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John Kirby Talks 4 Americans Held by Houthi in Yemen, War in Iraq; ISIS Attacks Joint Iraqi Security Force Base; Lindsey Graham Announces He's Running for President. Aired 1:30-2p ET
Aired June 01, 2015 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[13:30:00] ADM. JOHN KIRBY, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESPERSON: We do know there are several Americans being held by the Houthies, as Elise reported, and we are very concerned about that. There's not a lot I can talk about in terms of specifics but I can tell you that we're working very hard, as we do elsewhere around the world, to try to secure their safe return.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Is there any conversations that goes on between the United States and those Houthi rebels? Are they all indirect?
KIRBY: Well, again, I don't want to get too much into the details here on the kinds of efforts that we're expending to get the Americans released. I can tell you there's a lot of energy and effort being put into it at the State Department and other departments to get them released.
BLITZER: The Iranians have influence.
KIRBY: They have connections to the Iranian regime, no question about that, in terms of support and financial and otherwise. Yes, there are connections there.
BLITZER: Let's talk about Iraq, what's going on, the war against ISIS right now. The speaker of the Iraqi parliament says that Iraqi troops -- elite Iraqi troops were directly ordered by someone to abandon, to evacuate Ramadi, even though they outnumbered those ISIS rebels by huge numbers. What can you tell us about that? That's very disturbing as you well know and you served in the military, you served in Iraq, you know what's going on?
KIRBY: Yeah. Listen, I've seen those reports myself, Wolf. I would be loath to speak for the Iraqi government or what kind of command and control might have been exerted over those troops in and around Ramadi. That's really something for the Iraqi government to speak to. But what I can tell you is that we remain committed to trying to support our Iraqi partners there in Anbar Province and elsewhere in Iraq to go after this deadly enemy. Nothing will change about the support we expend to help them move forward. Particularly in Anbar is moving forward, working with the Sunni tribes and Iraqi government in Baghdad to try to get ISIL out of that area.
BLITZER: Last week, our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr -- and you know her well -- she reported that there are serious consideration being given to arming some of the moderate Sunni/Iraqi tribes, those militias directly, because they're fighting ISIS and maybe arming directly even the Kurds up in northern Iraq. Where does the State Department come in on all of this, because, so far, there hasn't been direct shipments of weapons to the Kurds or moderate Sunnis because it goes through the central government in Baghdad?
KIRBY: The policy still is to work through the Iraqi government in Baghdad to provide those kinds of arms munitions and materiel support to other places inside Iraq, whether the Kurds up in the north or Sunni tribes in the Anbar Province area. That said, we're always looking at ways to try to do that more efficiently and more effectively and I would tell you we're constantly looking at that, ways we can improve the delivery of that materiel to those fighters. Right now we're still working through that. We would anticipate even if there are changes, that that still would be done in full coordination and consultation with the Iraqi government in Baghdad.
BLITZER: Do you think the Iraqi government, Prime Minister Haider al Abadi and his government, would support, would allow the United States to go ahead and arm directly the Sunnis and the Kurds? So far they've always resisted that.
KIRBY: Right. I wouldn't want to get ahead of decisions that haven't been made yet. This is an ongoing, very fluid campaign. Nothing has changed about our policy that we will work through Prime Minister Abadi's government to provide that kind of arms and materiel.
BLITZER: The situation in Syria looks really, really awful, it's been going on now for what, four years, and hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, millions made homeless, refugees internally, externally and now we're getting these reports ISIS making even more gains inside Syria this week. Nearly -- we're also told nearly 1,000 Syrian rebels who have already been approved to take part in U.S. military training, a thousand of them this report suggests have already dropped out. What's going on over there?
KIRBY: Well, look, we know that ISIL considers Syria force place in their campaign. It is largely where they sustain themselves, recruit, and they have, obviously, territorial ambitions there in Syria. We know the situation in Syria is very complicated, much more so in some ways than it is in Iraq and that's why it's really important that -- and the Pentagon can speak to this better than me -- working on this train and equip program for moderate Syrian opposition so they can take the fight to ISIL inside Syria. We know we will have to provide support in that regard and we're working our way through that.
As for this report on the thousand as I understand it -- that it's not so much that they have dropped out as that that's been a threat made that they could, look, we are committed to getting the Syrian moderate opposition trained and equipped to go after ISIL and try to try to work to seek eventually towards a political solution in Syria which is the right answer here. It's a complicated environment, no question about that but nothing has changed about our policy.
[13:35:05] BLITZER: Retired U.S. Navy Admiral John Kirby, making the move from the Pentagon to the Department of State. Good luck with the new assignment. We'll welcome you back to CNN early and often. Thanks very much for joining us.
KIRBY: Thanks, Wolf. Good to be here.
BLITZER: And please pass along our best wishes for a speedy recovery to the secretary of state as well.
Still to come, more on the Iraqi Sunnis call for help in fighting ISIS. They say they want Washington to bypass Baghdad and get them the military assistance they say they critically need. Nick Paton Walsh on the scene for us. We're going live to Iraq.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: ISIS attacked a joint Iraqi security force base earlier today killing 34 Iraqi police officers. That happened just west of the town of Samarra. Officials say ISIS fighters drove a tank rigged with explosives into the base, detonating it near a stack of ammunition. 48 people were also injured. The battle against ISIS involves more than just the Iraqi army on the front lines. The army is aligned with Shiite militia and moderate Sunni tribal fighters. Their support is clearly vital.
As Nick Paton Walsh learned, the Sunni tribesmen feel abandoned by the central government in Baghdad.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
[13:40:02] NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: At these sandbags is exactly what Iraq needs to stay together as a country. You can glimpse the flag of ISIS, extremists from Iraq's Sunni minority. Holding them off here, the man the U.S. says, a key to victory. Moderate Iraqi Sunnis, who will die to rid their hometown of ISIS.
(on camera): If America is to send help to the Sunni tribes in Anbar here is where it is most badly need. They have been in combat with is for months and now the enemy is just across the river.
(voice-over): But they have been without pay for months. Some have Kalashnikovs made of cheap metal and chipboard.
(CROSSTALK)
PATON WALSH: No one has come to help us," he says. "The government is not helping anything. We buy our own weapons."
"Such people like ISIS," another says, "are not Sunnis, no, they're enemies that want to destroy, not build."
The local mayor of the town around which ISIS swarms and fires mortars daily, sees his enemy on the TV screen. This-long distance camera shows their mortars slamming into ISIS positions and was paid for by locals themselves.
They say Baghdad, whose officials are often Shia, and distrust Sunnis, has ignored months of their pleas for help.
Now, they arm themselves.
"We buy them," he says, "there are lots of weapons for sale on the Iraqi market, whether it's from the previous army or what ISIS took from this army, as they put it up for sale through a third party, even some things come from Iran, and are sold directly."
Here, is where local volunteers are trained and armed. But again, we're shown the chipboard, 500 of them, they say.
This man was trained by the U.S. nine years ago, then, to help them, fight al Qaeda here. Now, they want America's help again.
"We want the Americans to arm us directly," he says. "If they give it to the government, they'll take what they want and give us the tired weapons, the good stuff they keep."
Outside the hospital, you can see the help they are getting. An ambulance from Sunni Saudi Arabia. Inside, three injured through a mortar that hit off-duty young fighters playing football the day before. Another died.
This town endures, it feels abandoned, despite broad recognition it is vital they win.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BLITZER: Nick Paton Walsh joining us live from Baghdad right now.
Nick, as you know, ISIS's seizure of Ramadi was a blow to the fight against the terror organizations. U.S. Officials have openly criticized the Iraqi security forces. The U.S. Defense secretary ash Carter saying they showed no will to fight and now the Sunni speaker of Iraq's parliament is launching an investigation. What is he alleging?
PATON WALSH: Well, he told us in an exclusive interview, that he basically had learned that there was a point during the defense of Ramadi, done by a group known as the Golden Division, elite special forces trained heavily, some of them, by the United States, well equipped, at some point they received an order, he doesn't know who gave it or whether they came up with it, put in their own command structure, to pull out of Ramadi. They're launching an investigation to work out who gave that order. And, of course, after they pulled out, they were the bulk of the Iraq security forces doing the defending. But what the speaker of parliament and the most powerful Sunni politician arguably in Iraq, remember, so much politics here comes down to whether you're Sunni or Shia sect here, he says he believes Haider al Abadi the Iraqi prime minister, had no knowledge of that order to withdraw from Ramadi. Effectively saying there was a political call made, somewhere in the military or political circles of the Iraqi elite, to pull out the people defending Ramadi. That feeds into many critics here who say that the predominantly pro-Shia government in Baghdad simply didn't invest enough in defending Ramadi. And some suggest they're happy to let it fall because it's a Sunni heartland of which they have little interest.
You can buy into that as you wish and many Baghdad and military officials point out the Golden Division fought tooth and nail to hold the area but there seems to be an abiding consensus somewhere, at one point, they did leave. And this accusation will go to the heart of the parliamentary inquiry into this and the sensitive issue at the heart of the future of Iraq as a nation, because Sunni politicians have a responsibility to those who they represent in the Sunni community who feel disenfranchised. He says if a Ramadi is to be retaken it should be by Sunnis, but it's Shias fighting groups who are closing in right now, and that might potentially more sectarian here in Iraq -- Wolf?
[13:45:12] BLITZER: Nick, thanks very much.
Nick Paton Walsh reporting live from Baghdad.
Here in the United States, there's yet another name that has just been added to the list of Republicans running for president of the United States. We're going to tell you about today's new member to the race. That's coming up after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BLITZER: The list of Republicans who have officially declared they're running for president of the United States got longer today. Senator Lindsey Graham kicked off his campaign in his hometown of Central, South Carolina. He touted his national security credentials, took a swipe at President Obama's foreign policy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, (R), SOUTH CAROLINA & PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We made some dangerous mistakes in recent years. The Obama administration and some of my colleagues in Congress have substituted wishful thinking for sound national security strategy. Every day, the headlines attest to the failures of the Obama/Clinton policies. It is sad for me to report to you, but Barack Obama has made us less safe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[13:49:50] BLITZER: Joining us live from the town of Central, South Carolina, our chief congressional correspondent, Dana Bash.
So, Dana, how does for Graham cut through all the noise out there, so many other Republicans are already running for president, more expected to run. How does he get traction?
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Look, it's not easy. He has a pretty good fundraising base. When he ran for re- election and won against many odds, especially in his primary here in South Carolina, he did that by raising millions and millions of dollars. A lot of it in New York from people who agree with him about the stance against Iran, being very tough on Iran. And the other way that he is going to do it is because he is basically on TV a lot. I mean, that's just the reality of it, Wolf. He has a very big platform. He has a pretty big megaphone, being a very prominent foreign policy voice. That's what he intends to use. I have to tell you that's why he is running. It is no secret to him that he is barely registering in the polls, but he made it very clear in the way he talked about national security being incredibly hawkish, incredibly aggressive on the world stage, that he wants to try to influence the debate in that way within the Republican party -- Wolf?
BLITZER: As you know, Senator Graham enters the race for the White House as the "Des Moines Register," "Bloomberg Politics" poll shows Scott Walker with a seven-point lead in Iowa over other Republican challengers. Here's the question: How much do we read into these early polls? Iowa, the first political contest, coming up early next year.
BASH: Not a lot. I mean, it is incredibly early. Having said that, when it comes to Scott Walker, he seems to have a special place in Iowa voters' hearts and minds. He was born there. He kind of speaks Midwest. He's a governor from there. He is the kind of person, the kind of Republican that they like, but it is very, very early. And you talk to Walker aides, they actually wish he wasn't doing so well there because they're afraid of peaking too early because it's easy to fall when you're out there and people are kind of taking shots at you. But bottom line is that these polls at this stage of the game are important for momentum and for fundraising. If Scott Walker can show to people that he can do well this early, people who have deep pockets, that matters pretty much more than anything else, in addition to kind of helping to generate the slow boil, if you will, of heat on the ground in places like Iowa.
BLITZER: Dana, thanks very much.
Dana Bash reporting from South Carolina today.
Other news we're following, CNN has learned that the former speaker of the House of Representatives, Dennis Hastert, will be arraigned this Thursday. If he chooses to attend, it would be the first public appearance by Hastert since the federal government announced the case against him last week. Hastert is charged with evading back regulations and lying to the FBI about $3.5 million in withdraws he had already made or was planning to make to keep allegations of sexual misconduct under wraps.
After the break, a major milestone. Exactly 35 years ago today, Ted Turner started a news network based in Atlanta, Georgia. It reaches more than 200 countries around the world right now. We're going to have some of the more unforgettable moments on CNN over these past 35 years. That's coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[13:57:05] TED TURNER, CNN FOUNDER: Hi, I'm Ted Turner, and this is cable news network. (END VIDEO CLIP)
BLITZER: Exactly 35 years ago today, at 6:00 p.m. eastern, a brand new 24-hour cable news network aired its very first newscast. CNN has been on the air covering every major news story ever since.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TURNER: I dedicate the cable news network.
DAVID WALKER, FORMER CNN ANCHOR: Good evening. I'm David Walker.
UNIDENTIFIED FORMER CNN ANCHOR: And I'm (INAUDIBLE). Now here's the news.
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: Approximately four shots were fired at the president.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The massacre of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: President Reagan has endorsed German unification.
BLITZER (voice-over): For 35 years, we've been everywhere.
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: Mike Tenoy (ph), CNN, Beijing.
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: The skies over Baghdad have been illuminated.
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is one pocket of the turmoil in the Egyptian capital.
BLITZER: On every story.
(GUNFIRE)
AMANPOUR: There's nothing subtle about the horrors of this war.
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: Liftoff of the space shuttle mission.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Obviously, a major malfunction.
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm going to have to interrupt. Police believe that O.J. Simpson is in that car.
BLITZER: In danger --
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: Quick, let's go.
BLITZER: -- and under fire.
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: Israeli officials say they're going to try to use restraint.
(GUNFIRE)
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: You can see the people below trapped on Sinjar Mountain.
BLITZER: Covering the devastation.
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm outside this pediatric hospital. Just take a look inside.
(SHOUTING)
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: Some of these people have been waiting outside now for more than three days.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, A.C. 360: I've been seeing dead bodies in the streets here in Mississippi.
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: As far as we can see, under blue sky, it's totally leveled.
BLITZER: The drama.
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: Princess Diana has died.
(SHOUTING)
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: George Zimmerman not charged with anything in this case.
BLITZER: The terror.
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: About a third of the building has been blown away.
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: There has been a second exPLOsion.
(SHOUTING)
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: What normally would be the World Trade Center is no more.
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: Two possible suspects in the Boston bombing.
BLITZER: And triumph.
The rescuers are making progress literally by inches.
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: The United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden.
(APPLAUSE)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden.
(CHANTING)
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's so rare to have a cover story with a happy ending.
(SHOUTING)
BLITZER: Making news --
DREW GRIFFIN, CNN NATIONAL INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Director Helmand (ph), can you talk to us, please?
BLITZER: And breaking news.
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: I can't move. I'm not going to resist a police officer.
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: What is going on in Ferguson, Missouri, in downtown America?
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: Here come flash bangs and canisters coming up at us.
BLITZER: 35 years of --
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: CNN.
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: CNN.
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: CNN.
UNIDENTIFIED CNN CORRESPONDENT: CNN.
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BLITZER: And "Breaking News, 35 Years of CNN" aired tonight 9:00 p.m. eastern. Watch it.
The news continues next on CNN.
