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U.S. Officials Update War Against ISIS; Aaron Hernandez Jurors Speak Out. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired April 16, 2015 - 15:00   ET

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


[15:00:07]

ASHTON CARTER, U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY: That's the principle that we certainly adhere to. And that's the principle that the prime minister has.

Therefore, to get to your point about Shiite militias, there are Shiite militias that have that characteristic, and there are those that don't. And the prime minister made it quite clear that the latter, that is, ones that were not under his command and control, were not welcome there, would not participate in their operations, and would not be supported.

And they certainly won't be supported by us. We support forces that are under the command and control of the Iraqi government, irrespective of their sectarian makeup, which is the whole point. The way things got the way they did in Iraq is the collapse of a multisectarian approach.

And what Prime Minister Abadi is trying to do in his own government is to create a fight against ISIL that consists of Shia forces, Sunni forces, and Kurdish forces in sectarian makeup, but all under the control of the government in Iraq. And it is that -- is it those forces and only those forces that we will provide support to.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, do you think it's time for Saudi Arabia to consider winding down its airstrikes? Could further airstrikes risk destabilizing or prompting a wider role?

And, General Dempsey, the Russian -- your Russian counterpart today talked about targeting NATO missile defense systems. The Russian defense minister talked about U.S. exercises on tactical nuclear weapons. How worried are you about stepped-up rhetoric by Russia, and how worried are you about aggressive acts like the air intercept last week?

CARTER: Well, to get to your first point, we're assisting the Saudis to protect their own territory and to conduct operations that are designed to lead ultimately to a political settlement to Yemen, and that is our understanding and our objective.

And that's why we're working so closely with the Saudis, as the chairman indicated. General Austin's been in Riyadh earlier today. We're coordinating very closely with them, both on the military objectives and on the political objective. GEN. MARTIN DEMPSEY, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF CHAIRMAN: So, Julian (ph),

on the issue of Russian rhetoric about the missile defense system, this goes back a very long time.

And we have channels that remain active in getting together with the Russians and laying out the intentions, the capabilities of the air defense system as a way of trying to assure them that's not being built against them. And we have done this for several years. Most of the time, we agree to disagree, but the rhetoric is unsurprising, I suppose, I would say.

And those channels remain open, as they do for dealing with things like unprofessional or reckless intercepts. And this intercept was, in fact, both unprofessional and reckless and foolish, actually, in the sense that it's -- it was conducted for no apparent reason.

And so what we're doing is contacting the Russians through appropriate channels to ask them to investigate the incident and determine whether it was purposeful or if it was an isolated incident by a hot-blooded pilot. But it is -- it's serious.

QUESTION: So, you don't have an answer yet (OFF-MIKE)

DEMPSEY: I don't, no.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jim?

QUESTION: For Chairman Dempsey, you mentioned a moment ago that, with the coalition concentration into the military offensive in the north, it almost sounds as if there may be insufficient forces or resources to keep Ramadi from falling.

How critical would it be if it fell into the hands of ISIS to the overall war effort? And in terms of Baiji, it appears anywhere that ISIS controls the city of Baiji and much of the surrounding territory surrounding that critical infrastructure of that refinery. And they have made advances on that.

Are the Iraqi and U.S. forces, coalition forces going to be able to hang on to the refinery? Or what would that mean if ISIS were able to secure that refinery?

[15:05:04]

DEMPSEY: So, I will answer the question about Ramadi first.

I think that Ramadi is not -- first of all, it's already a humanitarian problem because of the Iraqi citizens who are now refugees, many of whom have flowed into Baghdad. And so we're working with the Iraqi government to ensure we deal with that.

The city itself is -- it's not symbolic in any way. It's not been declared, you know, part of the caliphate on one hand or central to the future of Iraq, but we want to get it back. The issue here is not brick and mortar. It's about defeating ISIL. So, as I said, this -- you know, I would much rather that Ramadi not

fall, but it won't be the end of a campaign should it fall. We got to get it back. And that's tragic for the people, as we have seen along the way.

Baiji is a little different, of course. Baiji is part of the Iraqi oil infrastructure. Once the Iraqis have full control of Baiji, they will control all of their oil infrastructure, both north and south, and deny ISIL the ability to generate revenue through oil. So Baiji is a more strategic target. And that's why the focus right now is in fact on Baiji.

QUESTION: And how serious is the ISIL threat to the refinery right now?

DEMPSEY: Well, it's serious in the sense that they have penetrated the outer perimeter. You have been there, I think. It's an extraordinarily large, expansive facility. The refinery itself is at no risk right now. But -- and we're focusing a lot of S.R. and air support there.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: A follow-up question on Iraq.

I wanted to ask you about the proximity of U.S. military personnel to the fighting, if that's changed at all in recent days or weeks. Were there any U.S.-military controlled areas or JTACs? Are people calling in strikes in Tikrit? And has the U.S. offered to do that in Ramadi?

CARTER: First of all, with respect to Tikrit -- and this is actually true -- the more general answer to your question -- our troops that are there are in a -- the locations that we have previously identified, where they're there for train, advise, and assist.

There are not JTACs embedded with Iraqi security forces, and there were not in Tikrit. We're still able to be effective in providing air support to Iraqi forces because we do have Americans in their command centers and practiced the methods by which we would ensure that the targets that were given to us were valid targets, did everything that we usually do to ensure that there is no collateral damage or that collateral damage is minimized.

So we're going through all the steps we normally do to ensure that airstrikes can be both effective and precise. But we're not using our own forward air -- forward controllers to do that in Tikrit or anywhere else in Iraq. That hasn't changed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Last question. (INAUDIBLE)

QUESTION: My question is for you, General Dempsey.

Prime Minister Abadi came out today at CSIS and said that Tikrit was a model. Is that your assessment, given that there have been reports of looting and executions happening in Tikrit? And I was wondering if you could speak, both of you, a little more broadly about, what is the strategic threat that is posed in Yemen, such that it demands the U.S. provides intelligence to Saudi Arabia? What is the U.S. strategic interest in that fight in Yemen?

DEMPSEY: Let me -- I will start with the question about whether Tikrit is a -- was a model.

It's a model of how to integrate the efforts of the counterterror system, CTS, Iraqi security force CTS, a conventional brigade, and the -- that part of the popular mobilization force is there under direct control of the Iraqi government. It is a model in that sense, because it's the first time those three groups ever worked together under the central control of the Ministry of Defense.

And we were able to support that and provide the necessary fires to let that campaign reach a successful conclusion. We have watched and are continuing to watch the reports of whether there were looting or burning and/or atrocities conducts afterwards.

Although we have seen some images, the -- and the investigation is ongoing collaboratively with the Iraqi government, there's no evidence of widespread activity. There was likely to be some isolated instances.

[15:10:01]

We have actually got a long history of being able to deal with this. The Leahy amendment tells us that we can support those forces that behave in a way consistent with our values, and when a particular unit does not, we isolate it and we no longer support it.

So, if this investigation reveals that a particular part of either the Iraqi security forces or the popular mobilization force did not behave appropriately, we won't support it going forward.

QUESTION: I'm sorry, who's conducting (OFF-MIKE) investigations?

DEMPSEY: Well, the Iraqi government -- president -- Prime Minister Abadi himself declared that he was taking responsibility for that investigation.

QUESTION: And when you say isolated incidents, can you give us a sense of how many, how many were involved, and the specific...

DEMPSEY: I can't from memory. There was a certain village south of Tikrit where there was evidence of buildings that had been scorched on the outside, the masonry.

In some cases that was probably a result of the fighting. And in others, it probably was, in fact, the result of misbehavior. But they're trying to sort that out, not so much in Tikrit, by the way.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: And, I'm sorry, Saudi Arabia? (OFF-MIKE) Can you explain -- I'm curious if you could elaborate on the U.S. strategic interests in providing intelligence to Saudi Arabia against the Houthis. (CROSSTALK)

CARTER: I can do that. Two things there.

First of all, Saudi Arabia is a longstanding friend and ally of ours, and we have undertaken to help them protect themselves and their own border and so forth, and that's a longstanding -- in accordance with a longstanding obligation and friendship that we have with them.

With respect to events in Yemen, we are supporting their operations in Yemen in the way I described earlier. The objective there is to restore a political process there in which a legitimate government can be established in Yemen and things can settle down there.

That's good for the people of Yemen, first and foremost. It's good for Saudi Arabia that doesn't need this on its southern border. And as the earlier questions indicated, it's good for us, among other reasons, because of AQAP's presence in Yemen.

But for that to occur, it will require more than military action. It will require a political settlement, and that in turn is going to require the Houthis to want to pursue a political settlement as well.

QUESTION: Given that, then, does the U.S. agree with the decision by Saudi Arabia to conduct airstrikes in the first place?

CARTER: We supported that. We're not only supporting that verbally. We're supporting that with assistance, and, again, en route to a political settlement. That's where things need to go.

And, by the way, I had the opportunity to speak with Ban Ki-Moon, the secretary-general of the United Nations, about precisely that today. So, that's where we would like to see this thing headed, for everybody's sake.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That concludes our press conference. Thank you very much. We look forward to doing the next one.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, there you go. It's a wrap, the very first press conference for Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, seated alongside the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey.

I have Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt with me to discuss. I have got Kim Dozier, CNN global affairs analyst. And, hopefully, momentarily, we will able to see Arwa Damon, our CNN senior international correspondent, in Baghdad, to speak a little bit to the news about Ramadi.

But, Kim Dozier, let me just go to you first. Really, it seemed to me the headline is the discussion surrounding obviously ISIS and Iraq. They met with both the defense minister and the prime minister of Iraq just yesterday. We heard a little bit of what those meetings entailed.

But, to you, what about Yemen? A lot of questions about Saudi Arabia air campaign, the U.S. friendship with Saudi Arabia, the threat of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. That was what our Jim Sciutto was asking about. What was the headline through all that for you?

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, what I found interesting was when they talked about striking al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula targets.

And Ash Carter went on at some length about how, yes, it is preferable to have a stable government on the ground to work with to fight against terrorists, but if you don't have that...

BALDWIN: Which doesn't exist right now.

DOZIER: He said, we have other means and, essentially, we are using them. Only this past week, al Qaeda announced that one of its senior leaders had been hit by a U.S. drone strike, showing that although there aren't U.S. fusion centers or special operations forces on the ground, they have obviously maintained some sort of intelligence network, probably mostly by sucking up signals intelligence, cell phones, radio transmissions, but you have got to have some human intelligence as well to guide a drone strike to a target.

[15:15:07]

So that was the big headline for me, other than also sort of a backing away from talking about how long this conflict might go on, on the ground and very careful treatment of allies, Saudi Arabia. They don't want to get caught in a public dispute saying they disagree in way with the strikes Saudi Arabia is carrying out.

BALDWIN: General Kimmitt, to you. Let's talk about Iraq, because we have talked quite a bit about, you know, Iraqi military retaking Tikrit, which is Saddam Hussein's hometown and that's also on the road to Mosul and perhaps the retaking of Mosul in some months. But, really, the focus has been on Ramadi.

I thought it was interesting, specifically listening to General Dempsey, and he was sort of saying Ramadi doesn't have real significance. He was pointing towards this town of Baiji and talking about the oil refineries there and how that would be really significant if ISIS grabs that city.

BRIG. GEN. MARK KIMMITT (RET.), FORMER U.S. CENTRAL COMMAND DEPUTY DIRECTOR FOR PLANS AND STRATEGY: I think he's right.

Ramadi has somewhat of an iconic value because of the number of battles that we fought in Ramadi and Fallujah over the years. But it is not a strategic location. As General Dempsey said, it's bricks and mortars.

KIMMITT: Baiji, by...

BALDWIN: What does he mean by that, by the way?

KIMMITT: What he means is that it's a city. It's just buildings. Now, as he noted, it has a lot of people that live there, but it's not a strategic location.

Winning Ramadi is not going to change the tide of battle. It's unfortunate what's happening be the civilians, and it gets them a little closer to Baghdad, but it really doesn't change the nature of the battle. Strategically, though, Baiji, with its oil refinery, which is responsible for a significant output of the Iraqi oil, that's a strategic target that if taken by ISIL, and there's little chance it would happen, but that would cut oil production significantly in a country that's already suffering from low oil prices.

So the amount of oil that they're pumping and the price they get for that is reduced even more and it will have an impact on the military and on the civilian inside of Iraq.

BALDWIN: I want to continue the conversation. I see Arwa Damon now. She's popped up live in Baghdad.

But, Jim Sciutto, I have to go to you because you were in the briefing. You asked those two questions specifically about the threat of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula of the secretary of defense and also asking about Russia. But on the note of AQAP and the threat to U.S. homeland, what did you make of his response?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: I have to tell you, Brooke, this was a pretty stark, sobering press conference on a number of challenges, including Yemen, AQAP in Yemen, but on Iraq, on Russia, all these things on the agenda of the Obama administration and the Defense Department today.

But let's talk about Yemen. You cannot deny the loss of U.S. presence there. There were special forces on the ground. They're no longer there. You had an embassy there, which of course has a diplomatic function, but it's also an intelligence gathering function. That is now closed down. Many of those intelligence gathering assets are gone.

There are still some there. They carried out an airstrike earlier this week, a drone strike, rather. So they still have some capabilities. As you heard from the new defense secretary, saying, yes, we have other means, but granting this is far from ideal and that invariably leads to a greater counterterror threat from this area.

That's something I have been hearing from counterterror officials as well. That's a real concern, because AQAP is not some distant problem. This is a terror group that's trying to get bombs on airplanes, targeting Americans, including airplanes coming to the U.S. And when you lose that pressure, that has a measurable effect. I think that's sobering. The other thing I would note, Brooke, is just looking at Iraq, you have General Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in effect saying that Ramadi may indeed fall.

He said that we'd like to win it back. It is not strategically important, but I have to say what that reminds me of, you remember the town of Kobani on Turkish border in Syria, which at the time early on when ISIS was gaining ground there, you would hear from administration officials and defense officials, that's not strategically important. BALDWIN: Of course.

SCIUTTO: Then it became the focus of the air campaign because it was decided that ISIS thought it was important. Clearly, ISIS thinks Ramadi is important. They have been assaulting the city for months. It looks like they're going to get the best of Iraqi security forces. Even if it's not strategically important, it doesn't have a big oil refinery like Baiji, it's 70 miles from Baghdad. It's the largest city in Western Iraq.

It's hard to say that losing it means nothing. And it also shows beyond losing the ground there, it shows the capability of ISIS to gain territory still and it shows the lack of capability of Iraqi security forces to hold off ISIS when they put a sustained assault. It's hard to say that's just something we don't have to worry about when you look at the number of resources that ISIS has been throwing that way.

BALDWIN: I'm so glad you brought up Kobani because we covered that for weeks and weeks and weeks. You're absolutely correct.

[15:20:02]

And this notion, Arwa Damon, that Ramadi would mean nothing, that it was merely brick and mortar, as we heard from General Dempsey, you have talked to family members who have been forced to flee Ramadi. You have gotten as close as you possibly can. I imagine they would tell a different story.

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: They would, Brooke. Just like the population in Kobani was absolutely shocked to hear the U.S. at the time say that it was not their strategy, their aim to save the population of Kobani.

The people of Ramadi and in fact of this entire country would be quite dismayed to hear a city of some 300,000-plus people be described as brick and mortar. But if we were to put that aside for a moment and speak about Ramadi in strategic terms, it's located on the highway that ties Baghdad to Jordan. This is a very vital highway when it comes to importing and exporting produce and goods between the two countries.

The lack of Iraqi government control around Ramadi has created a lot of other difficulties and challenges when it comes to moving towards other areas of Al Anbar province that are under ISIS control. The entire terrain around Ramadi is a patchwork of different front lines and battle zones. Historically speaking, Ramadi was the old capital of what was then al Qaeda's empire, the predecessor to the Islamic State.

So to go back to Jim's point, it may not seem to be strategic, but it is significant. And it is important. And losing Ramadi is going to be, if it does happen, a big blow to the Iraqi government and to the Iraqi security forces, because it is the capital of the country's Sunni heartland, Al Anbar province. And if Iraqi government and the U.S.-led coalition are not going to be putting in the effort to try to help save Ramadi, what kind of a message is that going to send at this critical point to the country's Sunni population, whose support the Shia-led government in Baghdad has to has if it's going to be defeat ISIS?

BALDWIN: Arwa Damon...

(CROSSTALK)

BALDWIN: Quickly, Jim, go ahead.

SCIUTTO: Just -- because it also gets to a point the defense secretary made. The Iraqi government has to be more inclusive. The military effort has to be more inclusive. That's about getting the Sunnis involved.

You lose the Sunni capital in Western Iraq, that's a loss.

BALDWIN: Jim Sciutto, Kim Dozier, General Mark Kimmitt, and Arwa Damon, thank you to all four of you, very much.

Still ahead here on CNN, just 24 hours after handing down that guilty verdict, today, the jurors in the Iran Hernandez murder trial are speaking exclusively to Anderson Cooper. They're elaborating as far as how they reached that decision. Anderson joins me next for a preview. Wait until you hear what these jurors told him. Back in 90 seconds.

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BALDWIN: You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin.

Just one day after convicting former New England Patriots star Aaron Hernandez on first-degree murder, the entire jury is speaking out exclusively to my colleague here at CNN, Anderson Cooper.

You know the story. They deliberated for more than 35 hours over the course of seven days before deciding Aaron Hernandez was guilty of killing his friend Odin Lloyd nearly two years ago.

Anderson is back, who was speaking with those jurors.

And what did they tell you?

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: They were very conscientious. They took this very seriously. They deliberated for a long time, as you know. A lot of people thought maybe it would be a hung jury.

But they said, look, there was a lot of evidence to go through, a lot of witnesses, witness testimony to go through, that a lot of them had copious notes, books full of notes they'd been keeping over the last several weeks.

[15:25:01] COOPER: And so they clearly are very united in their opinion that

they made the right decision. In particular, in order to get a first- degree murder, they either had to believe that this was a premeditated act by Aaron Hernandez or that there was extreme cruelty.

And they all agreed there was extreme cruelty. I asked them how they came to that decision. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: So it wasn't premeditation.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.

COOPER: You don't -- you can't say...

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I can't say with 100 percent certainty that he premeditated that while I was sitting in that jury room. I can't say that.

COOPER: But you do see extreme atrocity or cruelty?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I see extreme atrocity and cruelty.

COOPER: In -- was it the number of shots?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was his indifference, and that was part of what I had to look at. And it was -- even if there was no premeditation, he could have made choices there, when he was there. He was there. They admitted that. And he could have made different choices, and he chose not to.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think one thing in that regard that surprised a lot of us was that indifference. We watched the video footage at his home later in the morning or early afternoon, after the incident occurred. And he was just lounging around by the pool and playing with the baby and going about his regular life.

You know, for us to have knowledge that he was there at the time that his close friend was murdered, personally, there's no way I could just carry on hours later like nothing ever happened. That's indifference.

COOPER: So those videotapes, in particular his own security camera tapes, were crucial?

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hours later.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, definitely.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But in the instructions, we weren't asked to use that after the murder to weigh our decision. To leave your friend on the ground, knowing that he's not there anymore, he's either dead or he's going to die, that's indifference. He didn't need to pull the trigger. He could have made different choices when that man was lying there.

COOPER: Were there other signs to you of extreme cruelty?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For me, it was -- somebody had mentioned that, well, it was a gun. So, for me, trying to think about extreme cruelty, what are we talking about? Are we talking about somebody physically cutting off someone's arm and letting them bleed to death? Is that extreme cruelty?

Or is it the fact that -- for me, it was a gun. You took a weapon. It didn't matter. You shot him once, but you kept going and you shot him six times. There's just no need for that. And there's no need to use the gun, period, no need to use the gun. So for me, my -- personally, it was about the gun. It was about taking that weapon, knowing what you're going to do and shooting somebody and killing them. That's pretty cruel.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One shot was enough for me. There was no need for the other five. One shot for me is cruelty. Anybody who can pick up a gun, point it to someone, and shoot them is cruelty.

And it didn't have to be him.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: Do you feel like he did pull the trigger or do you don't...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know. There's no evidence to support that he pulled the trigger. But he chose not to do anything about it.

COOPER: In that moment or in the aftermath?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Exactly. In that moment is what I was looking at because that's what I was instructed to do, in that moment.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He played a role. Whether he was the shooter or the transport, he played a role in that murder. And then that's what he was charged with.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: And they believe that clearly not only did he play a role, but he was really the ringleader in that group that night.

BALDWIN: Yes. Interesting hearing the word indifference used multiple times and the notion of one shot is cruelty enough. We will definitely be watching for your entire interview with all these jurors this evening. Anderson, thank you so much.

Of course, "ANDERSON COOPER 360," 8:00 Eastern here on CNN, do not miss that. Coming up next, the training for a reserve deputy being called into

question days after he killed a man when he grabbed his gun, instead of his Taser. Now a newspaper report says his training records were falsified.

Plus, stunning video shows a police car hitting a man who had been firing this rifle in the air. The gunman survived. And now a previous lawsuit this officer faces coming up again, that's next.

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