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More Airstrikes Launched Against ISIS; Interview with Rear Admiral John Kirby; Interview with Gen. Wesley Clark; Arrest Warrant In Hannah Graham Case

Aired September 24, 2014 - 07:30   ET

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

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: So Barbara, thank you for staying on it. We need the reporting. We'll come back to you when you have it.

Brooke?

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, Barbara, thank you. Let's talk more about this with Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby. Admiral, good morning.

REAR ADMIRAL JOHN KIRBY, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: Good morning.

BALDWIN: First and foremost, what we were hearing from Barbara Starr this latest reporting that by no means have things been quiet in this part of the world. We now know two strikes in Syria, but really counted as one since it was a single target hit and in Iraq.

Two air strikes west of Baghdad, two air strikes southwest of Erbil. Walk me through sort of this assessment, why these target's effectiveness?

KIRBY: Well, this is the ongoing campaign against ISIL. It's an offensive campaign now. So we've been clear. That we're going to put the pressure on them and we're not going to be constrained by that border between Iraq and Syria as we do this.

The targets we hit, some were defensive in nature. In and around Erbil, we've been doing it for quite some time. The strikes around Baghdad, more offensive in nature.

And of course, as Barbara reported, there were two strikes on a single target, a staging area inside Syria, inside the Iraq/Syria border overnight. Again all aimed in every regard, whether you call it offense or defense, to continue to put pressure on ISIL, wherever they are.

BALDWIN: Now just to be clear because as we were reporting and after those initial waves of targets Monday night, Tuesday morning, you have Khorasan, right closer to Aleppo and then you had near Raqqa the other targets against ISIS. So let's focus first on Khorasan. Were any of these strikes in Syria targeted toward Khorasan targets?

KIRBY: No, they were not. The targets in Syria that were hit overnight, it's two strikes, one target, is a staging area near the Iraq/Syria border that we know that ISIL uses to move personnel and equipment back and forth across that border.

BALDWIN: What about leaders? Do we know if any leaders either from that first wave with the Khorasan targets or with the ISIS targets, or even now we're hearing reports of an al Nusra leader being killed. What can you confirm?

KIRBY: We can't confirm it right now, Brooke. We don't know. I want to stress what General Mayville stressed here from the Pentagon yesterday that the focus of the strikes in Syria over the last 24 to 36 hours has really been about getting ISIL's capabilities to sustain and train and regroup themselves.

Yes, we did hit some Khorasan group facilities, but it wasn't designed necessarily specifically to go after a high-value target. Now we're still assessing the damage assessments from all the strikes. We don't have anything, any confirmed reports that we hit any major leaders.

BALDWIN: How long will this kind of campaign continue? This offensive in both Iraq and Syria?

KIBRY: I think that we need to steal ourselves and certainly here in the military we're stealing ourselves for a long conflict. I couldn't give you a certain date on the calendar, when it will be over.

But the guidance that we've been given, the orders that we've been given has been crystal clear. We're going to degrade, destroy. We are going to defeat ISIL. That could take years and we're preparing ourselves for that length of time and that effort.

BALDWIN: We heard from the president yesterday. Of course, he is speaking at the U.N. General Assembly today saying America's not alone. We know about the Sunni governments, which is key, right, in sending a message in this part of the world.

But what about Turkey? Since one of the targets was near Turkey, what kind of role are the Turks playing here?

KIRBY: Well, the Turks are going to have to decide that for themselves and they're going to have to communicate that to the Turkish people and to the international community at a time of their choosing and however they want to characterize it.

Just by dint of their geography, because of where they are on the map, they're going to be a partner in this. They're going to be a participant. There's no question about that. They are already so severely impacted by what's going on in Syria, just in terms of refugees across their border.

Over a million of them that they're trying to care for. They're already involved. They have knowledge of the region. They have knowledge of some of the groups. We're going to rely on their expertise and their experience. But how specifically and tangibly they participate, that's really up to them.

BALDWIN: OK, what about Admiral Kirby, what about ground troops? Because we know that there were 500 Iraqi soldiers who were slaughtered over the weekend. So just looking ahead, as you have this air campaign coalition, U.S. air strike campaign, how are you protecting the good guys on the ground?

KIRBY: Well, we're protecting them mostly through air power. I'll tell you that some of the gains that the Iraqi security forces and the Kurdish forces up north have been able to make inside Iraq has been enabled by the air power that we have provided overhead.

Now that said, the Iraqi government has an air force, too, and they have been lending air power to support their troops. We need to remember this is a sovereign state. They have an army. They have an Air Force and they're using it. We're in support, but they're supporting their own troops as well.

I would also tell you when we talk about ground forces, just to remind you, the commander-in-chief couldn't have been more clear. There's not going to be a combat role on the ground for the U.S. troops.

But the ground troops that are most important, the ones we need to all think about more and rely on more are the indigenous forces in Iraq, it's Iraqi security forces and Peshmerga.

And in Syria, it's going to be this moderate opposition that we hope to begin training and equipping in the near months.

BALDWIN: Let me just take you back to a comment you made yesterday. You said we hit what we were aiming at, referring to the first wave. What were we aiming at?

KIRBY: We were aiming at infrastructure and capabilities that we know ISIL, specifically, because most of the strikes were against ISIL, specifically tries to capitalize on. So this is not just a normal terrorist group.

This is a group that wants to govern. They want to control streams of revenue. They want to raise and recruit and train forces that are loyal to them. So if, because of that, they make themselves vulnerable in some of the places that they operate and some of the things that they try to own.

So we hit command and control nodes. We hit a finance center. We hit training camps. We hit supply depots. This morning as Barbara reported, we hit a staging area near the border that they were using to move personnel and equipment and material across.

So we hit those kinds of targets. When I said we hit what we were aiming at, I meant it. We have since done overnight, some battle damage assessment. I just got off the phone before talking to you that some of our folks in the operations center here at the Pentagon.

Everything that we said yesterday is bearing out today. We do believe that the battle damage assessment that we've conducted shows that these strikes were extremely successful in terms of hitting what we were aiming at and causing the damage that we wanted to cause.

You probably saw those photos yesterday, we were hitting portions of a building or just the communications gear on top of the building. Not to destroy the whole building. Not only did we hit what we were aiming at, but we caused the kind of damage that we wanted to cause.

BALDWIN: So that's incredibly encouraging to hear that, of course, moving forward, but also listening to Barbara Starr's reporting, you know, there are also fears that because of these waves of air attacks that members of ISIS are fleeing, blending in with civilians in society. How then do you take that challenge in terms of attacking and dismantling here on out?

KIRBY: Well, what I can tell you is it's not unexpected that they would do that. We've seen them do that inside Iraq. We've seen them change the way they communicate and operate inside Iraq because of the pressure that we and our Iraqi partners have been applying to them.

We expect to see that in Syria and we will react as well. You know, we talk about them being adaptive and then being smart, we're pretty smart ourselves, we're pretty adaptive ourselves, and I think we'll be able to handle it.

BALDWIN: Rear Admiral John Kirby, thank you so much for the latest news, the latest round of strikes in Iraq and Syria.

Now the stakes, of course, are high for President Obama this morning. He's here in New York. He'll be speaking at the U.N. General Assembly in just a couple of hours.

As we now have confirmation, the United States launched the second round of strikes. General Wesley Clark will join us next here on NEW DAY.

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CUOMO: We do indeed have breaking news, more air strikes in Syria and now in Iraq as well. Five in all, one target inside Syria. The Pentagon just moments ago here on NEW DAY calling yesterday's strikes, quote, "extremely successful." What does that mean?

General Wesley Clark, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, senior fellow at the UCLA Burkle Center, joins us now, and also the author of "Don't Wait for Next War: A Strategy For American Growth and Global Leadership."

Couldn't have timed the book better, General, because obviously as we all know, no matter how effective the military strikes are, that we're about to discuss, it's going to take more than that to change the tide of what is going on in that part of the world.

Let's discuss the strikes. Just to bring people up to date. Here I am, right, Aleppo, this was Khorasan. This was the U.S. only going after the al Qaeda offshoot group, the planners, which now led us to this understanding of an imminent threat in the U.S.

These are the main strikes against ISIS, Raqqa, a punch in the nose where they live, their homebase, helping the Kurds up north and their fight, the Peshmerga against ISIS. Oil refinery to cut off the water. And then now, General, getting into what matters today. On the border of Iraq and Syria to help the fighters there, new ones again to help the fighters. What is going on? What's the point of the strikes? What's the situation on the ground?

GEN. WESLEY CLARK (RET.), SENIOR FELLOW, UCLA BURKLE CENTER: About two-thirds of ISIS is in Syria and about one-third we believe is in Iraq. The total number of fighters is maybe 30,000, some people say 40,000, some press reports say as many as 15,000 of those are Saudis.

So they are all over the area and they are still pushing. So the difficulty is how do you bring airplanes in at five miles up in the sky and deliver these strikes against people running around on the ground.

Some with vehicles, some without vehicles, intermixed with civilians and close to friendly forces? So you've got to have exquisite intelligence. You've got to have eyes on target to bring it in close to the troops or you've got some means of collecting battle damage afterwards and then re-attacking.

So this is all part of the process. These strikes in Iraq are designed to help the defenders blunt the ISIS strikes. And hopefully they'll demoralize ISIS and label the defenders to regain terrain.

Inside Syria, we're still attacking the base areas. We're looking at it. We're assessing the strikes. We're going to look for more targets and go back and get those. The problem with an air campaign like this and we ran one of these in Kosovo 15 years ago, we are a lot better now.

We got a lot better technology and we're a lot more experienced. The problem is always find the enemy. What can be seen can be hit, can be hit. What can be hit, can be destroyed, but can you find it and see it.

So that's the key here. We're going to use everything we've got our electronic intelligence, overhead imagery, I'm sure there are unmanned vehicles and now we're looking at how the enemy reacts to the strikes yesterday. It's going to be a long-term campaign.

CUOMO: It's hard because the urgency of the media wants to push it now. This is war, what's happening now and everybody keeps being on message that this is, this is just the beginning, because common sense tells you why only five strikes. When there were all of these strikes yesterday, what happens? Is it too hard or pace matters, timing matters?

CLARK: Pace matters, timing matters and it's a matter of collecting the targets and you're actually in a struggle against an enemy. It's like a wrestling match. It's very, very high tech and of course, we've got big advantages, but they have advantages. They can hide among the civilian population.

CUOMO: We know the playbook. That's what they'll do, right? CLARK: We know some of the playbook, but they're just as intelligent and adaptive as they can be. They want to escape and they know what we can do because they've seen it.

When we rolled it out in Kosovo the first time. Nobody had quite seen it. We did it in Afghanistan and Iraq. They worked against us in Iraq all the time we were there. So it's more familiar to them. They know the pattern. They know the way they work.

We keep sharpening our intelligence, but they keep reacting against us. So this is a dynamic struggle. The important thing is we have to be patient enough. We have great intelligence collection. We have great homeland security. We can win this without putting troops on the ground.

We don't want our U.S. troops on the ground. Putting U.S. troops on the ground will strengthen their forces and our troops show us a bunch of people standing out there in ragtag uniforms and carrying AK-47s.

We can't tell one from the other and most of our soldiers don't speak Arabic. It's not our culture. When we go in there, it's not our country. So we really must have support from the Peshmerga, the Iraqis. I'd like to see the other forces.

CUOMO: That's the big question, right? That's what takes us to today. We know this isn't going to be enough. We know it's going to happen on the ground and we know we don't want that to be us. It becomes who is we? How big is today for President Obama?

Because as much as they're bragging about the coalition of these five Arab nations, they're not heavy hitters except for Saudi Arabia. They don't have boots on the ground. They have cultural conflicts. How big is today for him to make the case?

CLARK: Well, it's important. Now we will have made the case through ambassadors and news release, but this is a chance for the president to look him in the eye personally at the United Nations and engage and build legitimacy.

He must build the legitimacy of this effort and the legitimacy is we have the right to self-defense and we are defending the Iraqis who have asked us for help. Our problem is that much of Syria is an ungoverned area.

We can't govern it. We don't want Assad to govern it. So who is going to govern it? We believe the moderate Syrian opposition should govern it. Right now that opposition doesn't have the forces to control the terrain.

We have to help that political opposition build the linkages between the politicians and civic leaders on the top. The refugee population, which is all over the world, and the fighters on the ground. We have to help the Syrian opposition coalesce so it can govern the ungoverned areas.

CUOMO: That's a much bigger factor in the future of Syria than any of these red dots we have on the map.

CLARK: Exactly right. These red dots will might empower it. They may blunt ISIS, but we're still left with the problem of Assad, whom the president has said, lost his mandate and he is supported by Vladimir Putin.

This is Putin's card to get back into the region and block western influence, and U.S. influence. So Putin is on the sidelines saying you're going to need Assad's troops, and also saying what we're doing is not legitimate.

We can never forget that there's a bigger arena out here. You not only have the terrorist cells all over the world, but you also have the United States engaged in trying to use diplomacy, to stymie Iran's quest for nuclear weapons.

CUOMO: It really redefines what leadership is and not the just as a shameless tease back to your book. But it can't be, this isn't enough anymore. Times have changed.

CLARK: Just focus on this.

CUOMO: And leadership can't just mean this. Everybody knows the U.S. military might, these are expensive blasts on soft targets so far. That's not going to be the future of success and that's why leadership we're going to have to see what role it takes today, is a big demonstration.

CLARK: Exactly right.

CUOMO: General Clark, really appreciate the perspective. Thanks for coming back to NEW DAY so soon.

So as we say don't forget the book, because it matters, you have to figure out how to lead without using bombs all the time. You can pre- order it online now. I'm going to push the general to get me a copy. It hits stores in October.

Coming up next, an exclusive with Secretary of State John Kerry, that will be in the next hour. Couldn't be more important timing for that interview.

Plus, the man they said they wanted to talk to, the police in Virginia for the disappearance of the UVA student, Hannah Graham, well, he's gone from somebody they want to talk to, to a person of interest, now a suspect. What police are saying about Jesse Matthew, the charges he faces and the information why, we have it for you ahead.

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BALDWIN: Welcome back. You're watching NEW DAY. An arrest warrant has now been issued in the disappearance of that UVA student Hannah Graham. Charlottesville Police charging this man, 32-year-old Jesse Matthew with abduction with the intent to defile.

Police believed he was the last person Graham was with before she vanished nearly two weeks ago. Let's go straight to Charlottesville, Virginia, to Jean Casarez who is tracking this for us this morning.

Jean, good morning. What do we know?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. Well, still no sight of Hannah Graham and law enforcement is now able to bring in more and more authorities to help search and find Jesse Matthew. Why? Because now he's been charged with a felony.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CASAREZ (voice-over): It has been 11 days since University of Virginia sophomore, Hanna Graham, was last seen. Now this missing persons case has been taken to another level. Kidnapping.

CHIEF TIMOTHY LONGO, CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA POLICE: We obtained an arrest warrant for Jesse Leroy Matthew Jr. charging him with a class two felony of abduction with the intent to defile.

CASAREZ: New charges have been announced against the man police say was the last person seen with her before she vanished September 13th. Prosecutors believed Hannah was abducted by Jesse Matthew for an immoral purpose. Police have a felony warrant for his arrest.

Law enforcement believe Matthew could be a flight risk saying that he has contacts in various states. Their goal now is to arrest him on this new charge.

LONGO: There's state and federal resources that have been deployed to help accomplish that task.

CASAREZ: According to police surveillance video, it shows Matthew putting his arm around the 18-year-old at Charlottesville downtown mall. The two ended up at the Temple Restaurant and Bar, and were seen leaving together after having drinks that police say Matthew purchased.

Matthew already wanted on two counts of reckless driving has not been seen since Saturday when he walked into the police station and asked for a lawyer. Technicians at the Virginia Department of Forensic Science continue to test items collected from searches of Matthew's car and apartment.

It is in this lab that they are testing for DNA to build a biological profile of the person who may have committed a crime against Hannah. The director of Virginia's laboratory, Jeff Ban, says it's like putting together the pieces of a puzzle.

JEFF BAN, DIRECTOR, VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF FORENSIC SCIENCE: They are looking for anything that could be foreign, biological fluids such as blood, seminal fluid, perspiration. There are going to be transfer of hair or some fiber.

CASAREZ: And with this new charge of abduction, police now more than ever want to find Hannah.

LONGO: We absolutely are continuing our search for Hannah, even as we speak.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CASAREZ: So the question now is what is this charge, abduction with intent to defile? It is kidnapping as we just said, but it is also a sex crime. And Brooke, abduction means here in the State of Virginia the commonwealth that by force, by intimidation, or by deception.

So what is the evidence they have now that they believe she was kidnapped? Well, you know, the police chief has been asking anyone in this community to come forward that saw them together in the last hours that night.

What was their demeanor? What was their interaction? So possibly witnesses have come forward to show intimidation, force or deception.

BALDWIN: Thank you for clarifying the charge. We heard you explain this and we're thinking what would that mean in the State of Virginia. Just horrible thinking of the family. They want their little girl back.

Jean Casarez, thank you in Charlottesville, Virginia, this morning.

Meantime, big day here in New York. President Obama will be taking center stage in a couple of hours at the U.N. General Assembly rallying support from allies and reluctant partners in this fight against ISIS. White House spokesman, Josh Earnest, is here in studio with a preview of that.

Also do not miss our exclusive sit-down interview with Secretary of State John Kerry. That's coming up. Our chief international correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, will ask him tough questions, coming up next.

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