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Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield

Obama Says Defeating ISIS Is His Top Priority; Terror Suspects Still At Large And Still Pose Threat, According To Officials; Police Say Two Brussels Attackers Were Brothers With Ties To Paris Attacks; Obama And Argentinean President Speak; Obama Comments About Cuban Visit; Obama Says ISIS "Not An Existential Threat" To The U.S. But Says He Will Not Hesitate To Use Military Force; U.S. Intelligence Agent Says Belgium Is 'Soft.' Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired March 23, 2016 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:15] ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: He said the strength of the United States, in reference to what happened overseas, is that we have an extraordinarily successful, patriotic, integrated Muslim population who are, and I'll paraphrase here, are not ghettoized like perhaps the way some countries in Europe have been treating their Muslim populations to paraphrase even further perhaps that being something where we may not be fearful of the same kind of cell base attacks organized, orchestrated attacks that we've seen in Europe. But who knows because the worst thing is we don't know what we don't know.

I'm joined now by CNN contributor and senior editor of the Daily Beast Michael Weiss again. And former Jihadist author Mubin Shaikh. And we're also joined by former CIA director and former ambassador and current head of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, James Woolsey.

So if I can ambassador, I'd like to go to you just to bounce off those comments that the president just made in Argentina. He has said that, you know, attacking that the problem of terror is top priority, he said not only for national security team, for the military for intelligence community and for diplomat. But everybody sees this in a different light. Some saying you need to get tougher. Others saying you need to get more diplomatic. How do you see it?

JAMES WOOLSEY, AMBASSADOR & FORMER CIA DIRECTOR: I think they see it in a different light because he was saying two different things. The first three quarters of what the president said I thought was fine, articulate, talking about dealing with ISIS being our number one priority that we had to use force in the Middle East effectively. All of that was fine.

And then he -- I think he somehow seems to have forgotten that in the days after 9/11, Mayor Giuliani and then after him Mayor Bloomberg and Raymond Kelly put together a system for operating the NYPD and they were helped by some retirees from the CIA who understood these issues, too. They put together a very effective system of surveillance. And yes, it looked more at Muslim neighborhoods than at some others just as if the FBI was going after certain types of organized crime, they would go to more Sicilian and Italian neighborhoods rather than say, Irish. It's just an understanding of the way things work. And what the president tried to do at the end of his remarks by making it sound like common sense in surveillance was something hideous and awful, I find really strange. And I think it undercut the very fine first three quarters of his remarks.

BANFIELD: So, Michael Weiss, I'd like you to weigh in on this if you would. Malcolm Nance is a terrific author of a book that is very insightful on ISIS, has said just on this show yesterday talked about the relationship that this country has with the global Muslim world. And he has said before very clearly that there are American operatives, high level operatives, low level operatives in the fox hole side by side with the Muslim community. And it's very, very difficult to do this diplomatic dance while at the same time suggesting that we also, you know, surveil neighborhood, Muslim neighborhoods more. Because that doesn't fit well with those who are our allies, our Muslim allies around the world.

If you could put that in perspective of what we just saw happen in Brussels. Help me understand how it harms us or hurts us -- or helps us or hurts us.

MICHAEL WEISS, SENIOR EDITOR, DAILY BEAST: Well, first of all, I mean there's a difference between good police work and law enforcement integrating with these communities. You might call it the broken window theory of counterterrorism, right.

It's a former surveillance but it's also a form of cultivating human intelligence getting informants and local communities that basically want to protect themselves and want to drop a dime on the dodgy guy next door in his mother's basement playing with fertilizer and that kind of thing.

That's distinctive though from, you know, suggesting as Senator Cruz has, that we should carpet bomb the Middle East. That is much more deleterious much more designed to alienate precisely the bellwether constituency that we need most of all right now which are Sunni Arabs. You cannot defeat Sunni Arabs, Jihadist and without Sunni Arabs alongside. This lesson was demonstrated to a staggering degree in the Iraq, into 2006 to 2009 period and the form of the al-Anbar Awakening.

But just I want to address something else here that nobody wants to talk about. Look ISIS didn't come out of nowhere. It was created in the anarchy and chaos of Iraq. Post for -- not even post for Iraq but Post-Saddam Iraq.

[12:35:02] And there's a geopolitical concomitant factor with respect to ISIS. ISIS has build -- created this conspiracy theory which increasingly doesn't look so much like a conspiracy theory but just U.S. foreign policy which is to say the United States, Russia and Iran are ranged against the Sunni Ummah. They are here to dispossess and marginalize this community which is the rightful heir to the Middle East, the rightful heir to Islam that used to control the holy city of Baghdad until the Americans knocked out Saddam. And it should control the city of Damascus. ISIS is driving because what the United States is doing. I mean the optics of this war are awful. We are deconflicting with Russia and Syria and everybody is dropping bombs on the Sunnis. Nobody is touching Iranian assets or Shia militia groups or Bashar Al Assad regime.

In Iraq, in some instances, U.S. warplanes have given air support to Shia militia groups that are purportedly going after ISIS but are also creating a kind of hegemonic deep state within that country. I mean Iraq is a failed state now. There is no government. You have competitive factions. Some led by nationalists, others led by loyalists to Ayatollah Khamenei.

This is a problem, OK. You know, I keep talking to people in state department who want to talk about counters narratives, on how do you fight the ISIS messaging. Guess what, the U.S. is actually doing the ISIS messaging for it. And this is something that everyday Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi goes to bed rubbing his hands with glee. Because this is why you have young kids who by the way in some case aren't even Muslim, and if they are Muslim, they're not going mosque, they can't even recite one Hajj to you. And they graduate from a life of petty- gangsters and then criminality such as Abdelhamid Abaaoud. And they become international terrorists. They're turning on CNN, to BBC. And they're saying, what's happening in the Middle East? Why are they suffering? This is the problem.

BANFIELD: Clearly many of those radicals haven't heard the Republican argument about the Iran/U.S. deal. But listen I need to interrupt only for a moment because the president is addressing this again in Argentina. He's getting another question on the topic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why you decided that this was the correct course in terms of optics and message. What is that message?

And finally on the trip, it seems to me that both in Cuba and Argentina, you are seeking to roll back some of the maybe overreach or intervention as a Muslim cold war era. I'm wondering now that you're here whether that's shaping your views on intervention in Syria and plan B?

And President Macri, President Obama believes that normalizing relations with Cuba will give you as a lot more credibility and leverage around Latin America. I'm wondering if you also believe that's true. And were you both commit to attending the Olympics in Brazil no matter what happens with instability? Thank you.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Mara, I addressed this issue a little bit at the baseball game when I was interviewed by ESPN. But let me reiterate it. Groups like ISIL can't destroy us. They can't defeat us. They don't produce anything. They're not an existential threat to us. They are vicious killers and murders who perverted one of the world's great religions. And their primary power, in addition to killing innocent lives, is to strike fear in our societies, to disrupt our societies so that the effect cascades from an explosion or an attack by a semi-automatic rifle.

And even as we are systematic and ruthless and focused in going after them, disrupting their networks, getting their leaders, rolling up their operations, it is very important for us to not respond with fear.

It is very important for us to not respond with fear. Now, as I said, that's hard to do because we see the impact in such an intimate way of the attacks that they make. But we defeat them in part by saying you are not strong. You are weak.

We send a message to those who might be inspired by them to say you are not going to change our values of liberty and openness and the respect of all people.

[12:39:58] And I mentioned at the baseball game yesterday, one of my proudest moments as president was watching Boston respond after the Boston marathon attack because they taught America a lesson. They grieved. I was there for the memorial. We apprehended those who had carried this out. But a few days later, folks were out shopping. A few days later, people were in that baseball stadium. And, you know, singing the national anthem.

And Big Papi was saying what he felt about Boston. Boston is strong and how a terrorist attack was not going to change the basic spirit of that city.

Well, at that moment, he spoke about what America is. And that is how we are going to defeat these terrorist groups. In part because we're going after them and taking strikes against them and arresting them and getting intelligence on them and cooperating with other countries, but a lot of it is also going to be to say, you do not have power over us.

We are strong. Our values are right. You offer nothing except death. And, so, it's important for the U.S. president, and the U.S. government, to be able to work with people who are building and who are creating things and creating jobs and trying to solve major problems like climate change and setting up educational exchanges for young people who are going to create the next new great invention or a scientific breakthrough that can cure diseases.

We have to make sure that we lift up and stay focused as well on the things that are most important to us because we're on the right side of history.

And with respect to how my reading of our history in Latin America impacts Syria, I think its apples and oranges. What I have been clear about is, where -- when it comes to defending the United States or its allies and our core interests, I will not hesitate to use military force where necessary. When it is -- but how we do that is important.

We just don't go ahead and blow something up just so we can go back home and say we blew something up. That's not a foreign policy. That's not a military strategy. And I do think it's important for the president of the United States and the administration to think through what they're doing, so that they can achieve the objectives that are the priorities of the American people.

And I can tell you how I spend my time is thinking through with our generals, with our military, with our best thinkers how are we going to most effectively go after ISIL? How do we most effectively bring peace to Syria? We just don't throw some military action at it without having thought it through and making sure that it's effective.

MAURICIO MACRI, PRESIDENT OF ARGENTINA: Well, I will give you my opinion on President Obama's trip to Cuba.

It would be great progress in American terms because doors have opened and tools have been given to those who want to choose again. And he as president of the United States, they went without relinquishing any of the values we embrace in the United States and Argentina, the flag of freedom, the cause of freedom. In other words, it's about every Cuban being able to decide what they want to do in their future.

I think this temper has been taken enables and speeds up the discussion. And that's what we need for the Cuban youth who want more freedom to find more progress around the whole world. I see that very positively. And I think it will be highly positive for the next few years, this relationship between United States and Latin America as well.

[12:45:12] UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... the Olympics regardless of the instability there.

MACRI: That's out of the program.

(FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BANFIELD: The question about the Olympics and the president of Argentina Mauricio Macri saying he's going. And that was fast.

He said that question was out of the program. But he did say he was going as we've been watching this joint press conference out of Buenos Aires, one of the key issues that the president was asked about what's the, the optics of being on this visit both Cuba at a baseball game last night. And then moving on to Argentina, regardless of what's on the actual agenda and the merits of the agenda and the optics of the president being on the road.

And he said the issue is that the terrorists want to strike fear and disrupt society, and you do not have power over us, that's his message.

Mubin Shaikh, I want to ask you, you know, as a former Jihadist turn counterterrorist operative does that work because I have watched for decades as the Palestinians and Israelis have never solved a thing. Yet, the terrorism continues and the carrying-on with normal life in Israel continues. Does it work when you're dealing with terrorists just to use that philosophy, carry on life as normal and we will win?

MUBIN SHAIKH, FORMER JIHADIST: Well, I mean, let me approach it from both sides. If I think like a Jihadi, I'm going to want the public to feel as much fear as possible. I don't want you to go outside. I don't want you to go outside and go shopping. Spend money in your economy. I want your economy to take a hit from security mechanisms, from people being afraid to just buy groceries. So that does serve the terrorist agenda.

As a counterterrorist, you know, I would think, look, you don't want to give into their narrative. I really appreciated what the president said about blanket surveillance of Muslim communities. It doesn't work.

The New York Police Department try this, Commissioner Bratton came out said very openly, listen that was not a program we intend to continue because you have Muslims who are working on the inside. And if they start to feel that the system is working against them and sees them as a threat, how are you going to encourage more human intelligence from those communities? And without human intelligence you can tap every single phone you want but you're not going to get the evidence you need to be upheld in an American court of law to prosecute people, to lock them up and put them away for a long time.

So the strategy that he mentions is definitely on point.

BANFIELD: And Mubin, the other thing he mentioned and I thought of you immediately was, in answer to the first question, he said America has a different set of values when it looks at its Muslim community that we don't ghettoize our Muslim community that's a robust community that feels patriotic it feel accepted I think his words were integrated patriotic successful integrated Muslim population.

There has been a lot of criticism of these administrations all around Europe having ghettoized these Muslim communities, and therefore sort of forcing them into the fringes of society only to perhaps stick with one another and I'll go even tighter like family. And we're seeing a lot of brothers exacting these attacks and cousins and wives and husbands together. Even mothers who support of the Tsarnaev brothers, let's say. And I'm wondering if there is something to that argument that many of these of people have been left in the fringed to fester?

SHAIKH: Yes, these are all aggravating factors, isolation from other people. And then, you know, being in a bubble where you're engaged in group thing and you have no outside influences. These are all aggravating factors that make things worse.

Looking at the situation in the U.S. and where I'm from, in Canada, there is a great integration. I mean you have over 6,000 members of the Muslim community serving in the military. That doesn't even include the police officers at the federal state and local levels, intelligence professionals, linguists analysts, NSA employees, listening into signals intelligence. I mean you can't, you know, further marginalize these communities because I mean they're not marginalized. So why would we, you know, push them towards the marginalization.

The problem can always get worse. And our responsibility is to not do that, is to not make it get worse. BANFIELD: All right, into that end, Mubin, if I can break from you for one moment. We're going to fit in a quick commercial break. But when we come back, we're going to discuss some of the potential failings of not only the Belgians but perhaps the European counterterror officials.

[12:50:01] There are some very strident words that are surfacing from the U.S. counterterror officials as to how they describe their partners overseas. I'll leave you with just one, as we go to break they're like children.

More on that in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:55:08] BANFIELD: Continuing our coverage on the terror attacks in Brussels. How are the Americans working with those counterterror officials overseas to track down the threat that still exists, those who are still out there and identify those who we still haven't identified as killers.

I'm joined by CNN Contributor, Larry Kobilinsky, who's a forensic scientist at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and also CNN Contributor and Senior Editor of the Daily Beast, Michael Weiss.

Larry, first to you, the forensics at the airport, there's still a dead man in that airport we have not identified. How will they actually go about doing that?

LARRY KOBILINSKY, FORENSIC SCIENTIST: Well, I think the answer is DNA. They're going to have to identify all of the deceased and all of the body parts and all of the bodies. And once they do identify this member of this triad, they identify him. That will give us a link in association to the other maybe dozens of people out there that are part of this network.

BANFIELD: Sort of a morbid thought, you have to separate out the DNA because there was a horrifying explosion.

KOBILINSKY: That's standard DNA procedure nowadays.

BANFIELD: OK, and Michael Weiss, obviously, you know, Larry Kobilinsky's work is very tricky, it's difficult work. I would say that is the same of counterterrorism officials who may have let a few things slip through the cracks. And you have been very blunt in your reporting about what senior counterterrorism officials have said about their counterparts over in Brussels. Do you want to recount that for me?

WEISS: Well, they've been blunt. I'm just want to emphasize that. I'm just relaying what they said. We've talked to a veteran CIA counterterrorism official who when asked what do you make of the Belgian security services. Responded actually, it's beyond the Belgians, it's an E.U. wide phenomenon. And the word used to describe these counterparts was they're like children when we go over there and tried to lyase with them or share intelligence. They don't know what's going on. They're in a state of denial. This has been an infiltration problem not just the Jihadi operatives coming back from overseas, from God knows where but then also this radical manlier (ph) that's been cultivated in these cities and towns in Europe.

It dates back 20 years, even before we had 9/11. Europe was dealing with this problem. You've alluded to, you know, sort of the ghettoization of Muslim communicates and so on and forth, so there's a great sense of frustration and disappointment by the Americans as to how Europe is handling this problem.

BANFIELD: And just quickly, one of the other definitions, I can't say it on television, but I will try, they describe, the trade craft of their counterparts overseas as S-H -- rhymes with pity. That's really rusty here. And I'm wondering if they're assassinate because of small country with limited resources. And you know what it takes to do 24 hour surveillance, 30 guys. And they just don't have that or is it because their trade craft really is S-H rhymes with pity?

WEISS: It could be a little from column A, a little from column B. You know, Belgium, is a country of what, 11 million people, 530 some have nationals have gone to Syria, 200 have returned for every one terrorism suspect you need between 20 and 25 counterterrorism and law enforcement officials tracking that person.

So yeah, there's a manpower personnel problem, whatever you want to call it. But again, you know, the judgment is coming down. And it's also just a lack of confidence and a lack of will to really address the heart of the matter so I don't know, I mean that's what we were told.

BANFIELD: Hopefully that as we continue to see these mass coordinated attacks country to country, god forbid what's next. Hopefully that will start to change and the Americans may find a better partner over there.

Dr. Kobilinsky, thank you. Michael Wiess, as always thank you. And thank you to you all as well. Wolf is coming up next after a quick break, continuing coverage of the president's trip and of course the aftermath of those twin bombings in Brussels.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:00:00] WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello. I'm Wolf Blitzer. It's 1:00 p.m. here in Washington, 6:00 p.m. in Brussels, Belgium, wherever you're watching from around the world thanks very much for joining us.