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LEGAL VIEW WITH ASHLEIGH BANFIELD

U.S. Receives Request for Air Power from Iraq's Government; ISIS's Annual Report; GM CEO Testifies

Aired June 18, 2014 - 12:30   ET

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


ASHLEIGH BANFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Because, Colonel, look, we've watched this very fast march towards Baghdad And there are a lot of security analysts who say ISIS doesn't have any interest in controlling Baghdad; they just want to wreak havoc

They just want to pour guerrilla warfare throughout that city and make that place completely miserable because it's Shia dominated, no?

RICK FRANCONA, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: I think they would like to have Baghdad. They probably realize they can't take it, so they'll do what they can. They're capable of inflicting a lot of misery, havoc, as you say, but the chances of them actually taking the city are very, very slim.

As you get closer into the city, you're getting into, as you said earlier, the Shia heartland. The army has a big presence there. They'll be able to defend it. We're looking at a very small number, grossly outnumbered and just outgunned.

BANFIELD: The United States has received a request from the Iraqi government for air power, the chairman of the joint chiefs, Martin Dempsey, has told a Senate appropriations committee. He went on to say that this is in the United States national security interest, to counter ISIS where we find them.

That is a very troubling last statement, where we find them, because targets seem to be the most elusive thing here. It is not conventionally simple like it used to be.

FRANCONA: This is difficult because you're not dealing with an organized military force. These guys are spread out. They moved themselves into hospitals, mosques, schools. They go into targets they think we're not going to hit.

The question is, what do you strike? You have to be very careful because you can cause more civilian casualties than actually killing --

BANFIELD: In Afghanistan, I heard it everywhere, they took their black turbines off, because Taliban wore black turbans, and they replaced them with white turbans. Sounds like the same kind of thing. Quickly.

FRNACONA: I know what they want to do. They want to blunt the offensive. That will be the tactical. The strategic objective, of course, won't be realized by bombing.

BANFIELD: OK, and I want to bring in Ryan Cooper right here, because while we're talking about this potential, this request, Ryan Cooper, you know, from the Iraqis for air power, you've written some pretty profound material on just what this creates as an opportunity, a forceless opportunity, a shot not needed to be fired on the Americans part to actually gain an enormous amount of momentum in this area. I know you've sort of cut it down to three points. Can you summarize them for me?

RYAN COOPER, NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, THEWEEK.COM: Yeah, so basically, I think there are three nonviolent objectives you might go for. The first is to seize this opportunity to patch things up with Iran.

As you can see, there's now substantial strategic interest overlap between Iran and the United States, and so if we can bring them into the international community, that could be a major win.

BANFIELD: And then what about the Kurds up in the north?

COOPER: That's right. The Kurds, the Kurdistan regional government is now the most stable part of Iraq. Actually, it has been for a long time, and refugees fleeing ISIS are pouring in, so they'll need money and supplies to deal with those people.

And then the other thing we might do with respect to the Kurds is, if Iraq collapses, we can broker peace between them and Turkey, because Turkey has Kurdish separatist elements and they might fear an independent Kurdistan, but we can work with our European allies to broker a peace there so that this doesn't become an international -- we can keep it from becoming a regional war --

BANFIELD: Sure.

COOPER: -- work with existing international institutions to stop it from spreading.

BANFIELD: I'm just going to mention the third piece. You suggest streamlining the process for Iraqis applying for refugee status, especially those who helped the United States during their operations.

Stand by for a moment. I want to get to Arwa Damon who is live, again, in Erbil, northern Iraq, with reaction to this request.

Arwa, this just coming in from the chairman of the joint chief, suggesting to Congress that it is in the United States best interests to actually, you know, acquiesce to the request from the Iraqi government for air power, to find those ISIS interests, or at least to counter those ISIS operations where we find them.

Is finding them going to be that easy a task? You're there.

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: No, it's not, Ashleigh. And here's the problem. ISIS is not fighting this on its own. ISIS currently is fighting alongside the Sunni tribes and various other Sunni insurgent groups that were quite active during the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

The tribes and these groups are people that need to be brought into the political fold. They do not share ISIS ideology. They do not want to see an Islamic caliphate established in Iraq, but they are that desperate at this stage, they will tell you, because of Shia Prime Minister Maliki's polarizing politics, that they felt as if they had no choice but to ally themselves with a force that is as evil as ISIS.

But if the U.S. were to try to carry out any sort of air strikes that was perceived to be targeting just the Sunnis without the type of political maneuvering that would be required by the government in Baghdad, that is only going to even further aggravate the situation here and lead to even more violence.

So, if America does, in fact, comply with this request, it's going to be taking a gamble, and it's going to have to do so very carefully, Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: I would say a gamble is a euphemism. Arwa Damon, excellent work. Stay safe where you are, Arwa Damon reporting live from Iraq.

Colonel Rick Francona, thank you. And, Ryan Cooper, thank you as well.

We're not done on this topic yet. After a break, we're going to run some numbers by you on the terror group that's taken Iraq by storm.

You will not believe the kind of material that they've been compiling for years on their financing and their human resources. I kid you not. It's like a financial report, and it's pretty sophisticated. Going to run it down for you after the break.

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BANFIELD: If you want to know more about the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, is, the group's tactics, their strategies, their goals, their leadership, their funding, their H.R., you don't have to join the CIA. You don't have to get into jihad. You can just do this. You can pick up its annual report. I have it. It's actually 450 pages long, and it's all in Arabic, tricky.

The Islamic militant terror group has an annual report, just like a Fortune 500 operation. It's put out several containing in-depth analyses and user-friendly graphics like the one I'm about to show you.

Get ready. Yup, clip art. In 2013, the group claims that it carried out 7,681 military operations. That's the big number at the top. And then they decided to break it down into a "wheel of fortune," so to speak -- 537 parked car bombs, for instance; and 78 suicide car bombs; 4,465 roadside bombs; 1,083 assassinations; and almost that many sniper attacks too.

We did all of the translations. There are 607 purported rocket or mortar attacks, more than 100 raids, and more than 100 prisoners who they say they were able to break out of the jails. And my next guest knows these numbers inside and out. Jessica Lewis is the research director for the Institute for the Study of War in Washington.

Jessica, when I pick this thing up, I -- first, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. And then it started to sink in. It is a very sophisticated piece of work. I don't know that many people connect is, this terror group that's ravaging and executing as it pushes across the desert, with something that is capable of putting out something this sophisticated. What more do we know about their organization and their tactics?

JESSICA LEWIS, INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF WAR: What we've been observing about their attacks in Iraq over the course of the past two years paints a very similar picture.

They're able to design campaigns that suggest that perhaps this enemy, which had been the al Qaeda in Iraq we had known before, is no longer just a terrorist organization, but is actually organizing itself like an army. And like an army, it is measuring its own performance and, in fact, reporting it in at least two subsequent be an wall reports.

BANFIELD: How much do we know that is true to the extent it is possible? Propaganda is a big part of war. How much do we know to be factual? How much do we think is just straight recruiting crap?

LEWIS: Well, sadly, my team took some time to compare what is was claiming about its performance over the last few years to what we have observed.

There is enough of a correlation that I would suggest this is actually much more likely to be what they think they have actually done than a purely propaganda campaign, particularly in light of what we've been seeing happening in the ground in Iraq lately.

It is very clear this organization has presence throughout northern Iraq and, as the report claims, that is has been targeting the northern province of Nineveh as a main effort over the majority of the last two years.

And that is really a picture that has not come out of many other sources because the reporting on Iraq, on Mosul, has been very light. I think that's because is has been targeting journalists over the time period such as these are actually real numbers.

BANFIELD: So one other quick question for you, and that is this. One thing I did not quote in this report was their finances, but it's assumed they now have in their coffers, from the spoils of war and from just the sheer criminality of what they've been up to, somewhere between a half billion and a billion dollars, effectively looted.

Is that where they got this money, and do we really think they have up to a billion dollars, which effectively means they can buy anything they want?

LEWIS: Well, I think this annual report really shows us that their attacks are not limited by constrained financial strains, that from an attack perspective, they have limitless resources, such that these numbers of what they have in terms of dollar amounts are not unreasonable to me.

I think it is also very important to recognize that ISIS has been able to accrue much of that money from Iraq through these criminal activities and other kinds of activities over the course of this time period, such that it is no longer simply a question of their external funding, but also what they're able to do inside of Iraq.

BANFIELD: Jessica Lewis, thank you. Thank you so much.

I'm sort of just dumbstruck by handling this thing and knowing it's this -- I mean, it's big, but it's compendious, and yet so many people seem to be surprised by the capabilities of this organization.

Thank you for that.

By the way, just because it makes for really interesting looking at, it's tricky to read -- like I said, it's in Arabic -- I'm going to tweet this out, so just go to @CNNAshleigh.

@CNNAshleigh is my Twitter handle, and you'll be able to see that shortly. Like I said, I'll just show you, if you're just tuning in, the annual report of ISIS, folks. Look at how thick it is. Four hundred and fifty pages of Arabic reading and lots of scary numbers. How much is true? We'll see.

We have another big developing story as well here at CNN. It's on Capitol Hill. And yet again the chairman of the automaker GM back in that hot seat. That's a tense walk, isn't it? Yes, all eyes on you. Mary Barra taking that seat again to answer more questions about additional recalls, botched recall of millions of cars, a deadly flaw. That story straight ahead and exactly what she has to say this time, next.

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BANFIELD: General Motors chief, Mary Barra, is back on Capitol Hill today testifying about troubling findings in an internal report on GM's botched handling of that ignition switch defect that's linked to at least 13 deaths. GM just announced another global recall of more than 3 million vehicles. And, incredibly, the company sales are up and its stock value has been on an upward trend too. CNN's Poppy Harlow is following today's testimony. She's on Capitol Hill.

So, Ms. Barra has finished testifying. What was said? What did we find out?

POPPY HARLOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, she is just wrapping up at this moment, Ashleigh. Some contentious back and forth between the chief of General Motors and, of course, lawmakers here on The Hill. Less contentious than last time she was up here in April first on The Hill.

Look, she was going through the results of this internal investigation that found years and years of neglect, incompetence to find this safety defect that cost at least 13 lives. The issue here is that the ignition switch can get knocked off in the middle of driving and your air bags won't work and the engine won't shut down, et cetera. I want to play you a little bit of sound from this hearing, the back and forth about responsibility, culture and who is being held accountable at this company.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. TIM MURPHY (R), PENNSYLVANIA: How does someone who has spent an entire career within the culture of GM change the culture of GM?

MARY BARRA, GENERAL MOTORS CEO: Well, the 15 people that are no longer with the company are the people that either didn't take action they should or didn't work urgently enough to rectify this matter. And they are no longer part of this company. That was a strong signal to send within the company.

REP. DIANA DEGETTE (D), COLORADO: Do you think this company culture, the GM nod and the GM salute, was just limited to those 15 people who have been terminated from GM? Yes or no?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can't tell - I can't answer that question.

DEGETTE: Do you think it was only 15 people who did this GM nod and salute?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I think there were a number of people who --

DEGETTE: Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: Ashleigh, this internal investigation found that a number of executives at GM would go into meetings and sort of nod that they would do something to make a change and then nothing would happen. That's what they're talking about. Fifteen people were laid off in recent weeks as a result of this.

You can hear lawmakers saying more change needs to happen. This as families who lost loved ones in crashes they believe were called because of this defective ignition switch were up here on The Hill as well. They were sitting in this hearing behind me. They want accountability. They want answers.

What we still don't know is what GM is going to do for the victim's families. They say they're going to do the right thing. What does that mean in terms of dollars and changes? We still need to find that out.

Ashleigh.

BANFIELD: Right. And, of course, if that magic number of 13 is going to change.

HARLOW: Right.

BANFIELD: Poppy Harlow, always good work. Thank you for that. Poppy's live on Capitol Hill watch things for us.

And we are right back after this quick break.

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BANFIELD: In about one hour, lawmakers will hear from the father of a soldier killed while searching for Bowe Bergdahl, and also a member of Bergdahl's platoon who says that Bergdahl deserted. They're both going to testify at a congressional hearing at 2:00. Lawmakers plan to discuss how the exchange of Bergdahl for five senior Taliban officials may have implications for U.S. national security and the fight against terror.

A Georgia man became the first inmate in the United States to be put to death by lethal injection since an Oklahoma man's botched execution in April. Marcus Wellons, convicted of raping and killing his 15-year- old neighbor. And he died just before midnight. His execution was one of three scheduled in less than 24 hours. John Winfield, also dying by lethal injection in Missouri, just minutes after Wellons. He murdered two women and blinded the mother of his two children. John Ruthell Henry is scheduled to die in Florida tonight for murdering his estranged wife and her five-year-old son.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Holy (EXPLETIVE DELETED).

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BANFIELD: Yes, we said that a couple times too.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Holy (EXPLETIVE DELETED).

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BANFIELD: Yes, and there he is too. Look at that car and a Jeep Grand Cherokee completely airborne. Watch as it happens. It hits a trailer on I-70 near Manhattan, Kansas, yesterday. Awful crash caught on camera. But the driver of the Jeep, who flew through the air, was hurt, was taken to the hospital and we are told he was wearing his seat belt.

Everyone, thanks so much for watching. My colleague Wolf Blitzer starts right after this quick break.

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