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ISIS Fighters Move Deeper into Kobani; 22 Countries Meet to Discuss ISIS; Kurdish Fighters Refuse to Challenge ISIS Near Baghdad Airport; Senate Debate in Kentucky Gets Heated.

Aired October 14, 2014 - 13:30   ET

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


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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer, reporting from Washington.

Right now, police in Saudi Arabia are investigating the killing of an American. It happened at a gas station in the capital, Riyadh. Another American was wounded in the attack. The men are security contractors whose company is working with the Saudi National Guard. The suspected shooter is in Saudi custody. A State Department official tells CNN in the wake of the attack, they're re-evaluating the security of Americans working in Saudi Arabia. We're just getting more information. The shooting taking place not very far away from the U.S. embassy in Riyadh. We'll get more information and share it with you when we have it.

Other news, ISIS fighters continue to move deeper inside the city of Kobani, right on the Syrian/Turkish border. Kurdish forces are trying to hold the city but fears are growing they will be overrun before too long. Meanwhile, coalition forces are continuing to target ISIS positions from the air. The latest air strikes aimed at oil refineries now controlled by ISIS.

CNN's Arwa Damon has been watching the battle for all of us.

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, we've been seeing a fairly heavy sustained air strike campaign on Kobani. A lot of it centering on a key area, the border crossing between Kobani, Syria and Turkey. Right behind us are silos. On top of them, the Turkish flag. Behind that is key territory, a marketplace that a Kurdish fighter, CNN spoke to, said ISIS has taken over. They control that and everything to the south, and that is not too far away from that vital artery, the border crossing. According to this fighter, if ISIS manages to take over the border crossing, Kobani could be considered to have effectively fallen to the terrorist organization. These air strikes have been helping to a certain degree. But according to this Kurdish fighter, what they need is the type of heavy weaponry that would allow them to take on the ISIS tanks. He was describing how ISIS is very easily moving its tanks in from three different directions, the west, the east and the south. Also very easily bringing in additional fighters and weapons resupply. It has plenty of it. The Kurdish fighting force do not. They're doing whatever they can to keep ISIS at bay. But if the status quo continues, according to this one Kurdish fighter, it will be impossible for them to continue to keep ISIS out of the key border crossing and keep Kobani from falling to ISIS -- Wolf?

BLITZER: Arwa Damon on the scene for us.

Arwa, thanks very much.

Meanwhile, defense officials from 22 countries are meeting at Joint Base Andrews outside of Washington, D.C., to discuss the war on ISIS. The U.S. chief of staff, General Martin Dempsey, is going to run the meeting. President Obama will make an appearance later this afternoon at this military base.

Let's bring in retired U.S. Army General Wesley Clark, the former NATO supreme allied commander and also the author of a brand-new book entitled "Don't Wait for the Next War." General Clark is joining us now from Los Angeles.

Congratulations, General Clark, first of all, on the new book. I'm sure a lot of people will want to read it.

Let's talk a little bit about what's happening right now outside of Washington at Joint Base Andrews. Used to be called Andrews Air Force Base, now Joint Base Andrews.

GEN. WESLEY CLARK, RETIRED U.S. ARMY & FORMER NATO SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER & AUTHOR: Right.

BLITZER: 22 countries are there. They're meeting together to discuss strategy. But missing at this meeting, any representatives of the moderate Syrian -- Free Syrian Army, missing, any specific representative from the Kurdish region, from Kurdistan. Those are the forces the U.S. wants to be ground troops there. Why weren't they invited?

CLARK: Well, I'm not sure why they weren't invited but they're certainly heavily engaged. Now, we are definitely talking to their political representatives. I was on the phone, in fact, yesterday with one of their political representatives in D.C. So they are in the area. It may be that we have all of the information we need from them.

I think the purpose of this meeting, Wolf, is basically for the president to underscore America's commitment to these defense chiefs, for General Dempsey to be able to look for additional commitments, whether it's more aircraft, refueling, logistics, weapons and supplies, to be transferred. Probably to discuss ground troops and to generally try to pull the coalition together on a military basis. All of that help is going to go to the Kurds who are fighting and the Free Syrian Army elements that are connected, including some in Kobani.

So I don't see their omission as a critical problem at this stage. Really, they're engaged in the immediate and what General Dempsey is trying to do is organize and get the assistance that they need.

BLITZER: Here's my suspicion. It's only a suspicion, General. I want your reaction. The Free Syrian Army, the moderate Syrian army, even though the U.S. Congress has appropriated half a billion dollars to arm and train them, the U.S. doesn't completely trust them because they have a working relationship, at least in part, with al Nusra, which the State Department regards as a terrorist organization, an offshoot of al Qaeda. Is that a fair analysis?

CLARK: I think it's fair to say the Free Syrian Army has done just about anything it can to survive. When you talk to them, they will tell you their support is inadequate. They don't get the supplies quickly enough. They aren't trusted. But they have to somehow scrounge what they need on the battlefield and they have to form temporary alliances to go after whatever objective it is that makes sense at the time. This is the problem with this, Wolf. There are so many different elements. And the political linkage between the top of the Syrian moderate opposition and the Free Syrian Army has always been shaky. And at the margins, it slips away. So when you're aiding the moderate Syrian opposition and if you were to pour half a billion dollars worth of aid into that tomorrow, you're not sure where that aid is going to end up on the battlefield. And that's been the problem for three years with Syria.

BLITZER: Here's my other suspicion. Tell me if you think this is a fair suspicion. It's simply a suspicion that the Kurds, Kurdistan was not invited, even though the Peshmerga, the fierce Kurdish fighters -- they've played a significant role in trying to fight back ISIS with limited weapons, I should point out. The Peshmerga, the Kurds weren't invited because the Turks don't like the Kurds and the Iraqi government in Baghdad don't like the Kurds. That's why they were blacklisted from this meeting. What do you think?

CLARK: I think that's probably a good supposition. But neither one of them represent real governments. And so what you've got is you've got General Dempsey trying to work through legal governments here. There's no question, there's a lot of cross-cutting loyalties and tensions in the region.

And, Wolf, one other thing to think about. When people say you can't win without boots on the ground, of course they're right. We don't want them to be American boots. But putting boots on the ground, even non-American boots, is not sufficient. You've got to have governance over that region. And that's the importance of the moderate Syrian opposition. They are the ones that we should be empowering now to go into Kobani and elsewhere, to work with the Kurds, the local populations and establish a free Syria on the ground. The alternative, if we don't do this, is that as we attack and push back ISIS, Bashar al Assad rolls forward and he then becomes the legitimate government over these ungoverned spaces. Terrorism is fundamentally a problem of ungoverned space and that's what we've got all over most of Syria today.

BLITZER: I will point out, administration officials have told me the reason the Kurds weren't invited, the moderate Syrian opposition weren't invited is because only sovereign nations were invited and neither is a sovereign independent nation.

General, I want you to stand by. We have a lot more to talk about. This war is clearly heating up. The U.S., others engaged in air

strikes. But ISIS is clearly on the move. What is going on? Much more with General Clark right after this.

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BLITZER: We're back with retired U.S. Army general, Wesley Clark. He's the former NATO supreme allied commander. He's also the author of a brand new book, "Don't Wait for the Next War." There you see the book jacket.

General, can you believe how close these ISIS forces are to the Baghdad International Airport, only eight or 10 miles from the Baghdad International Airport, that they control now not only Mosul, a city of two million, the second-largest city in Iraq, but about 80 percent of the Anbar Province over there and they're moving closer and closer and closer? And the Iraqi military is simply MIA. They're refusing, for all practical purposes, to challenge these guys. What's going on?

CLARK: What you have is a case where ISIS is winning favor with the Sunni population. The Sunni population is either neutral or helping ISIS as it moves through. They are, after all, Sunnis. They're very disaffected with the way the former Prime Minister Maliki was leading the government there in Iraq. The army, a lot of the generals that we trained were replaced. They were replaced with Shia cronies, basically, who can't fight and the army's too Shia to represent the country. And so as they get closer and closer to the airport, it's increasingly dangerous. This is not like an airport that you can simply draw a fence around and say, OK, we got the airport, they can stay out there. When you're dealing with ISIS, you're dealing with a force that has long-range weapons. You're looking at a mile, two miles, three miles for artillery, five miles beyond the airport. What happens if they start to shell the airport? So we have some tough strategic issues that we're wrestling with. And I'm positive that behind the scenes that the United States advisers there on the ground in Baghdad and with the Iraqi military in high command are doing everything they can to encourage the Iraqi army to get out there and fight and hold this critical terrain around the airport.

BLITZER: They're certainly not doing it, at least not yet. Sporadically, they might be doing it. But there's a whole lot more they could be doing.

And what worries a lot of U.S. officials and the American public, General, I want your take, those thousands of Americans who are in that so-called Green Zone where the U.S. embassy is in Baghdad. They seem pretty protected, Baghdad, a city of seven million people. But a lot of folks are worried about them. If that airport shuts down, for example, how do you get those folks out of there?

CLARK: Well, I think you have to make that decision before -- you're approaching the time to make that decision. That airport has to be international property. It cannot be left to fall. I think that whether we want to put boots on the ground, whether we call it that or not, protecting that airport is essential to protecting the safety of Americans. So I would guess that we are going to protect that airport. We're just not going to allow this to happen where there's a catastrophe. We're not going to have a repeat of Saigon 1975. We're not going to allow it to fall.

That would certainly be my recommendation if I were on the inside. As much as I don't want to see U.S. troops on the ground, this is a case where there's a piece of key terrain has to be held to hold diplomacy in the region together.

BLITZER: How many troops do you think would be necessary, brigades and divisions? What do you think the U.S. would need in terms of ground forces to protect that airport, the Baghdad International Airport, given the fact that ISIS has all those shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles?

CLARK: I think what you end up doing is you end up putting some of the Special Forces troops in there to reinforce and to advise the combat formations in the Iraqi army. You might have a couple of U.S. battalions available to reinforce in an emergency. But there are a couple of steps before you start deploying a division or two to protect that airport. I don't think we're there. I don't think we're going to get there. But we may be in the position where we've got to put some U.S. personnel forward to get eyes on target and actually control the strikes that are coming in.

You can stop much of this if you can deliver firepower effectively from the air. You just can't do it in a place like Kobani where you don't have any eyes on target. Around the Baghdad airport, we can have eyes on target.

BLITZER: General Clark, I'm sure your former colleagues at the Department of Defense are looking at all the contingencies right now, as they always do.

Wesley Clark, thanks very much for joining us.

His new book, "Don't Wait for the Next War."

General Clark, thank you very much.

CLARK: Thank you very much. Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: When we come back, we'll have an update on what's going on in American politics. Mitt Romney, guess what? He's made a run for the White House twice, as all of us know. But will there be a third run for the White House? Will the third time be a charm? The Republicans, a lot of them, are saying, get in, Mitt. We'll tell you about that.

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BLITZER: The U.S. midterm elections are exactly three weeks from today. Last night, a key debate in Kentucky got quite heated. The race is being closely watched to see how it will affect the balance of power in the United States Senate. The minority leader, Mitch McConnell, is hoping to become the majority leader. The long-term Senate Republican faced off against Democratic challenger, Alison Lundergan Grimes. She's come under fire for refusing to reveal whether she voted for President Obama in 2008 or 2012. She once again ducked the question last night.

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ALISON LUNDERGAN GRIMES, (D), KENTUCKY SENATE CANDIDATE: There's no reluctancy. This is a matter of principle. Our Constitution grants here in Kentucky the constitutional right for privacy at the ballot box for a secret ballot.

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BLITZER: Chief congressional correspondent, Dana Bash, chief political analyst, Gloria Borger.

Gloria, I guess she thinks it would be a mistake to say, simple words, I voted for Barack Obama for president.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Obviously, she thinks it would. I don't know why she couldn't just come out and say, I voted for him, and by the way, it was a mistake, unless she didn't vote at all. But it's clearly part of her campaign strategy to distance herself from President Obama. He's so unpopular in that state. However, honestly, I don't think this helps her at all because she looks evasive.

BLITZER: You were there, too.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: She definitely looks evasive. Look, she -- the problem is, as you said, she has a very big hill to climb. And that is, a state like Kentucky where the Democratic president lost 116 out of 120 counties, right? Where he is -- that was when he was popular nationwide also. And she knows that Mitch McConnell has a lot of money and the minute she utters anything close to, "I voted for Barack Obama," it will be on every single TV ad they can find air time to buy, every single web ad, et cetera. They decided to take their lumps and to show -- to just not answer. The problem is that they've decided that it is worse to look like you support President Obama than it is to look evasive and not authentic.

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BASH: I'm not sure that's the right decision in a year like this when people are craving authenticity.

BORGER: Right. And every ad she's got, every -- on the air waves is distancing herself from Barack Obama. I'm not anything like Barack Obama. I disagree with him on gun control, on everything. So there's no confusion there.

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BLITZER: And this is a typical race. Mitch McConnell was one of those Republicans, potentially, that could have been vulnerable. But looks like she may be in trouble right now.

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BASH: Right. And it was tightening. And the unfortunate thing talking to Democratic sources is that she had a really good debate performance. She was tough. She went right after Mitch McConnell and did it in a way that, I think for the most part, was pretty effective.

BLITZER: Right. We'll move on.

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BLITZER: Mitt Romney, is he going to run for president a third time?

(LAUGHTER)

BORGER: Third time's a charm? Look, if I were betting now, I would say, no. In talking to people in Romney land, they're very happy he's getting all of this attention. There are some people in Romney land who would like him to run. I think, and as one person told me there, if he were to run -- and he stressed this is a real hypothetical -- that he would be the last person to get in the race. In other words, if everybody else fell down and there was nobody left, then maybe Mitt Romney would come in and save the day. Does anybody believe that's actually going to happen? No. Are they happy he's getting these accolades that he's number one surrogate out on the campaign trail? That he can say I told you so? They're thrilled about it. But is it likely? I would still say no.

BASH: It's not. And I don't think it's likely. That he'll run at all. It is true that the Republican Party tends to give their nominees other chances. Third chances maybe not so much.

But, you know, I think the other reason why he's having a resurgence of the map right now in the November election. Most of the competitive races are in red states, like Kentucky we were just talking about, where Mitt Romney won by 24 points. Of course, he's going to go and campaign there because that's the place where he actually did well. So, I think, that is playing a big part of the dynamic where people are discussing whether or not Mitt Romney's going to run again.

BORGER: Yeah. And I think, you know, his family members are happy because he is relevant again, and they like him seeing this kind of adulation. But Ann Romney says said never again.

(LAUGHTER)

She's said that before but I think she means it.

BLITZER: Politics is strange. We'll see what happens. There's a lot of pressure. A lot of his aides and supporters would like him to run. We'll see if that happens, guys.

BORGER: I don't think he would.

(LAUGHTER)

BLITZER: We'll continue this conversation three weeks from today. The midterm elections, we'll have extensive coverage.

Thanks very, very much.

That's it for me. Thanks very much for watching. I'll be back 5:00 p.m. eastern in "The Situation Room."

For our international views, "Amanpour" is up after a quick break.

For our viewers in North America, "Newsroom" with Pamela Brown today takes over right at the top of the hour.

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