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Request for Authorization of Force; White House Briefing; No Conclusion on Cause of Hostage Death; U.S. Hostage Death Confirmed In ISIS Message; Hostage Kayla Mueller's Family Heartbroken; Syria's President Speaks

Aired February 10, 2015 - 13:00   ET

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


JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: And they're certainly welcome to make that case. That is not a view that the president believes is in the best interest of the United States.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And can I ask you about an interview that Syrian president, Bashar Al Assad, did with the BBC and perhaps you've seen this and taken note of this. But during that interview, Assad says that communications have been occurring between the United States and Syria through third parties, such as Iraq, when it comes to the telegraphing or communicating about air strikes that might be taking place in Syria, so as to avoid any potential confrontations between the U.S. and Syria. Is that going on?

EARNEST: Jim, I can tell you that -- and we have said this from the very first day that air strikes commenced against ISIL targets in Syria, that the United States is not coordinating our actions with the Syrian government and we're not going to. The simple fact of the matter is prior to initiating strikes in Syria, we did inform the Syrian regime through the ambassador to the United Nations and to the -- through our ambassador to the United Nations to the permanent representative of the Syrian people to the United Nations. So, we made clear that we were planning to --

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Wolf Blitzer reporting from Washington. We're going to continue to monitor this briefing over at the White House. Josh Earnest, the White House Press Secretary, speaking on several related issues.

It's just after 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.

Let's get to the breaking news right now. The death of a 26-year-old American aid worker held hostage by ISIS. Kayla Mueller's family members say they have now received confirmation that she's dead and they are heartbroken. In a statement they said, "Kayla was a compassionate and devoted humanitarian. She dedicated the whole of her young life to helping those in need of freedom, justice and peace." That's a quote from the family. We don't yet know the details of Mueller's death but just moments ago, the White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, you saw it live right here on CNN, he says ISIS is to blame.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EARNEST: -- that ISIL, regardless of her cause of death, is responsible for it. This, after all, is the organization that was holding her against her will. That means they are responsible for her safety and her well-being. And they are, therefore, responsible for her death.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Our Correspondent Ana Cabrera is joining us from Mueller's hometown of Prescott, Arizona. Our Justice Correspondent Pamela Brown is with me here in Washington. Obviously, a very tragic, sad outcome for the family and the community there in Arizona. Ana, so give us the latest. What are you hearing there? The reaction must be so sad.

ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're in Prescott, Arizona, Wolf, a town of about 40,000 people so a pretty tight-knit community. And this is a community in mourning today. Everybody here had held out hope until the very end that Kayla Mueller would be alive and that she would be returned safely to her friends and family here.

But this news, just devastating. As you mentioned, her family calling themselves heartbroken over the confirmation that she did not survive her captivity behind bars with ISIS.

Now, what we do know is that they are determined to keep her legacy alive. They do not want her to be defined by how she died but rather how she lived. And this was an amazing young woman. We know that she had a generous spirit. She was always courageous. Her family called her a real servant of the people who are most vulnerable. We know that she spent a lot of time working for a number of different organizations as a volunteer, as an activist for human rights, for humanitarian organizations and traveled the world to do this work, to help those and touch those who are suffering, to bring them a better life, to promote peace through justice. And, in fact, always, always until the very end, putting others before herself.

We received and her family shared in a letter that she wrote during her time in captivity, the first time now we're hearing from Kayla Mueller herself while she was being held hostage by ISIS. And this is a letter that she wrote to her family. We believe it was delivered by other hostages who were freed. It's dated November of 2014.

And I want to read you this quote which I think really speaks to the character and strength of Kayla Mueller. It says, quote, "If you could say I have suffered at all through this whole experience, it is only in knowing how much suffering I have put you all through. I will never ask you to forgive me as I do not deserve forgiveness. I remember mom always telling me that, all in all in the end, the only one you really had is god. I have come to a place in experience where in every sense of the word, I have surrendered myself to our creator because, literally, there was no one else. And by god and by your prayers, I have felt tenderly cradled in a free fall.

And Mueller goes on to talk more about the strength and the comfort she's finding in her faith. She implores her family to find the same and to reach out to others that may be able to help in this whole situation and truly just showing just what a remarkable young woman she was -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Truly an amazing letter that was smuggled out of that prison, that hostage cell where she was being held. Ana, stand by.

Pamela Brown is with me as well. So, the mystery, right now, is when she was actually killed. ISIS claimed, the other day, that it was a Jordanian air strike, although they showed no evidence to prove it. How she died. We don't -- we still don't have those answers, do we?

PAMELA BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We still don't have the answers. And the information that the U.S. government and family relied on to draw this conclusion were these pictures that ISIS apparently sent to the family over the weekend. And the FBI, forensic examiners authenticated that picture, those pictures, I should say, over the weekend. And then that, Wolf, coupled with the notion that it's unlikely she would turn up alive after ISIS said she had died led the family and the government to this conclusion.

Bottom line, we don't know how she died. We don't know when she died. But she died while held in captivity with ISIS and that's what should be remembered. ISIS is responsible.

Josh Earnest addressed this also during the press conference. He said that as far as the Jordanian air strike -- because, of course, ISIS claiming that she died in the strike, he said there is no information, prior to the air strike, that there were civilians where the target area was. So, giving the indication that, you know, at -- fueling that skepticism that she didn't die in the Jordanian air strike. But, again, they just don't know for certain.

BLITZER: All right. Pamela Brown, thank you. Ana Cabrera, we'll get back to you.

Let's take a step back right now and get more on what went on behind the scenes before today. Our Kyung Lah takes a closer look at how the family kept the kidnapping of their daughter quiet for more than a year while still trying to get her back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEN BENNETT, FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE, ARIZONA: He told me that the capture of Kayla had happened just three or four days earlier.

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The man he's talking about, Kayla Mueller's father. It had been three to four days since ISIS captured Kayla on August 4, 2013. The threat from ISIS, talk about or release her name and they would execute her. Her father, in a fog of fear and pain, happened to hear then Arizona secretary of state, Ken Bennett, on the radio.

BENNETT: He was totally desperate and didn't know what to do and turned to me just because I happened to be a few blocks away on the radio as he was driving home. LAH: Bennett, as Arizona's secretary of state, carries no

international diplomatic pull. But he does have friends in power. Bennett immediately connected Mueller's father with Senator John McCain and Representative Paul Gosar on their personal cells and the diplomatic race was on to save Kayla Mueller. The Muellers suffered an excruciating silence, speaking to virtually no one about Kayla. Todd Geiler is a longtime family friend.

TODD GEILAR: It's not hard to keep a secret like this when demands of this caliber are being made. When you look across your breakfast table and there's an empty chair sitting there.

LAH: For nine months, deafening silence. Then last May, ISIS sends proof of life confirmation. Two months later, in early July, a daring rescue attempt by U.S. forces to save journalist James Foley, it fails. But the military finds strands of hair believed to be Mueller's. Just days later, on July 12th, ISIS announces it will kill Kayla in 30 days unless the Muellers pay nearly $7 million in ransom. The 30 days pass and, again, silence. No word until this ISIS claim on Friday, that Kayla Mueller was killed in this building.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: Kyung Lah reporting for us. And as we said, we don't know when or how Kayla Mueller lost her life. Coming up, we'll have more on the breaking news. Stand by for that.

The American hostage, Kayla Mueller's, death is confirmed. CNN has learned ISIS has plans also to kidnap more westerners. How will this affect the overall U.S. strategy?

And later, we'll take you live to Ukraine where shelling continues, escalating, indeed, just hours before important peace talks begin.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: We're back now with the breaking news, the death of a U.S. aid worker, Kayla Mueller, now confirmed by her own family. Let's bring in our panel to discuss what this means in the overall fight against ISIS. Joining us, Bobby Ghosh, he's a CNN Global Affairs Analyst, managing editor of "Quartz." Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, he's a CNN Military Analyst, retired U.S. Army Commanding General. And Bob Baer, our National Security Analyst, a former CIA operative.

Bobby, the horrific killing of the Jordanian pilot, now the confirmation that Kayla Mueller has died. We don't know when she died, how she died. But it's -- how's all this is going to impact this overall new phase? And it seems like a new phase in this coalition war against ISIS.

BOBBY GHOSH, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, it's -- it brings everything into very, very sharp focus, doesn't it? When you have a story, an individual story of tragedy there. ISIS has been killing thousands of people. But a story like this young woman with nothing but good in her -- in her heart and in her mind and a desire to do the right thing for people and suffering, goes over there and meets this tragic end. It's -- it brings -- it brings into, sort of, sharp focus the need to fight against ISIS, the need to defeat this very, very evil force. And certainly here in the U.S., and more generally in the west, that's the kind of story that helps to define ISIS in the minds of people.

BLITZER: So, what's going to be the impact, General Hertling, on the military campaign? It seems to be escalating in Iraq right now. I'm not sure, necessarily, that's also going on in Syria.

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: I think you'll see that, Wolf, because ISIS keeps raising the bar on how dastardly they are. I mean, you're talking about the continued murders of people with varying levels of goodness. It seems from what we've just heard of Ms. Mueller's background, she is the best of the best. And, first of all, it's a problem with sharia law. After last week, killing or emulating the Jordanian pilot, now killing a woman, I think you're probably going to see a little bit more emphasis from some of the Arab countries to continue to join this coalition campaign based on the violation of sharia in this.

BLITZER: We did learn, Bob Baer, the family issued a statement saying they have confirmation that the daughter is dead, the 26-year-old daughter, Kayla Mueller. The White House confirming that she's dead. Apparently, the U.S. intelligence community went through whatever evidence there was. We're not exactly sure how they concluded this. But they don't seem to know for sure when she was killed or how she was killed. I assume they'll figure that out soon enough, right?

HERTLING: They certainly -

BOB BAER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, I don't know, Wolf. I -

BLITZER: Yes, Bob Baer.

HERTLING: I'm sorry.

BAER: Yes, I don't know, Wolf. I - yes, I think that - that it's almost -- I'll go out on a limb here and speculate that they probably killed her. There's no way for this group to have recognized Jordanian F-16s bombing. You just hear them and you hear the bombs hit. And the fact that they claim that no ISIS members were killed is very unlikely and they probably didn't want to go public that they had killed her, but I think they most definitely did.

But without actually having the body, I don't think forensic scientists can tell. You can tell from pictures she's dead. But how, we don't know. U.S. intelligence clearly does not have people inside ISIS, could give us that answer. So I think it may be a while before we finally figure out what happened here.

BLITZER: You know, Bobby Ghosh, the Jordanians clearly have been mobilized. They're moving quickly, not only in the air, but maybe even on the ground. The United Arab Emirates, over the weekend, they deployed a squadron of F-16s to Jordan. Today they started launching air strikes themselves. I assume this coalition - the coalition of moderate Sunni Arabs is going to escalate their operations in the coming days and weeks, right?

BOBBY GHOSH, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, absolutely. I think particularly the horrific murder of that Jordanian pilot will have -- has already demonstrated - already sort of stiffened the spines, if you like, in the Arab world. And Jordan is determined to get revenge.

The trouble is that, you know, they can increase these aerial attacks, bombing from the sky. But as you've said on your program for weeks and weeks now, that's only going to be half or maybe a third of the story. All that does really is rattle the cages. It may have an impact on the morale of ISIS. It may have an impact on their recruitment abilities. But beyond that, it's going to take boots on the ground to fix this problem. And I'm not sure the Jordanian military or the UAE military is willing to go in there to participate in the fight. And even if it were to do so, whether they have the right set of skills.

Most of these Arab militaries, let's remind ourselves, are really built to protect regimes against domestic criticism or domestic rivals. They're very good at stamping down on home-grown dissents, beating up on unarmed protesters. Whether they can take a fight to a very highly motivated group like ISIS, that's something we'll have to see.

BLITZER: General Hertling, who's going to provide those so-called boots on the ground to get the job done? Because by airpower alone, it's not going to get done.

HERTLING: Well, we've said that from the beginning, Wolf, but I think you're going to see an increasing capability obviously within the Iraqi army. We're already starting to see that. They're starting to be paid and better led than they were when they dissolved before. But I also think the important thing -- and Bobby mentioned it to a degree -- based on my experience with the Sunni tribes in various parts of Iraq -- and I think that will carry over also into Syria -- you're going to see this organization implode. It's already starting to do so. They are self-destructing, as all terrorist organizations eventually become. And I think you'll see more and more of this, just like al Qaeda did in Iraq, where they will so infuriate the populace that there will be population centers and tribes and imams who will take up arms against these villains.

BLITZER: But don't forget, general, al Qaeda in Iraq eventually became ISIS and ISIS controls a huge, huge part of Iraq right now, including the second largest city of Mosul, a city of nearly 2 million people. So al Qaeda in Iraq was certainly not destroyed.

HERTLING: But, again, Wolf, I'll go back to the point where the military forces of Iraq dissolved because they weren't being paid, they weren't being well-led and they weren't trusting in their government. As we again build those kind of institutions within all of those ungoverned spaces and we depend on the Iraqi government to do that, I think you'll see again the same kind of awakening you had in 2006 and '07 when the tribal areas rose up. It was then dispersed because they didn't have the support of the government. That's the problem. BLITZER: We'll see if this new government in Baghdad really lives up

to it. There's a lot of skepticism that they will live up to it as well. Let's see if they do.

Guys, I want all of you to stand by.

Coming up, they don't talk to us, we don't talk to them. That's how the Syrian President Bashar al Assad characterizes U.S./Syrian relations. We're going to hear more from Bashar al Assad's brand-new interview. That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Syria's president says his government is receiving messages on coalition efforts to fight ISIS. In an interview with the BBC World's Jeremy Bowen, Bashar al Assad said his regime has been getting information indirectly from third parties, such as the Iraqi government in Baghdad. He added there had been no direct cooperation with the U.S. since U.S.-led coalition air strikes began in Syria in September.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEREMY BOWEN, BBC WORLD: Do you talk to the Americans? There are American planes in the air above Syria the whole time. Do you coordinate?

BASHAR AL ASSAD, SYRIAN PRESIDENT: No, because they don't talk to anyone unless his (ph) puppet and they easily trample over the international law, which is about our sovereignty now. So they don't talk to us. We don't talk to them.

BOWEN: But I'm curious that at a time when there are - there's the American military in the air above Syria and your people are in the air, your air force is also in the - the Syrian air force is in the air above Syria, but there haven't been any incidents between the two. No shots seem to have been traded. No planes have been shot down. That suggests to me surely that someone is talking to someone here.

AL ASSAD: That's -- that's correct. That's correct. But, again, there's no direct cooperation (INAUDIBLE).

BOWEN: Direct. Is it via Iraq? That's what some people have said.

AL ASSAD: That's through third party, more than one party. Iraq and other countries. Sometimes they convey message, general message, but there's nothing tactical.

BOWEN: Well - so they don't tell you, we're going to be bombing at Raqqa at 10:00 this evening, keep out of the way?

AL ASSAD: We knew about the campaign before it started, but we didn't know about the details.

BOWEN: And is that a continuing dialogue that you have through third parties? AL ASSAD: There is no dialogue. There's, let's say, information. But

not dialogue.

BOWEN: They tell you things?

AL ASSAD: Something like this.

BOWEN: Do you tell them things?

AL ASSAD: No.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Our senior international correspondent, Arwa Damon, is joining us now from Istanbul. Arwa, of course, has covered this conflict extensively.

Arwa, it's very intriguing to hear Bashar al Assad because he seems to be suggesting, in the face of that questioning from Jeremy Bowen, that the Iraqis, the Iraqi government in Baghdad, which has, of course, relations with the United States, but also has very good relations with the Iranian government, which is backing Bashar al Assad, together with Hezbollah in Lebanon, that there's sort of an indirect dialogue going on about U.S. and coalition air strikes to make sure that there are no mistakes or miscalculations. That would be my interpretation of what we're hearing, but I'm anxious to get yours.

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, that definitely does seem to be the case, Wolf, not just using Iraq as a third-party country, but other nations as well. There has to be a level of coordination at the end of the day. We're talking about fighter jets and shared airspace. And there have been no significant incidences, no planes being shot down other than the incident, of course, that included the one with the Jordanian pilot. But that was an aircraft that was shot down by ISIS, not by Assad regime's forces.

It seems that on the one hand President Bashar al Assad is complaining about how the sovereignty of Syria is being violated, and yet on the other hand they are allowing this to happen. At this stage, ISIS is an enemy for both the coalition, the Syrian people and Bashar al Assad. So, yes, there has to be a certain level of cooperation. But Assad was also very clear that this does not mean that Syria is going to be joining a coalition. Put quite simply, they will not become partners with anything that is being led by the United States because, as he said, we cannot be in an alliance with countries that support terrorism, Wolf.

We know that the Iranians, of course, have a close relationship, a supportive relationship of Bashar al Assad's regime. They've got their own fighters, they're helping Bashar al Assad. But what kind of relationship has emerged over the past year, shall we say, the new prime minister of Iraq, Haider al-Abadi, with the Bashar al Assad regime, what kind of relationship does Haider al-Abadi have with Bashar al Assad?

DAMON: Well, it's a very interesting dynamic, Wolf, because not only do we have the Iranians backing Bashar al Assad and providing assistance on the ground, whether it's through Hezbollah or some of their other proxies, but also remember, we have the Iranians providing assistance to the Iraqi government and to the Iraqi security forces. No secret has been made of this. Iran does have advisers, boots on the ground in Iraq, on the front lines in Iraq's battle against ISIS, effectively putting them in some sort of indirect alliance with the United States in that battleground as well.

Haider al-Abadi, the new prime minister of Iraq, is in a very tenuous and tricky situation where he does need to continue to maintain those channels of communications with Damascus because Baghdad and Damascus, at the end of the day, are both facing the same challenge of trying to rid their territories of ISIS, but Iraq also has to continue to maintain a relationship with the United States, one that is very vital at this stage because, of course, as we know only too well, we do have U.S. advisers on the ground in Iraq at this stage in an effort to try to call in air strikes and to try to defeat and degrade ISIS in Iraq as well. These two battlegrounds, Syria and Iraq, as much as the U.S. would want to try to differentiate them and provide assistance, direct assistance on the ground in Iraq, these are effectively the same battlefield. Defeating ISIS in one nation does not mean it is going to be defeated in the other and there needs to be a strategy that's going to address the difficulty of defeating ISIS that is going to combine both Iraq and Syria. And that means a potentially uncomfortable situation for the United States where it is indirectly in allegiance with Iran and also with Bashar al Assad.

BLITZER: Yes, it's a very complex situation over there. And I've spoken to some U.S. officials who are concerned that Haider al-Abadi, who, of course, is an Iraqi Shiite, he may be more interested in maintaining a strong relationship with his neighbor Iran than he is with the United States, which he obviously doesn't fully trust in the aftermath of what's been going on in recent months. But we'll see what happens. It's a very delicate, sensitive situation right now. And as you correctly point out, there are U.S. troops, increasing numbers of U.S. troops being deployed to Iraq right now, supposedly as advisers, to see if the Iraqi military can get the job done against ISIS. All right, thanks very much, Arwa, for that. We'll get back to you.

President Obama, meanwhile, looking to get authority for the use of military force against ISIS. But not everyone in Congress is on board. Will he get the support he needs to go after the terror group? We're going live to Capitol Hill for more news.

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