Standing by live in Hong Kong is CNN's Ivan Watson.

And, you know, we're just getting reports that it appears that China -- Chinese officials, the censors there have blocked Instagram because you got thousands and thousands of people uploading pictures of the police response, Ivan, to these demonstrators. And, of course, the Chinese government wants stability and doesn't want anything out there that appears to be critical of China.

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. The Chinese central government and the local government here in Hong Kong have been calling all of these protesters and these demonstration here blocking and paralyzing downtown Hong Kong, calling it illegal. But that has not stopped these thousands and thousands of people from filling what is supposed to be a highway that should be jammed with traffic coming and leaving work at this time of day.

So, there's really a test of wills under way. You alluded to Instagram being blocked, as of today Monday, our CNN signal broadcasting in China has been blacked out when this report from Hong Kong come up.

Of course, China, mainland China, has the great firewall which normally blocks things like Google and Facebook and Twitter. So, it's a sign that China, the central government wants to control the message coming out of Hong Kong here.

Meanwhile, the young demonstrators, I can't stress enough how young they are, 18, 19, 20 years old, these are spearheaded by university students, they vow to stay in the streets until they get what they are demanding and that is they say true democracy -- the right to really nominate their own candidates for elections in 2017.

And a big question is how long can they and Hong Kong's economy afford to really paralyze the downtown of this financial hub. How long can students afford to boycott classes? How long can this disrupt financial markets? And it's really the first 14 working day of this.

So, this is a test for this former British colony and for this very young protest movement performing an act of civil disobedience that hasn't been seen here, the likes of which have not been in generations -- Christine.

ROMANS: Remarkable to look at the pictures, Ivan. I mean, just remarkable, because Hong Kong is a buttoned-up, very efficient financial capital. And to see all of those people -- I mean, we've been talking to the banks this morning, the big banks who have been closing doors, suspending some of their operations, unheard of. We know the Chinese authorities get very concerned about mass

demonstrations of people. The Chinese authorities are very concerned when people want to express their own political determination. You know, you mentioned the great Chinese firewall. You cannot type in the word "democracy" in a search engine and be able to get results because the Chinese officials are so concerned about the political self determination of folks. Hong Kong was for a long time a British colony, since 1997, you know, the Chinese have taken control of it.

Are there concerns, do you know, this kind of political movement in Hong Kong is something that could spread to mainland China?

WATSON: Absolutely. And that's what's really at stake here. I mean, many people may not know that Hong Kong, the rules are very different here. The system of government is very different compared to mainland China. You don't have the same censorship here of the Internet. All books are allowed to be published. The newspapers and media are more free. There are opposition political parties.

So, public forms of dissent are allowed here while simply not tolerated in mainland China. We saw tear gas used by riot police early this morning and late last night. If this kind of protest erupted in mainland China, the security forces would have been much more draconian and more violent in their crackdown.

And part of the protest movement here is triggered by fear that China is slowly and incrementally exerting its authority over this former British colony, that its freedoms are slowly being eroded.

Of course, there is also the fear this could trigger a much harsher backlash from the central Chinese authorities that the freedoms they allowed Hong Kong to obtain, could simply be crushed.

So, there is a lot of concern about the possibility that China could mobilize its people's liberation army, tanks in the streets, for example. And a lot of people talking about the crackdown on the protests in Tiananmen Square in Beijing a quarter century ago. Of course, we haven't seen the signs of any of that right now. And the Chinese central authorities certainly have not issued any threats like that.

In the meantime, the security forces here, if anything, they pushed and pulled back some since they fired off some tear gas canisters early this morning -- Christine.

ROMANS: All right. Ivan Watson, remarkable to see that crowd of people behind you. Ivan Watson, thank you in Hong Kong this morning.

Forty-nine minutes past the hour.

Dozens of hikers killed when a volcano suddenly erupts. Poisonous gas and ash filling the air. We are live after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: Central Japan, the sight of the somber recovery mission today. Crews airlifting bodies out of an area near the summit of Mt. Ontake. At least 37 people presumed dead, 37 presumed dead after that volcano erupted -- the summit erupted unexpectedly this weekend.

Will Ripley is there for with the latest.

And, Will, you were telling us earlier that the ash plume and gasses in the air, you've been wearing a gas mask, you even have a helmet in case some of these more dangerous embers come down. What's the situation like now?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the good news in the last half an hour or so, the conditions have somewhat improved. The plume that was taking up much of the sky over my shoulder here for most of the day has now diminished. Rescue crews are certainly hoping that it will continue because they had to cut off their search earlier today.

We are in the last few moments of light. The search is over for now. But they are hoping to get back up to the mountain before dawn. They have a three-kilometer trek through knee deep ash to try to get the summit where they believe some two dozen victims of this eruption are still lying right now.

People who were on the mountain hiking, sight seeing during the peak autumn viewing season when all of a sudden, this mountain blew its top without warning. Japan has raised its alert level from 1 to 3 out of 5. And they are warning that another big eruption could happen here in the coming days, which makes those search efforts all the more urgent, to try to get everybody off the mountain before another potential big operation happens, Christine.

ROMANS: All right. Will Ripley for us this morning in Japan -- thank you for that, Will.

Another big motor vehicle recall, this from a name legendary for quality. We're going to get an EARLY START on your money, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROMANS: All right. Let's get an EARLY START on your money this Monday morning. Stock futures are lower. Last week, a tough one for stock investors. Analysts say we may get a repeat of this week's wild market swings. Wall Street will focus on a number of economic reports on spending and manufacturing, all leading up to the big jobs report at the end of the week.

Harley Davidson is recalling every one of its 2014 touring bikes, every one of them, 126,000 motorcycles. The problem lies with the clutch. It may not disengage and could cause a crash. A spokeswoman for the company said the flaw is connected to 17 accidents. However, none have caused serious injuries. Last year, the motorcycle maker recalled a small number of the same bike for an issue with the very same part.

Fifty-nine minutes past the hour, EARLY START continues right now.

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