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End Of Live Interview With Secretary of Defense; Panel Discussion On Washington's Reaction To ISIS

Aired September 3, 2014 - 15:30   ET

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


JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Let me ask you finally -- and I want to give the chance for the audience to ask questions of you as well, does the president have the congressional authority he needs currently to carry out further strikes in Syria, or does he need to seek congressional approval before taking that step?

CHUCK HAGEL, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: Like I said, Jim, the White House, all of us had been reaching out, conferring with the Congress. We are looking at the different authorities that would come with the different options as to what would be required if any additional legal authorities would be required. The president has been very clear that anything he does, he wants the Congress to be part of that. He wants the legal authority.

And he's been straight -- straightforward about that with all of us. So, we're looking at all of those options and what may be required, depending on what options the president wants to go with.

SCIUTTO: Can you vow to the American people today that ISIS will not be just degraded or contained, but destroyed?

HAGEL: Well, vows are something beyond my mortal capacity of doing. But I can tell you this, Jim. I know this about this president, this vice president, I know this about everyone in his administration, I know this about myself. We will do everything possible that we can do to destroy their capacity to inflict harm on our people and Western values and -- and our interests.

SCIUTTO: Everything you can do, everything the government can do. Secretary Hagel, thank you very much for your time.

HAGEL: Thanks Jim.

SCIUTTO: We covered a lot of ground here, and I appreciate this, knowing what great challenges you and the people you command and serve have on your plate. So, thank you very much. CNN and our audience appreciates it.

Brooke, you heard the secretary's strong words on ISIL and on Ukraine echoing some of what we heard from the president earlier today and the vice president. I think as Americans in these coming days and weeks, we can expect this to stay very much at the top of the administration's priorities, and I think it's something that you and I, Brooke, are going to be covering very closely.

So, I'm going to turn it back to you now. Thanks very much for giving us the time.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: I will take it. Jim Sciutto and Secretary Hagel, thank you so much for a half hour, and really important questions that Americans want answers to. Just hearing the Secretary of Defense, you know, talking specifically about how he felt sick to his stomach, you know, watching the beheading video of Steven Sotloff talking, clarifying the goal when it comes to ISIS and the threat they pose, not just in the region, but globally, saying, yes, the goals is to no just contain but to destroy.

And also specific as far as how many Americans that they know of, who have U.S. passports fighting along ISIS, and the threat they pose, not just to the region, but back here to us here in the U.S.

So, as Jim mentioned, Secretary Hagel will be taking questions now from the audience. So if you want to stay with him, you can just grab that laptop as you stay with us, and log on to cnn.com/live. But coming up next, with all of the ground they just covered in that half hour, we have to go through this and talk about the Defense Secretary's comments on everything from the plan to combat ISIS, the goals to -- as they got to eventually, the Ukraine-Russia conflicts.

We have team of experts and analysts to discuss all of the above here, all the implications. That is next, you're watching CNN special live coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: You have just -- been watching live from Newport, Rhode Island, our chief national security correspondent, Jim Sciutto sitting down with the Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and asking him all the questions that you have wanted the answers to, including this threat of ISIS in the wake of the second beheading video of American Steven Sotloff, to also what's happening with Russia-Ukraine.

Let me bring in my mega panel here. David Gergen, CNN senior political analyst, and a former adviser to four presidents, CNN chief political correspondent and host of State of Union, Candy Crowley, Colonel Peter Mansoor, CNN's military analyst. And a former aide to General David Patraeus, Juliette Kayyem, CNN national security analyst; and Christopher Dickey, foreign editor for The Daily Beast.

Candy Crowley, to you first, and Jim made this point and here's where I'm curious with you. When we look at just the words coming from the administration, from the cabinet, and especially today that we hear from a very impassioned Joe Biden, the Vice President, you know, talking about ISIS as barbarians and saying, "We will take them," you know, "to the gates of hell," which is where they reside, compared to the President's words. You can understand the confusion here between different members of the cabinet?

CANDY CROWLEY, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Sure. And I think they'll still be some today because while the President also used the words to destroy and to dismantle, he also said -- well, I think with the international cooperation, we can shrink ISIS to a manageable problem. I think that's an outlier statement because I think what you're hearing from the Vice President, what you're hearing from the Pentagon chief, and largely what you're hearing from the President is we have to get rid of these guys. And at least degrade them and destroy them to the point where they no longer are a threat to U.S. interest.

So that's pretty much getting rid of them, the question is what does that take and what we heard was, well there's lots of options on the table. And nothing taken out of it except it appears boots on the ground on either Syria or Iraq.

BALDWIN: Right. And we'll go to what exactly does even destroying this group mean. We know that they've been in this region for at least a decade. As Chuck Hagel said once upon a time, you know, it take a long time to evict them, but David Gergen, do you agree with Candy? I mean, do you think that the confusion will still remain from mixed messages from the administration?

DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I think we came a long way today with a very good interview by Jim Sciutto.

BALDWIN: It was.

GERGEN: And pushing the Secretary several times on whether the -- with the language that represents the administration's view, all the way to the top, including the President, is the language the President himself used today, earlier today, and that it was, "Our objective was to degrade and destroy their capability, ISIS capability to threaten our interest and to threaten the region."

The President himself later today, after he first made that statement, went on to back track a couple of times, as Candy said, and got down to sort of turning ISIS into a manageable problem. Now, Chuck Hagel comes along and says, "No, our objective is to degrade and destroy." By the way, he said -- also said, "I didn't know the President said he wanted to (inaudible) to a manageable problem." But I think that he took a hard line, it's the toughest line the Administration taken more uniformly. He said it several times and I think we have to now interpret that as being the official representation by the Administration, unless the White House chooses to backtrack, that is the official interpretation I believe.

And it does have large implications, because to destroy -- degrade and destroy is a very high objective. That means you really take away the (inaudible) from them. And Hagel said something that was straight -- was surprising today, and that is that ISIS now controls half, half. We've always heard the third of Iraq and half of Syria. That's a big control point, half of Iraq. And so, what that means is to destroy that capability, that is a big undertaking.

BALDWIN: I wrote that precise line down as well, David Gergen. That jumped out of me. I had not heard half either. So, Col. Mansoor, when you hear about the territory and you also hear Secretary Hagel saying, "Listen, we have given. We continue to give the President different plans, different options on the table. We are constantly defining and redefining those options." Take us behind close doors. How does that President narrow those down? How does he ultimately decide which one to go with?

COL. PETER MANSOOR, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, we start with a mission. And we got little bit more clarity on the mission today, but the mission that was stated by the Secretary of Defense put into military terms would equal defeat. When you destroy the capabilities of an enemy for such of that force cannot accomplish its chosen task, which is to conduct terrorism against the United States and Europe, that's defeat. If you want to destroy that force, that means going in, destroying all of their forces and occupying their territory.

So we're still not quite there in terms of the clarity of the mission for the military. They will be confused by what they just heard. Given that though that we want to destroy the capabilities of ISIS to conduct attacks against the West, the military will determine what needs to be destroyed, what targets need to be destroyed, and then they're going to come up for options for the President. And they could include the use of surrogate round forces, they could include arming and training the Free-Syrian Army, they could include perhaps a tribal rebellion, find to re-ignite awakening in the Sunni tribal areas, they're going to -- it could include for sure an expanded air campaign. It could include cyber activities to degrade the ability of ISIS to recruit on the internet. So all of these various options will be packaged and presented to the President in due course. And then the President is going to decide how far he wants to go with the military use of power.

BALDWIN: Well, we heard Secretary Hagel saying air strikes alone will not accomplish this mission of degrading and destroying ISIS. But, Chris Dickey, this brings me to you as we were listening to this sitting here together, you know, it's the simple question, what does that mean, degrade and destroy ISIS in one of the points that Secretary Hagel has made multiple times saying, "Listen, this isn't just military. There are a lot of things that the President and his Cabinet have to consider when going forward into Iraq, into Syria." And one that he mentioned post NATO meeting will be getting this coalition together, right, and that is key. And the question though is who joins the coalition, and specifically, which Muslim nation is joining?

CHRISTOPHER DICKEY, FOREIGN EDITOR, THE DAILY BEAST: Well, that is an absolutely key question. I think it was very interesting that when Secretary Hagel was talking about who would be in this coalition, he was talking about France, he was talking about Britain, Australia, Canada, and what about NATO power Turkey, what about Saudi Arabia which is hugely armed by the United States, what about Jordan which is right in the middle of the action. We didn't hear about any of them. Maybe he just forgot to mention them, maybe they're not on board, and maybe that's a big problem with the policy that's being outlined by the President right now.

This is not such a mysterious strategy in fact. I think the President is being perfectly clear. First of all, they're taking tactical measures with air strikes in cooperation with whatever troops they can find on the ground to stop the momentum of ISIS, to stop it from taking Erbil, the Kurdish Capital, to stop it from moving into Baghdad. That, they have been doing, that they are doing right now. The question is how do you advance from there? The President keeps talking about coalitions, why does he say that, because if you are going to degrade it, maybe you can do that -- some of that from the air, but if you are going to destroy it, you're going to have to do it on the ground, and we're not going to send in American troops to do it. So whose troops are you going to send, and that's the question mark, that's what we don't know.

BALDWIN: That's the news that hopefully will be made after this NATO Summit with Secretary Kerry, Secretary Hagel. We'll be taking about that coalition building process. But speaking of Americans, and, Juliette Kayyem, this also jumps out of me. I jotted down the fact that we now heard from Secretary Hagel 100, the number 100 U.S. citizens with U.S. passports fighting with ISIS in the Middle East. And this when Jim really pushed him, you know, because there have been questions about how -- what kind of threat they pose, is it an imminent threat, is it an imminent threat to the home land? And his answer, you know, involved yes, there is concern in these Americans coming home radicalizing. And to quote the secretary, I can't second guess what may or may not come then.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I think that's right. Look, I mean there is a difference between desire of these 100 Americans or whoever else is a member of ISIS or ISIL, and capability. And so, you did see the Pentagon sort of retract a little bit from last week, sort of arguing that there was an imminent threat at every shopping mall. It's just -- it's actually just not true. We do have a concern about Americans who are supporting ISIL.

But amongst all these background noise, what we should just be clear about for our viewers is, first, everyone agrees that ISIS or ISIL is brutal and different. Second, that they have gained geographic control in areas in Syria and Iraq that is disturbing to say the least. Third, that there are -- we need a regional approach. Some of it is political. Fourth, that we are air bombing and that's having a success in disruption. And then finally, every military option is on the table.

So all the talk about no strategy, it's pursing of words, because in fact the really only disagreement about strategy is really when and if we expand military action in Syria, which would be a game changer. So across the board, I think everyone is taking a deep breath. We may purse the words between disrupt and dismantle. But for the most part, I think that it's clear what the stages of this fighter are going to look like and potentially further military action.

BALDWIN: But what isn't clear, which seemed to me the secretary pointed out, is that the U.S. has never fought this enemy before. This is a new enemy. We do not have the intelligence like we have on Al-Qaeda, like -- on Al-Qaeda and the Arabian Peninsula. And David Gergen, when Secretary Hagel was asked specifically about this most recent beheading of American journalist, Steven Sotloff, and he said, you know, just, you know, as a human being, it makes you absolutely sick to the stomach, but it reminds us of the brutality that is afoot in this parts of the world. Do you agree this is an enemy that the U.S. just hasn't had a lot of intelligence on, doesn't know exactly how to fight yet?

GERGEN: It's surprising how little intelligence we have since ISIS has been around now for a number of years, has been gaining ground. I mean it's -- I think the surprise is why do they suddenly take us by surprise when they swept across into Iraq. And -- but given that, I think what we do see now is that the second beheading, the two together, have really moved the Administration as to a significant degree, sort of much larger commitment. And now, the issue before is how are they going to carry out that commitment.

The Defense Department itself, together what Juliettte Kayyem was just saying, the Defense Department itself been saying, "You can't destroy ISIS unless you bomb." In Syria, we haven't done that. The President has been very reluctant to do that, to get involved in Syria. Are we now in the verge of doing that or not? I don't think we know yet who -- and go to this question about who are these grand forces going to be to destroy on the ground ISIS in Iraq and Syria? We're simply going to defend on a (inaudible) Iraqi force. That doesn't seem very likely. The Kurds are not ready to do that. Who's going to do it?

So I think it's a big, big question still ahead. First question is does the White House now agree that the mission is to degrade and destroy? And if so, where do we go from here on these bigger, hard issues of how do you destroy.

BALDWIN: On the notion of destroying, and, Col. Mansoor, I guess sort of militarily, you know, when we were going through this horrendous beheading video yesterday, talking to a number of different analysts, you know, they were sort of saying to me that this is absolutely -- it's about propaganda. This is sophistication, like the U.S. has never seen before. This is a recruitment tool. And I'm wondering, if and when a choice is made of an air strike campaign in Syria, if at all that would involve, justify, further recruit young Jihadis to join this terrorism group.

MANSOOR: Well, I think an air campaign without a ground component would be an exercise in futility. And it would simply paint the United States as the aggressor against the Islamic state and draw recruits to its cause. In that case, it's probably better to do nothing at all inside Syria than to take action which we know will fail in the end. There has to be a ground component in order to destroy ISIS.

But the idea of that, we've never face this enemy before is actually a little bit incorrect because we did faced the four runner (ph) to ISIS, Al-Qaeda in Iraq during the surged in 2007 and 2008, and we defeated it.

We destroyed within the confines of Iraq and forced it across the border into Syria where, unfortunately, it metastasized due to the civil war there. And we know the playbook that we use. It was a tribal rebellion coupled with irregular forces, the Sons of Iraq coupled with conventional forces Iraqi and U.S. combat forces coupled with air power.

We know how to defeat this kind of enemy, the President just has to come to the determination that there has to be a ground component to this campaign.

BOLDUAN: Talking about the playbook, you know, brutal barbaric sophisticated players. I just want thank all of you, Candy, Chris, David, and Colonel Mansoor. Thank you all so much for walking through all that.

Again, you can watch that interview, incredible interview conducted by Jim Shudo and the Secretary of Defense, go to cnn.com, quick break right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: You know, as just earlier this year that President Barack Obama called the ISIS, the junior varsity team. And now national security officials are deeming the Islamic terrorist overrunning Iraq and Syria just heard Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, a half of Iraq, half of Syria and an imminent threat to two U.S. interest.

So, why, after ISIS beheaded down two Americans is perhaps the President had hesitant to say anything much more forcibly. Let's bring in a columnist who is calling the President, maddeningly indecisive, unclear, and defensive, Ron Fournier from the National Journal. Ron welcome.

RON FOURNIER, NATIONAL POLITICAL JOURNALIST: How you doing? Thank you very much.

BALDWIN: All right. So this is what you write, a couple might in quote "He tries to manage the world as he hopes it will be." This is President Obama you're talking about, rather than lead the world as it is. He though he could lead. When does he get started? This is how you end your piece. So just sort of reading it Ron, you know, (inaudible) puzzled (ph) by the President at worst. You basically are saying, he has -- he's yet to begun to lead the country. So what does the President need to do to lead?

FOURNIER: Well, look, first he's got to be more clear than he has been, at least as clear as national security team has been about what the real threat is, if any, to the United States, and to the United States interest.

I think we saw them in news conference today having a hard time even saying that ISIS was a threat to United States. Secretary Hagel and, you know, a remarkable interview you guys had no problem talking about of the kind of threat post.

So hundred Americans fighting for ISIS, half of Iraq, half of Syria now in this Islamic state hand. So first, identified the threat and then be very clear about what he's going to be about it and, you know, the main thing is to be the leader of the world community put together a coalition as I think David Gergen was talking about, not just with France, and Britain, and Canada but also with Turkey, Saudi Arabia.

BALDWIN: Saudi Arabia.

FOURNIER: Yes. Other Islamic Muslim states that could fight as threat that from all accounts appears to be, you know, the most significant threat we've had since 9/11.

BALDWIN: You know, a lot of people say, the President is just very cautious even so much with his own party, (inaudible), maybe too cautious, if this is what, it just want to reads you, just a different perspective from Thomas Friedman from the New York Times.

So he wrote talking about U.S. destroying Iran's mortal enemy, post 9/11. There are no words to describe the violence of the video beheadings of two American journalists by ISIS. But I have no doubt that there are meant to get us to overreact, a la 9/11 and rush off again without any strategy. ISIS is awful but it is no threat to Americans homeland, clear by that last point. Secretary Hagel clearly said, yes there is, a threat to the homeland.

But, you know, as far as the strategy, we heard from Secretary Hagel to, it is to destroy, to dismantle, but what do you make of Friedman's point about saying, listen, let's not rush in like the U.S. did years ago?

FOURNIER: No, no, it's a good point. This is one I'm kind of puzzled. There's two size of a coin to the story and found points out the other one. Actually, Thomas somebody who was very strongly and favor of the Iraq war and he says, and he was wrong about that. We can't make that --

BALDWIN: He did point that out.

FOURNIER: -- statement again. Right.

BALDWIN: Right.

FOURNIER: And he's right. You know, the Bush administration to save the public cooked the books and we fought a war, a lot of people died. A lot of men and women died. We spent a lot of money that in (inaudible) that we should not have and now, you know, this might be a case where we have a situation where the President is kind of hamstrung by history and hamstrung by both the promises he made as a candidate and by the deception that we had in the Bush era.