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Administration Reassessing Anti-ISIS Strategy; Congress Questions ISIS Strategy; Medvedev Asks U.S. to Drop Sanctions; Russia Patrols Near U.S.; General Says Wars Were Lost

Aired November 13, 2014 - 13:00   ET

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


WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Right now, rethinking the strategy to defeat ISIS. Top American military leaders facing some tough questions on President Bashar Al Assad, Iran and the strength of the Iraqi military.

Russia flexing its muscles again, today announcing plans to send long range bombers to the U.S. doorstep. Does Russia need patrols over the Gulf of Mexico?

And a controversial pardon by the governor of Arkansas for his own son. We're taking a closer look at whether any special treatment is involved.

Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer. It's 1:00 p.m. here in Washington, 6:00 p.m. in London, 8:00 p.m. in Damascus, 9:00 p.m. in Moscow. Wherever you're watching from around the world, thanks very much for joining us.

We start with the fight against ISIS. Just moments ago, the House Armed Services Committee here in Washington wrapped up a hearing with the defense secretary, Chuck Hagel and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey. They both turned in a long fight and they cautioned about expanding the U.S. role.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. MARTIN DEMPSEY, CHAIRMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF: We've established a modest footprint, one that is focused on the development of these security forces, assisting them with planning, integration of fires, and advising and assisting them from higher headquarters. Any expansion of that, I'd think would be equally modest. I just don't foresee a circumstance when it would be in our interest to take this fight on ourselves with a large military contingent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: The Obama administration, though, may be rethinking this strategy for Syria. President Obama has asked his national security team to review the plans right now, including the issue of the Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHUCK HAGEL, U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: You can change Assad today and that's not going to change all the dynamics quickly, certainly in Syria, but who are you going to replace Assad with and what kind of an army would take on ISIL? So, yes, Assad is part of it. Yes, it is the longer term part of this. Define a stable government, leaders in Syria, to be able to bring some stability to that country is part of it. But ISIL is right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Joining us now to talk about all this, the hearing, the fight against ISIS, our Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr. Our Correspondent Arwa Damon, she's in southern Turkey. And in New York, Fareed Zakaria, he's the Host of CNN's "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS."

So, let me play this clip, though. This is the North Carolina Congressman, Walter Jones. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. WALTER JONES (R), NORTH CAROLINA: What is the end state of what we're trying to accomplish? The American people, 50 -- over 50 percent of the American people do not want our personnel in Syria or in Iraq. And I will be honest with you, I don't know how we can convince the American people that a nation financially broke, you sat here General Dempsey and you're right, sequestration and all the budget problems coming your way and yet you're asking for $5 or $6 billion to drop more armaments in Iraq and Syria? Where is it coming from? Please explain to the American people and to this Congress how this war is going to end some day? Whether we are advisors or we are fighting?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: This is a fair question. Barbara, you monitored what was going on. Was that question answered? What is the end game?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, I mean there's no clear answer to that. The president's policy is to defeat, degrade ISIS in Iraq and in Syria. But the Pentagon will tell you, and starting with General Dempsey, he's been very clear from the beginning. You are not going to kill your way to victory with this. This is an ideology. They continue to recruit people. They continue to bring fighters into both Syria and Iraq. Bombs are not going to solve it. Air strikes are not going to solve it.

So, what Hagel and Dempsey are looking for is for the other side of the House, the political side, the state department, the diplomats, to do something to get some accommodation. Get the Iraqi government moving to defend itself and get the Syrian rebels able it to do something potentially about Assad. Get the region to get Assad out. If you can have functioning governments in both countries, maybe you can begin to have a structure to get at the ISIS problem. But U.S. air strikes are not going to be the way (INAUDIBLE.)

BLITZER: And they made it clear, this is not a short-term operation. This is not weeks or months.

STARR: This is years. This is --

BLITZER: Not only years, there have been some suggestions, 10 or 20 years, this new phase of the war, could go on.

STARR: Because I think most people, most military commanders, will tell you, it is time for everybody to understand that victory, an end game, is not anything what it's looked like literally for centuries. This is going to be very uncertain, very unclear, it will ebb and flow and there will -- there will probably not be a clear, clean victory.

BLITZER: Is the American public, Fareed, based on everything you know what's going on, ready for what is certainly, if the U.S. pursues this policy, going to be many, many years of war in that part of the world?

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST, "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS": Wolf, I think if it's a very limited kind of assistance then perhaps they would. But otherwise, I don't think so because really what you have is this whole region, Iraq and Syria, have been unsettled by a Sunni revolt. A revolt of the Sunnis who do not want to be ruled by what they see as two apostic (ph) regimes. The Shiite regime in Baghdad and the Alawite regime in Damascus.

Now, how you're going to solve that is a very complicated problem. You can bomb and degrade ISIS but somebody then has to hold the territory of the ground and build a political order that includes both the Sunnis and the non-Sunnis. That's a very complicated act of, you know, on the one hand, being able to create and hold political order, but also then build a real nation where everyone feels invested. The United States, especially with military -- limited military intervention is not going to be able to do that. It has a strategy in Iraq where it has a partner, the Iraqi government, is pressing it to be more inclusive. There is an Iraqi army that can hold territory.

So, that piece I understand, very complicated and tough. The Iraqi government still has not been particularly inclusive. But when you turn over to Syria, really, we're operating in the blind. We do not have those forces that we can work with. And so, I would suspect, a limited military intervention, with an Iraq first strategy has some possibility of maintaining -- of doing some good. But it is going to be a long-term process, almost remaking these two nations.

BLITZER: Arwa, you've been in Iraq so long. In 2003, when the U.S. went in, got rid of Saddam Hussein. You've been there so many times ever since. Is this new Iraqi government, that the U.S. is pinning so much of its hopes on, really capable of bringing Iraqi's Sunnis and Shia and Kurds together or is that simply wishful thinking on the part of the Obama administration and others here in Washington?

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, if we look at what the new prime minister, Haider al-Abadi has done just over the last 24 hours, it would, at the very least, seem on paper that his intentions are in the right place. He sacked 26 of the country's top generals, another 10 are retiring. And when I say top generals, I mean people as senior as his chief of staff. A lot of these generals had been in power for years. They were viewed as being former prime minister Nuri Al Maliki's lackeys. Of course, his policies have been incredibly divisive. Some of these generals viewed, quite simply, as being corrupt or ineffective. So, he most certainly is trying on that front at the very least to try to shake things up and really put the Iraqi security forces back into order, at least as best he can at this stage.

He also has begun the process of arming the Sunni tribes in al Anbar province. This is going to be critical if Iraq is to have any hope at trying to defeat ISIS, convincing those Sunnis that they can rely on the Shia led government in Baghdad. And the Iraqis did manage to retake the critical city of Baiji, but they did not do that on their own. They had coalition air power helping them out plus they had the help of Iranian backed militias and Iranian advisers.

So, on the one hand, there are these slight indications that perhaps positive steps are being taken. But let's not forget Iraq's history. Let's not forget how quickly the situation there can change for the worst -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Very quickly, Barbara, I want to play a little clip. This is the defense secretary of the United States, Chuck Hagel, testifying today, talking about Iran and its role inside Iraq. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHUCK HAGEL, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: We are not coordinating with the government of Iran. We're not working with the government of Iran.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is the government of Iran involved in any of the military activities in Iraq?

CHUCK HAGEL, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: They're not involved in anything that the United States or the coalition is involved in.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's not my question. Are they involved in any military activities in Iraq?

HAGEL: As far as I know, the Iranian army is not engaged in Iraq. There may be other components, Shia militia, those kinds of groups that have been there that have over the years -- we've dealt with over the years. But as far as an official Iranian government military presence in Iraq, I'm not aware.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Is he parsing words? Because there are a lot of reports that Iranian Revolutionary Guard, these are the elite forces there, they are deeply involved in what's going on in Iraq right now.

STARR: Yes. I think the secretary is being very delicate in choosing his words to say the least. All indications are that members of the (INAUDIBLE), the Revolutionary Guard, have moved in and out of Iraq over the months and have been helping. As Arwa said, they are backing the Shia militias in so many places in there are many indications that top commanders have moved in and out of Iraq trying to help the Iraqi army and giving them some pretty direct assistance. The U.S. wants to stay as officially as far away as they can from the Iranian presence inside Iraq, but it's something that is being watched very carefully.

BLITZER: The Iranians are deeply involved right now with that new government -- not only the old government, the new government including the new prime minister.

STARR: I think (INAUDIBLE) --

BLITZER: The first trip he made was to Tehran. It was not --

STARR: I think that's a safe bet.

BLITZER: All right. Thanks very much, Barbara. Go back to the Pentagon. Arwa Damon, thanks to you. Always good to have you with us. Fareed, stick around. We have more to discuss. Right after the break, we're going to talk about Russia. Is it reverting back to some cold war tactics?

And later, a retired U.S. general's frank assessment of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He explains in a new book entitled "Why We Lost." What are the lessons the U.S. and others should learn right now?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: The Russian prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, says the U.S. must stop resorting to sanctions against Russia and, quote, "return to normal, calm and productive talks." The comment came today after a brief encounter with President Obama at the ASEAN Summit. It comes after new accusations that Russia has violated a cease-fire agreement with neighboring Ukraine. NATO says it has evidence Russia is sending tanks, artillery and troops across the border. Russia today denied any of its troops had crossed into Ukraine.

The rising tensions over Ukraine prompting Russia to return to some of its Cold War tactics in the bad old days of the Cold War, the Soviet Union. For the first time, in fact, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian defense minister announced plans to send long range bombers to patrol, get this, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. These flights would be very close to the territorial waters of the United States.

Let's discuss all of these late-breaking developments, bringing in our chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto and, once again, Fareed Zakaria is still with us as well.

Fareed, how worried should the U.S. be that all of a sudden Russian bombers are going to be not very far from North America?

FAREED ZAKARIA, HOST, CNN'S "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS": I think that doesn't worry me as much. Though, of course, one can't know what to make of it. But the move into Ukraine is very troubling because it does appear -- it appears to be an attempt to perhaps consolidate those pro- Russian Ukrainian towns into a kind of defensible or fortified zone that would allow them to assert their autonomy even more strongly. You know, at some level, Putin has what he wants, which is these towns are now essentially autonomous. The Ukrainian government doesn't have that much control over them. So it does make one wonder what exactly is he looking for now.

BLITZER: What is he looking for? Because you spent a lot of time over there in Ukraine. You were there just a few months ago. You've been checking with your sources in Ukraine, Jim. What's going on over there right now? Because it seems that despite the sanctions, despite the pressure, the drop in the price of oil, Putin is stepping it up. He's doubling down?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: No question. Even the administration admits that while the sanctions have raised the costs for Russia, those costs have not changed Russian behavior on the ground. He's looking to permanently destabilize Ukraine. He's taken back - speaking of Putin -- he's taken back Crimea. That's now effectively part of Russian territory. In eastern Ukraine, he may not have the same intention, but by, as Fareed is saying, having that constant presence there, you, therefore, prevent - well, you make it more uncomfortable for western companies to invest in Ukraine. It's seen - it's a risk that, you know, that's is one of the goals. But you also make it impossible for Ukraine to join international organizations, to talk about association agreements with the EU, et cetera. That's their goal and, frankly, their tactics so far have been working.

BLITZER: All of the indications we're getting, Fareed, is that Putin is still very, very popular inside Russia right now. In fact, if anything, what he's been doing along the border of Ukraine is elevating his stature, is that right?

ZAKARIA: Oh, absolutely. You know, Putin has created a kind of almost a new ideology of power that combines a certain kind of social conservatism. Notice, you know, the anti-gay stuff. There's a certain amount of hyper nationalism. The Crimea and the stuff with eastern Ukraine. And a blatant anti-Americanism and anti-westernism, which has always been a strain in Russia. So he is using this very effectively.

His approval ratings, remember, were down in the 60 percent. I know that doesn't sound low, but a few years ago, after elections, he was not doing so well. Then now, up into the 80 percent range as far as we can tell. And the important thing to remember, what Jim was getting at, I think, is that there's a fundamental asymmetry here, which is, it doesn't cost Putin a lot to destabilize Ukraine, but it costs the west an awful lot to stabilize it so that he can spend a few probably million or tens of millions of dollars and foment this kind of instability whereas for the west to stabilize Ukraine, the bill is probably $15 billion this year.

BLITZER: That's a lot of money and there's no doubt that potentially it could escalate. Do you sense you -- speaking to U.S. officials, Jim, here in Washington, they have a new strategy, they have a new plan, because so far it doesn't seem to be working. Crimea now formally part of Russia, from the Russian perspective, and it looks like that other area could go pretty quickly as well.

SCIUTTO: No question. If they have a new plan, they haven't articulated it. And it's interesting, the cease-fire agreement that was agreed to two months ago in September, that is clearly broken now, was the plan. And there was a lot of diplomatic effort and capital invested in that. But it's interesting, I spoke to a Ukrainian foreign ministry official yesterday and I asked him, I said, have you seen fighting there, has the fighting started again in these areas of eastern Ukraine? He said, the fighting never stopped. You know, that's two months into a cease-fire that it was - you know, that was lauded at the time as at least a step in the positive direction, this off ramp that U.S. officials have been talking about for Russia for some time.

So, clearly, the policy is not working. The question, as Fareed says, the costs are so high for the U.S. to do what's necessary to change the situation, they don't seem to be costs that the U.S. is willing to bear both economically but certainly in terms of military intervention.

BLITZER: All right, Jim Sciutto, thanks very much. Fareed, of course, thanks to you as well. Don't forget, "Fareed Zakaria GPS" airs here on CNN Sunday morning 10:00 a.m. Eastern. Fareed, we watch it every Sunday. Thanks very much to you as well.

Meanwhile, a retired U.S. general explains why he thinks the United States and its partners lost the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm going to ask him what he learned from those wars, and he fought in both of those places, and what might the lessons be for the current war against ISIS. The general joins us when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: It's a frank and very startling admission from a top member of the top U.S. military brass. And I'll quote that admission right now. "I am a United States Army general and I lost the global war on terrorism." Those are the opening words of the new book, "Why We Lost: A General's Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars." The author, retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Daniel Bolger, who's joining us from New York right now.

General, thanks very much for joining us.

You say the U.S. lost the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. What happened?

LT. GEN. DANIEL BOLGER, U.S. ARMY (RET.): Wolf, in the simplest sense, your file footage that we've been looking at here just before this tells the story. Americans went in and tried to do a counterinsurgency, tried to defeat insurgents in two countries and that's really the task of the local people. Just what we've been talking about today as we look at ISIS. In ISIS, the Iraqis have to take the lead to defeat that. Americans can't do that for them. And in a way we were kind of - Wolf, we were victims of our own success. The dramatic opening rounds in 2001 and Afghanistan 2003 in Iraq and then we backed into these count insurgencies out in the villages with Americans trying to go house to house to pick out who's the terrorist and who's the farmer.

BLITZER: So let me ask you the blunt question, the thousands, at least 4,000 in Iraq, another thousand or almost 2,000 in Afghanistan, U.S. troops who were killed in those two wars, the tens of thousands who came home without limbs or badly suffering, continuing to suffer, was all of that in vain?

BOLGER: Wolf, it was not in vain and we should never miss an opportunity to salute the brave and resourceful and smart, tough young men and women who sacrificed there, as well as their families, and who even to this day are carrying out operations there and around the world. What we have to do, though, is the best way to honor their memory is to get a full accounting of what happened there, why it happened, and what we can do to fix it as we look ahead towards many of the dangerous things we've been talking about today.

BLITZER: So many have suggested that this current U.S. effort to try to destroy ISIS in Iraq and Syria, with now 3,000 U.S. troops committed, that this is a mission impossible, if you will, given what's going on on the ground right now. And others, like Andrew Sullivan (ph), they've pointed out that the U.S. had 100,000 troops, 150,000 troops, and couldn't get the job done. Why should anyone believe, with 3,000 troops, the U.S. now will be able to get the job done?

BOLGER: It's kind of counterintuitive, Wolf, but it sort of gets to what I mentioned at the outset. The Iraqis have to get the job done. And we've sent in just enough help for them so that they still have to take the lead. You know, we had over 100,000 there and we had over 100,000 in Afghanistan. It was very easy for the local forces to say, hey, why don't you Americans take the lead? You're the best military in the world. You do the job. We'll help you. They've got to take control of their own country and they've - they're the ones who have got to defeat ISIS. We will help.

And to the credit of President Obama and the administration, they're making that shift now. And it's painful and it's hard and it doesn't give immediate gratification, but the president warned everybody, this war would not be over quickly. It wouldn't be over by Christmas. It wouldn't be over next summer. This is going to be an effort of years that will probably outlast his administration.

BLITZER: You served in Iraq. You know what's going on over there. The tensions, if you want -- the hatred, if you will, between Iraqi Sunnis and Iraqi Shias, and then you add in the Kurds, that's been going on for hundreds of years. What makes anyone really believe that the current situation is going to be any better?

BOLGER: You know, Wolf, I don't think the current situation will really be better, but we need to keep our focus on where the threat lies. And the threat is ISIS. What we want to ensure is that ISIS is sufficiently engaged over there, that we keep their head downs, we kill as many of them as we can, we keep them busy over there so they don't have time to form sanctuary, build camps and launch something on the scale of a 9/11 attack over here. That's what our focus is. And certainly the Iraqi government wants to defeat ISIS as well. So we've got a partner over there. They're not all that capable yet, but I think we're working towards something that over time they're going to develop some more capability.

BLITZER: As soon as the ISIS guys started coming in from Syria into Iraq, that Iraqi military that you, when I say you, I mean top U.S. military commanders, the United States, trained, armed, protected, financed, they did all of that over more than a decade, you know what happened in the second largest city in Iraq, Mosul, a city of more than 2 million people, the Iraqi army simply collapsed, ran away, left all of that U.S. military hardware to be picked up by ISIS. Why should anyone have confidence in the Iraqi military?

BOLGER: Well, I have confidence if we take the time do the long-term effort to build them. You know, what you got now is you've got an Iraqi military that was trained to work alongside American forces. When the bulk of our combat forces began to draw down and not - and fully pulled out in 2011, that military really was an infant in terms of its capabilities and it still had too many of the tendencies of the old Iraqi military that we've beaten very soundly in '91 and in 2003. Building a military takes time. It takes decades. The South Korean military that fled and ran in the early months of the Korean War in 1950 is a pretty good military today but it's the result of decades of work with the Americans and their own work to train the leaders, train the sergeants, train the officers who can lead that army. That's why the president's saying this training effort is going to take time. It's not going to be an overnight solution.

BLITZER: Yes, I'm less optimistic about that Iraqi military because the U.S. did leave behind, as you well know and you served there, an Iraqi military of several hundred thousand troops, military personnel, security personnel, and the U.S. left behind a lot of sophisticated tanks, armored personnel carriers, mortars and it simply evaporated. Simply ran -- they ran away, not in the face of a formal army, but in the face of ISIS, which is not necessarily a formal army, although they have some of Saddam Hussein's commanders who are part of that ISIS, they simply ran away after all of that blood, sweat and tears that the United States provided them.