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NEW DAY

FAA Reports More Close Calls; Interview with Former Ambassador to Syria, Ted Kattouf; FBI Evaluates Audio in Michael Brown Case; American Died Fighting for ISIS

Aired August 27, 2014 - 06:30   ET

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


PILOT: Yes, we were putting the nose down and yes, he was real close.

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's the fourth time this year a near collision has made headlines.

CNN has learned the number of close calls nearly doubled in 2013 over the previous year. A closer look at the FAA's newly released stats show 38 were considered high risk. That's actually three fewer than the previous year, but the number of medium and low risk incidents soared. And in 2014, there have been other close calls.

April 25th, the United flight cruising at 34,000 feet over the Pacific gets too close to a U.S. Airways plane. Passengers say the aircraft plunged to avoid disaster.

May 9th in Houston, two United Airlines flights come less than a mile of each other when a controller gives one pilot the wrong instructions, the mistake quickly corrected.

TOWER: United 601, stop your turn, stop your climb, and stop your turn, United 601.

MARSH: May 10th in Newark two JetBlue planes come within a mile of each another as one takes off and the other prepares to land. All of those close calls are what the FAA calls loss of separation and usually comes down to pilot or controller error.

ROBERT SUMWALT, NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION SAFETY BOARD: Any time there is a loss of separation, we are concerned about it because it's not supposed to occur.

MARSH: The FAA attributes the spike to its voluntary safety reporting system which allows employees to submit safety incidents confidentially. The FAA says that's led to increased reporting. So, it's not known if the actual number of incidents have gone up.

Rene Marsh, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: You know, I'm always curious what people do with information like this, you know, these reports of near misses going up. Does it make you change how much you travel? I want to know what you think. Check in with us at our Facebook page. That is Facebook.com/NewDay.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: I think I'm uncomfortable, that's what I think with those reports.

BERMAN: Makes you feel bad, but you keep on flying.

CAMEROTA: That's how he wants you to communicate with him, go to face Facebook.

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR: I won't speak to him.

CAMEROTA: Very good.

All right. Let's go over to meteorologist Indra Petersons who is keeping an eye on Hurricane Cristobal.

Indra, how is it looking?

INDRA PETERSONS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, we're definitely seeing some concern. And also on the East Coast as well as the West Coast, we have Hurricane Marie out there that was a category five. Waves were so big out there, they actually had to close the pier. Look at the 10 to 15-foot waves, reports already of a fatality as a surfer was battling some of those strong rip currents in the water.

Now, keep in mind this is kind of rare, take a look at the coastline today. You can see both coasts have hurricanes and just ahead of Labor Day weekend. And one of the things people don't realize is even though you are looking at them making their way away from the coastline look at all the moisture going into the Southwest. So, there's still the threat for some flooding miles away from the actual hurricane itself.

Cristobal is out there itself strengthening to a category 1 hurricane. Expect it to pass through Cape Hatteras, as well as Bermuda, kind of going right in between there, staying, expect that strength of a hurricane, category 1 and then weakening eventually as it passes way offshore. So, that's the good news there so the high rip current on both coast lines and high surf on both coast lines, again, as many people are headed to the beach today.

Looking at severe weather around Omaha today, but still scattered showers around the Northeast and as you go towards Labor Day weekend, just keep in mind places seeing temperatures near 90 are going to be dropping like 20 degrees as we go towards Labor Day weekend -- thanks to some cooler air moving in. Seventy by Friday.

(CROSSTALK)

PEREIRA: I feel like he's going to blame Canada looking at that map.

PETERSONS: If he doesn't, I will.

PERIERA: All right.

PETERSONS: Done and done. BERMAN: If the shoe fits.

CAMEROTA: Thanks, Indra.

BERMAN: All right. Next up for us on NEW DAY: figuring out how to best take on ISIS. U.S. drones now flying near the Syrian border. Are we going to see wider U.S. action against ISIS? We'll speak with a former U.S. ambassador to Syria get his point of view when he joins us live.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: Welcome back to NEW DAY, everyone. President Obama reviewing options for tackling the ISIS threat, including possible airstrikes inside Syria.

Now, CNN has learned that drones are flying near the Syrian border right now to gather information on the militant group. The State Department says this doesn't mean that the president will work with Syrian leader Bashar al Assad and there is no plan, they say, right now to share intelligence.

Ted Kattouf is a former U.S. ambassador to Syria. He's now the president of Amideast, a nonprofit organization that encourages links between the United States and the Middle East.

Ambassador, thank you so much for being with us. Let's talk about airstrikes. How much do you think they could achieve against is, and what are the limitations of airstrikes?

TED KATTOUF, PRESIDENT, AMIDEAST: Well, I think it's very important that the president does at some point soon launch airstrikes. When you have your secretary of defense saying that this is perhaps the biggest terrorist threat out there and the chairman of the joint chiefs saying we can't deal with them effectively unless we hit them in Syria. It doesn't leave the president a lot of options.

On the other hand, as you suggest, air power alone is hardly going to eliminate the ISIS threat. We need to work with forces on the ground that share our enmity for ISIS.

BERMAN: Who are they because I don't think you are talking about U.S. boots on the ground so who are these ground troops that you say we need to help our interests in Syria?

KATTOUF: Well, there are quite a few actually. We have the Kurds in northern Iraq, the often called -- their force is often called the Peshmerga have been battling ISIS and have kept it out with our help of their areas and have now pushed it out of the critical Mosul -- the critical dam on the Tigris just north of Mosul and also the Iraqi army which performed very badly initially is regrouping along with Shia militias, and then in Syria you have the Free Syrian Army and, as you mentioned, you have the regime of Bashar al Assad.

BERMAN: The regime of Bashar al Assad, I'm reminded by Richard Hass this morning that Winston Churchill once said, if Hitler invaded hell, you know, I'd essentially say nice things about the devil.

Are you suggesting some kind of tacit agreement between the United States and Syria right now, and the regime of Bashar al Assad?

KATTOUF: I think tacit arrangement is the right word. We're not going to embrace him. We're not going to coordinate with him. But, on the other hand, we could pass word, look, don't even think about hitting our planes over Syria, and in the meantime Assad could see what damage we're doing and maybe on his own launch some of his planes against other ISIS sites.

BERMAN: What do you think he does, by the way, if the United States flies planes over the border, sends armed drones over the border and starts shooting inside Syria, albeit at ISIS militants? Do you think Bashar al Assad would welcome that? Do you think he would try to get in the way of it? Do you think his anti-aircraft operations would go after the U.S. forces?

KATTOUF: First and foremost, I think the U.S. Air Force and knave have the means to blind his radars and to take out any air defense units that might challenge us. So, I think Bashar will likely, if he does anything, fire a symbolic anti-aircraft missile after our planes have exited the area, but I wouldn't expect more than that.

BERMAN: You know, this is going to be a hard pill to swallow, even this tacit arrangement, even the unspoken boundaries that you're talking about right now between the United States and Syria. It was just a year ago that we were talking here on this show and other shows about the idea that the U.S. was going to bomb Bashar al Assad in his regime.

Does this action against ISIS, this possible action help a regime that the United States has been battling against and has been killing its own people for years and years?

KATTOUF: Yes.

BERMAN: It's the belief of many analysts, including myself, that Bashar al Assad wanted the worst sort of Islamist group to emerge ascendant in opposing him, and he got his wish, but there's also a saying be careful what you wish for because ISIS now has overrun three Syrian bases out in eastern Syria, and he has to be very concerned with their military abilities.

There's also another saying that we need to heed which is the devil you know for the devil you don't. Assad is the devil we know. He's a mafia-like regime. You can make a deal with the mafia, and they will usually keep it, as long as it's in their interest. You can't make a deal with religious fanatics.

BERMAN: That's a new phrase, a whole lot of devils in that sentence right there.

So, let's take this to its next step. What if the U.S. does take action against ISIS in Syria? What if that action is successful? What then happens, you know, two, three, four, six months from now, the regime of Bashar al Assad is still in power.

How does the United States fix that situation?

KATTOUF: Look, Bashar al Assad, unless he's assassinated, isn't going anywhere, nor is his regime, and the fact is that the non-ISIS opposition doesn't have the ability to dislodge Assad, and, yes, we can arm them and we can train them and we can do all of those things, but even President Obama in an interview recently sounded halfhearted saying it's very hard to find true secular democrats or even moderate Islamist democrats among the opposition.

So, Assad is going to be able to control a lot of the populated areas of Syria with various opposition groups fighting it out for the rest.

BERMAN: I've got to say this is a bleak assessment coming from you, a man who has come from that region and worked in Syria for years and years. We're going to hear from Senator John McCain later in the show, and I'm sure he's going to say that arming the more moderate rebel groups inside Syria would have given, you know, more of a chance of success against Bashar al Assad, would have created a situation where ISIS would not be on the rise, but you make it seem like these groups, these moderate anti-Assad groups really are -- are foundering.

KATTOUF: They are foundering, and there aren't that many moderate groups. Let's keep in mind that is broke from al Qaeda, and there's still an al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, the Nusra Front. If I were questioning John McCain, I would say, you know, senator, we had eight, nine years to train the Iraqi army, and they fell apart on first contact with ISIS.

Why do you think that arming a much less formidable Syrian opposition and a much less organized Syrian opposition is going to achieve different results?

BERMAN: You raise excellent questions and provide great analysis and a little bit of politic here on NEW DAY.

Ambassador Ted Kattouf, thanks so much for being with us. Really appreciate it.

KATTOUF: Thank you.

BERMAN: Next up for us on NEW DAY, new audio first obtained by CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

BERMAN (voice-over): Possibly of the Michael Brown shooting, is being evaluated by the FBI. Is this going to be a crucial piece of evidence that will get before that grand jury? We're going to ask a forensic scientist if the audio supports what eyewitnesses have been saying.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: Alright, good morning, everyone. The FBI is now analyzing that new audio recording.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PEREIRA (voice-over): That was first obtained by CNN. Allegedly from the moment that police shot and killed Michael Brown. On the video chat, behind the video chat, you hear what sounds like gunshots, a pause, then more gunshots. Now remember, this was apparently recorded inadvertently, so if you can try to disregard the man talking and listen behind that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are pretty.

(GUNFIRE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're so fine. Just going over some of your videos. How could I forget?

(GUNFIRE)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PEREIRA (on camera): And, again, we need to say that CNN has not verified the tape's authenticity. Want to bring in Mo Ivory, attorney and radio host and forensic scientist, Lawrence Kobilinsky. In fact, I want to speak to you both about that. Lawrence, since you're here with me, I'll start with you.

LAWRENCE KOBILINSKY, FORENSIC SCIENTIST: Sure.

PEREIRA: The voracity, the credibility of this tape. How much credibility do you give it?

KOBILINSKY: Well, there's no doubt that the FBI is going to validate it, authenticate it, and they will have a time stamp of exactly when the shots were fired. They know where the recording device was located relative to the police officer. They know the surroundings, the environment, and when they put it through the analytical instrumentation, they will be able to reduce any ambient noise and they will be able to enhance the gunshots. And, of course, the best way to do this is to test fire the same kind of gun with the same kind of ammunition from the same distance and record it.

PEREIRA: Right.

KOBILINSKY: And then make a comparison.

PEREIRA: And how about you, Mo? Because, you know, there are going to be those that will say look, awfully convenient this comes out, you know, sort of several weeks after the fact. Do you believe it's credible?

MO IVORY, ATTORNEY AND RADIO HOST: I do actually, and I think I would have felt differently a couple of days ago, but after visiting Ferguson and seeing the proximity of people's windows to the actual crime scene where Michael Brown was actually killed and laid in the street, it is so close. PEREIRA: Yes.

IVORY: So I do believe that somebody could be on the phone and could have actually captured that in the background based on where the buildings are, so, of course, it has to be authenticated.

PEREIRA: Sure.

IVORY: But I feel very confident that it will be, and it will be a crucial piece of evidence.

PEREIRA: We mentioned that the FBI is looking into, they're looking to verify it itself. I want to sort of add it as an overlay to the things that we have heard, the two differing accounts. Lawrence, here we have the officer's account and then corroborated by Josie, this caller into the radio show, that there was a scuffle. Brown reached for a gun, for the officer's gun, the officer fired, paused, Brown charged and then the officer fired again. And then the eyewitness accounts, and there have been several, there was a scuffle. The officer fires, Brown runs away, turns around, puts his hands up. The officer fires again. This audio tape that we have, this audio recording, how does it, or does it fit in to either of those accounts?

KOBILINSKY: Well, the audio recording answers some questions, but leaves others behind. For example, we now know ten shots were fired, only six hit Michael Brown, and I would presume that there would be ten shell casings they find at the scene.

PEREIRA: In and around on the scene.

KOBILINSKY: But the questions that remain is what does the pause, the three-second pause, mean? How do you interpret that? Could it be interpreted in favor of the story that the police officer is telling, or is it interpreted better by what eyewitnesses have said? I mean, eyewitnesses are notoriously --

PEREIRA: Not reliable.

KOBILINSKY: Not reliable, and so the evidence has to back it up. In this case, the pause can be explained by different stories, so, unfortunately, I'm not convinced that this pause will be a significant factor. I think it's important to note that there was a pause, but I don't know that it will cut either way.

PEREIRA: Is there more information that could come to light that could explain the pause? Because, you know, Lawrence brings up a good question, Mo. You could put the pause to either scenario.

IVORY: Sure. I mean, I think the important information that needs to come to light as it relates to the pause is actually what happened according to the officer? We keep saying that we know that the officer said. That's completely incorrect. The officer has said nothing. We don't have Darren Wilson's story. We don't even have a report from the Ferguson police department about what Darren Wilson's story is. All we have is Josie's story, which we don't even know if it's credible, a person calling into a radio station who says that they know what the officer said.

That could never wash in a court of law, so what we have is one side of the story. We have eyewitnesses for one side of the story, so it's really hard to decide what the pause means when we don't have a story from the officer's perspective, from the Ferguson Police Department to say, oh, well, this is what Officer Darren Wilson says happened. We don't know what Officer Darren Wilson says happened, so it will be only at that point, when we have something from Officer Wilson, that we can then begin to say, well, the pause matters or it's consistent what he's saying. Right now, it's consistent with what all of the witnesses on Michael Brown's side have said which is that he put his hands up, there was a pause and that Officer Wilson continued to fire.

PEREIRA: We know that the witnesses aren't always 100 percent reliable.

IVORY: True.

PEREIRA: Mo brings up a good point. You know, we the media and the public want to sort of try this and investigate this court in our own sort of layman's way, but the Feds have to look at it analytically. They have to get on scene, which they have been, and their investigation is going to net much different results than what we're sort of throwing around and speculating on, so there are facts that we have yet to see.

KOBILINSKY: There's no doubt about it, Michaela, it's early in the scientific investigation. For example, was the gun shot in the vehicle, which is what we keep hearing about.

PEREIRA: That's a very good point.

KOBILINSKY: Gunshot residue analysis in the passenger compartment will tell us the answer to that question.

IVORY: Sure. And again - -

KOBILINSKY: There's a lot.

IVORY: So will Officer Wilson. He could come out today, today, and tell us what happened. He is the only other witness that can come and say firsthand what happened and he refuses to do so.

PEREIRA: But that's not unusual that the police are being tight- lipped. It's not unusual.

IVORY: No, Michaela, but it is unusual for there not to be a report.

PEREIRA: Fair, fair.

IVORY: There's no report.

PEREIRA: Fair point, fair point.

KOBILINSKY: There's no report yet.

PEREIRA: Yet.

KOBILINSKY: There will be a report, no question about it.

IVORY: Two and a half weeks later? Two and a half weeks later?

KOBILINSKY: Some information should have come out early on.

PEREIRA: Yes.

KOBILINSKY: But, on the other hand, analytical investigation takes time and we have to do it right. We don't get a second chance at it.

PEREIRA: I agree.

KOBILINSKY: So we have to be patient.

PEREIRA: And, well, let's end on this note is that Michael Brown Sr., Michael Brown's father, has said they didn't want that to be rushed. They want the investigation to take its due course. Mo Ivory, Lawrence Kobilinsky, thank you so much for being here.

KOBILINSKY: Sure.

PEREIRA: Lending your expertise legally and scientifically, analytically as well. John, send it over to you.

BERMAN: Thanks so much, Michaela. We are following a lot of news this morning, so let's get right to it.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PETER THEO CURTIS, JOURNALIST: My name is Peter Theo Curtis, I am a journalist from the city of Boston, Massachusetts.

BERMAN (voice-over): Finally back with his family in the United States after being held captive by Islamic militants in Syria.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The FBI agents have been working with us, he called me and said I'm standing on the Golan Heights with your son by my side.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Douglas McArthur McCain from San Diego, California killed fighting as a jihadi in Syria.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Clearly this is a threat that we take seriously.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Drones have flown over Iraq near the border with Syria.

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We will do what is necessary to capture those who harm Americans.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Allegedly contains sounds of the gunshots that killed Michael Brown.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It doesn't really contradict or fit in to any of the narratives that have been created so far.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to NEW DAY. I'm Alisyn Camerota along with John Berman.

BERMAN (on camera): Great to be here with you.

CAMEROTA: Great to be here with you.

PEREIRA: You said it at the same time.

CAMEROTA: I know. Jinx. Great to be with you. A lot of news to get to. We have, in fact, breaking new details this morning on the American who died fighting alongside ISIS extremists in Syria.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

CAMEROTA (voice-over): Douglas McCain was killed during a battle between rival extremist groups. McCain converted to Islam, we're told, ten years ago, and over the course of that time became radicalized. He's one of dozens of Americans believed to have joined militants in Syria. So what made McCain join forces with ISIS? Dan Simon joins us with more.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

CAMEROTA (on camera): Hi, Dan.

DAN SIMON, CNN CORESPONDENT: Well, hi. Good morning, Alisyn. We're on the campus of San Diego City College. We know that McCain at one point took some classes here, seemingly trying to make something of his life. We know that he had lived in this city before heading overseas. We're told by a friend that he regularly attended a mosque in the area, but just how and why he became radicalized, at this point that's not known.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SIMON (voice-over): Douglas McArthur McCain's family says they're devastated to learn the 33-year-old father was fighting with the terrorist group ISIS.

KENYATA MCCAIN, DOUGLAS MCCAIN'S COUSIN: It's crazy. I don't understand it. I don't even believe this. I'm in shock. Like, I don't even know how to feel. My cousin was not a terrorist. He is not a terrorist.

SIMON: McCain had been living in San Diego but grew up in New Hope, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. They describe him as a good person with a big heart.

MCCAIN: He would have you laughing to tears. He was happy. He was smart, you know? He wasn't a radical, no. He wasn't hate-filled. He loved, loved, loved, like even if you don't love him back, he still love you, that's how he is. SIMON: Raised a Christian, McCain converted to Islam several years

ago. His conversion did not alarm his family. Rather, it was posts on social media, increasingly sympathetic to ISIS and other radical Islamist groups, that got their attention. On a Twitter account reported to be McCain's the bio reads, "It's Islam over everything." He writes messages like "I will be joining you guys soon," and "I'm with the brothers now," and retweets posts like "It takes a warrior to understand a warrior. Pray for ISIS."

U.S. counterterrorism investigators had been looking into McCain's activities for some time. He was on a terror watch list of Americans believed to have joined militant groups and would be stopped and questioned if he traveled. McCain had some past run-ins with the law. Between 2000 and 2008 he was arrested at least six times, all for minor offenses. Isaac Chase, who grew up with McCain, says he was a nice, quiet kid who loved playing basketball.