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CNN NEWSROOM

Biden Talks Gates of Hell; Seeking Clues in Beheading Videos; ISIS Caliphate

Aired September 3, 2014 - 14:00   ET

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


BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, here we go. You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. Thank you so much for being with me.

Let's just jump right in on this one. President Obama on his way to the summit. He has left Estonia. He landed in Britain moments ago where NATO leaders will draw up plans to confront Vladimir Putin and his reawakened Russia.

Just within the past couple of hours, Putin outlined terms for a cease-fire in Ukraine. He confirmed he has spoken with the leader of Ukraine. He suggested that the two are on the same page. But perspective, people, we're talking about Vladimir Putin and some are suggesting the cease-fire talk is nothing more than a decoy meant to throw off NATO at this crucial moment. Huge story there. More on that ahead.

But we also have ISIS and the beheading of a second American, Steven Sotloff. Just a short time ago, Vice President Joe Biden went off. You have to hear this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And when people harm Americans, we don't retreat. We don't forget. We take care of those who are grieving. And when that's finished, they should know, we will follow them to the gates of hell until they are brought to justice, because hell is where they will reside. Hell is where they will reside.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Those are the strongest words we have heard from the Obama administration. I mean, you heard it, barbarians follow ISIS to the gates of hell. That is far more forceful than we've heard from the president who today said his goal is to make sure ISIS isn't an ongoing threat in the Middle East. He also said that he'll work with allies, says that this will take time. Jim Sciutto is with us now live from Newport, Rhode Island. He will be talking next hour live here on CNN with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.

But first, Jim, we have to talk about that vice president's remarks, the president's remarks. The question is, is there a disconnect here? You have gates of hell and then you have, it will take some time. JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: You know, I

think it's largely a difference in style, but a pretty marked difference in style. The White House, at this point, has been fairly reticent. The president seeming to want to avoid George W. Bush-like rhetoric in response to the threat from ISIS.

That said, there is a substantive question there that has to be answered. And in the president's own comments today, he opened up this divide as to what the end game is here. Because the president said the aim of the U.S. mission will be to degrade or destroy ISIL. That's strong. Strongest - some of the strongest words we've heard from the president to this point. But later he said that his intention is to make ISIS a manageable threat, seeming to imply that the goal would be to contain, not destroy, ISIS.

That's a big question here because you hear this from Democrats and Republicans, what is the larger strategy here? And the key to defining that larger strategy is to first define what the end game is. Is it to destroy ISIS or to contain it? Those are two very different things. And I'll tell you, Brooke, it's one thing that I'm going to be pressing Secretary of Defense Hagel on in just about an hour's time.

BALDWIN: I cannot wait for this live interview, this Q&A with the defense secretary here. I mean, you know, give us an idea of where you'll go with him with questions.

SCIUTTO: Well, starting, of course, on ISIS, and what is the strategy? What is the strategy that the Defense Department, the Pentagon, Secretary Hagel, has been tasked with by the administration as they develop these options? How far are they being told to go? Degrade, contain or destroy ISIS, because this speaks to what kind of intensity the American -- and length of time, frankly, that the American people have to brace themselves for.

But there are other questions, as well. For instance, what do you do differently in Iraq versus Syria where you don't have a ground force, because any general, current or former, will tell you that while air strikes may do something, they don't do the job by themselves. You need a ground presence, as well, if the intention is to take back territory from ISIS. How far will the U.S. military go?

And then as you mentioned at the very top of the hour, Brooke, there is, of course, also events in Ukraine, Russia, pushing the envelope yet again. How far is the U.S. willing to go there to push back Russian advances, or are they happy to contain Russian advances in Ukraine, as well? When is the last time we heard of Crimea, for instance, Brooke? Is Crimea a fait de compli, now Russian territory, or is that something that the U.S. and the west want to pull back? I mean, the secretary of defense's plate is very full now, so we'll have a lot to talk to him about.

BALDWIN: Lots of questions. We will be watching and listening very closely as this all plays out live here on CNN. Jim Sciutto, thank you so much.

Once again, stick around for Jim's exclusive interview with the secretary of defense, Chuck Hagel, live at the top of the next hour.

But now to the growing chorus of critics, including Democrats. They are claiming the president doesn't have strategy. Senate Intelligence Committee chair, Dianne Feinstein, says he is being cautious, too cautious. And former Congresswoman Jane Harmon, Democrat, believes commander in chief here needs to speak up, show the American people why they have a stake in ISIS. Joining me now, Larry Haas. He's a senior fellow with U.S. foreign policy and a former White House communications director for Al Gore. Also joined, Margaret Hoover. She is a political strategist and worked for the George W. Bush administration.

So welcome to both of you, first.

LARRY HAAS, SENIOR FELLOW FOR U.S. FOREIGN POLICY: Thank you.

MARGARET HOOVER, POLITICAL STRATEGIST: Thanks, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Larry, to you. You know, I have to begin with a Joe Biden comments. We played them off the top of the show. I mean this very forceful semantics here, barbarians, gates of hell, Chuck Hagel last week, defense secretary, you know, saying that ISIS poses an imminent threat to U.S. interests, and then you have the president. I mean what do you make of critics who say Obama is not on the same page as the rest of his cabinet?

HAAS: Well, I think there's something to that. I mean, after all, it's not just, as you say, Biden today and Hagel previously, there are others as well. Eric Holder, the attorney general, weighed in. Martin Dempsey, the - from the Joint Chiefs of -

BALDWIN: John Kerry.

HAAS: John Kerry. All of them weighed in. And you really do seem to see a divide between what the president is saying and what his team is saying about the danger of ISIS. And the second thing that you see, and Jim has referred to that in your previous segment, which is, you seem to see this ambivalence in the president's mind. On the one hand, he is talking about degrading and destroying. On the other hand, he is talking about managing the process. And I think, at the end of the day, the world is not playing out the way Barack Obama thought it was going to. He thought that the world perhaps would be a more collaborative, more cooperative place if the U.S. reduced its footprint in that region and elsewhere around the world. And we are seeing just the opposite. It is much more messy. And he's sending a disturbing mixed signal, frankly, to ISIL in the region, and to some of our other adversaries around the world.

BALDWIN: I mean hearing the notion of mixed signals and ambivalence is not what -- critics are even -- members of his own party really want to hear from a leader, from the commander in chief.

HAAS: Right.

BALDWIN: And so, Margaret, to you. You know, you read and you hear from the John McCains of the world, and the Lindsay Grahams, right, and they're saying, go in, destroy, destroy, destroy. Let's talk strategy and specifics here. What should a president be doing?

MARGARET HOOVER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, one argument that John McCain and Lindsey Graham put forward is that we should have a comprehensive strategy to knock out ISIS, to completely obliterate them. And what that would involve is multiple things. First, it would involve tightening their finances. Second, it would engage - mean engaging militarily. That's boots on the ground. That's special forces. But that's also arming our allies there. More so, giving the Kurds arms, making alliances with the Sunni tribes in the north.

Also, we have to engage politically with Iraq. There has to be power sharing in Baghdad so that the Sunnis are involved in the governance of that country. That means this president is going to have to engage politically in Iraq. Something that he promised the American people he wouldn't do. He would pull out of.

BALDWIN: So you think there should be boots on the ground, is that what you're saying?

HOOVER: I don't think that - look, if you're going to approach this the way we approached al Qaeda on Afghanistan, and this is now far bigger than al Qaeda was in Afghanistan -

BALDWIN: Yes.

HOOVER: And this is far better financed than al Qaeda was in Afghanistan -- Brooke, this is -- they have the territory the size of state - the size of the state of Indiana and they have hundreds of millions of dollars in financing. This is the biggest terrorist threat that we've have that isn't a state actor ever. This is larger than the pre-9/11 threat. We had boots on the ground in Afghanistan. I don't see how you don't do it this time.

BALDWIN: What does - just going off of what Margaret was saying, Larry, as far as, you know, this almost mixed message that you mentioned before -

HAAS: Right.

BALDWIN: When you hear the president talking about ISIS as a manageable problem but also, at the same time, hearing the notion of not just contain but destroy.

HAAS: Right.

BALDWIN: I mean what do you do with these almost it sounds like two different goals here?

HAAS: Well, certainly, he's got to be clear in his own mind what he wants to do. But to get to one of the points that Margaret made about the size of the territory -

BALDWIN: Yes.

HAAS: Just keep in mind, we are going after ISIS at the moment from the air. Obviously, we've got some forces on ground, but from the air essentially in Iraq and yet ISIS doesn't see itself as a place -- as a group that only operates in Iraq. It is operating in a big way across a territory that encompasses Iraq, as well as Syria. And I don't see how you can even manage the problem if you're going to limit your aggressiveness against this mortal enemy in just its presence in one country and ignore its presence in the other. We have got to have them on the run. We have got to have them worried about us coming after them wherever they happen to be.

Now, in terms of who we need on the ground and how many and all the rest, I'll leave that to the experts, but I certainly -

BALDWIN: Because that's exactly what Jim Sciutto will be asking of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel -

HAAS: Right. Right.

BALDWIN: You know, strategy both in Iraq and in Syria, specifically. And let me just end on this, just in terms of a little bit of a different perspective, Thomas Friedman writing in "The New York Times," and, Margaret, this is for you because, to Jim Sciutto's point at the top of the show about worried about sounding like the George W. Bush rhetoric, this was Thomas Friedman's point. "There are no words to describe the vialness of the video beheadings of two American journalists by ISIS, but I have no doubt that they are meant to get us to overreact," he says, "ala 9/11 and rush off again without a strategy."

HOOVER: You know what, actually, to that point, I really have to take issue. I think the history books now have said, look, President Bush was urged to act very quickly after 9/11, and he was criticized for acting so slowly with his war cabinet. Do remember, we didn't go into Afghanistan until mid-November, two months after 9/11. And he -- Bush -- it's hard to remember now -- was criticized for taking a long time, well-documented in several history books, including Peter Baker's (ph), which is a very excellent, nonpartisan account of the engagement in Afghanistan.

BALDWIN: Sure. But his point, when you read deeper in the piece, was that we essentially helped in the big picture, Iran.

HOOVER: Look, what we need to look for, we need to look out for our own strategic interests and our -- the security of the -- American security. And in ISIS that is the size of Indiana, that is the most well-financed terrorist organization thriving without boundaries and without check and without us even going after it is a clear and presents danger to Americans and to our allies and to the world.

BALDWIN: Margaret Hoover, thank you very much. Larry Haas, thank you.

HAAS: Thank you.

BALDWIN: I cannot wait for this interview with the defense secretary, Chuck Hagel. A lot on his plate, as Jim Sciutto said.

Coming up next, hear from the mother of the first American beheaded by ISIS as she responds to the murder of Steven Sotloff. Plus, we will take a close look at these two videos and the clues that

could help track down their killers.

Also, ISIS wants a caliphate. It's a complete Islamic state. What would that look like? We'll analyze that by taking a look at the terror group's leader. You're watching CNN's special live coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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

The mother of James Foley, the first American ISIS executed, shared her sympathies to the Sotloff family. Diane Foley hopes their deaths will trigger the exact opposite of what these journalists went through. They want peace. They want understanding.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DIANE FOLEY, MOTHER OF JOURNALIST KILLED BY ISIS: We send all of our love and hugs to them. Unfortunately, they're sharing the pain we are. So we just ask the world to embrace them as the world has embraced us. It's helped us so much.

I would hope that their deaths might not be in vain. That they might awaken the world that we must act as a unified world for peace and for goodness and just work together.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: As the United States tries to figure out exactly how to respond, today the president, the vice president, the secretary of state all said the beheaders will be brought to justice. Finding the killers, no doubt, starts with these two videos. Analysis of these videos, according to experts, shows the murders may have taken place in Raqqah, Syria. Analysis also indicates the executioner may be British, based upon his accent. Want to just play just a short portion of this. This is a clip from the video. It was posted yesterday. The other one was released August 19th.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So just as your missiles continue to strike our people, our knife will continue to strike the necks of your people. Any attempt by you, Obama, to deny the Muslims their rights of living in safety under the Islamic Caliphate will result in the bloodshed of your people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BALDWIN: Let's talk a little bit more about this video with CNN's Karl Penhaul in London.

And, Karl, beginning with a point we made yesterday when everything was breaking, asking about this executioner, do we know yet if this masked terrorist is, in fact, the same man in both videos? KARL PENHAUL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, certainly Britain's foreign

secretary, Philip Hammond, thinks so after an emergency meeting this morning in London. He came out and he said, in both videos, the executioner appears to be the same man and he appears to have a British accent. The kinds of things they'll be basing themselves on, obviously, not the dress. Anybody could wear that black uniform and black ski mask. But things like height, stature, build, the fact that he's left handed in both videos as well or appears to be. And quite tellingly that accent language experts that CNN have consulted say that that appears very much to be a London multicultural accent. A multicultural accent in this case means somebody speaking like they've grown up in a multicultural area of London where English isn't necessarily the first language, Brooke.

BALDWIN: So with -- when you see the initial video, you see James Foley and then you see Steven Sotloff. And then you fast forward to the second video, the beheading video of Steven Sotloff. You can tell, just based upon facial hair and hair on the top of his head, that some time has passed.

PENHAUL: Yes, certain amount of time has passed. If you look at the first one, August 19th, Steven Sotloff is almost shaven-headed there and really doesn't have any significant beard growth. When you cut to the second video that was released yesterday, then there he does have a lot of stubally (ph) growth on his hair - on his head and also around the beard area. And, of course, the executioner as well goes on to mention the bombings around the Iraqi town of Ammalee (ph), which took place late Saturday, Sunday. So if that audio was put on the video at the same time as the video itself, then that would put time of execution sometime over the last three days, Brooke.

BALDWIN: But so there is a possibility, just based upon what you just said, that they could have dubbed the audio?

PENHAUL: There is that possibility. It's difficult to analyze. It does sound, according to some of the experts that we've consulted, that the voice of the executioner may have been modified in some way. There was a lot of wind noise on parts of that video, so it could be they were trying to get the wind noise out. It could be that they've dubbed part of the message on later. Very difficult to tell at this stage, Brooke.

BALDWIN: And then just, you know, asking (ph) all these different questions, these are questions that the intelligence community will be wading through, I mean what about the knife, Karl?

PENHAUL: It does look a very similar style of knife, if not even the same knife. It's a combat knife that we commonly call a combat knife here in Britain. It's got a serrated edge on one side. It's got a flat, sharp edge on the other. The executioner, who is -- or the man who appears to be the executioner is left-handed, as I say, and he also uses the knife in the same way. He kind of awkwardly turns the knife so it's the flat edge that is passing across his victim's throat, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Karl Penhaul, thank you, in London for us. Coming up next, the ISIS plan is a complete takeover of Iraq and

Syria. Remember, they call themselves now the Islamic State. They want this state. What would this state or the caliphate look like? What is key in stopping that mission of theirs? My next guest says one man may be the key.

Plus, the Centers for Disease Control says time is running out to control the Ebola epidemic, as another American is infected with this deadly virus. The latest on his condition, the growing threat, coming up here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BALDWIN: Well, when it comes to taking on ISIS, the U.S. may not have a clear mission, goal, exactly yet, but ISIS is clear about its own plan, and it's all in a name. Their goal, to create an Islamic state across Iraq and Syria. A so-called caliphate. A place where ISIS has complete control and Sharia Law is the only option. Now, the head of this ISIS caliphate is known as a caliph. And here he is, his name, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. My next guest suggests killing him as fast as possible really may be the key to destroying this terrorist organization. Joining me now, Graeme Wood, contributing editor of "The New Republic."

Graeme, thank you so much for coming on today.

GRAEME WOOD, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, THE NEW REPUBLIC: Thank you for having me.

BALDWIN: Let's just get right into al Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS. What does he want? Is it about this territory, this caliphate? Is it fame? Is it to be bigger than Osama bin Laden?

WOOD: Well, he wants the caliphate to really turn back time to the golden age of the caliphs, which happened in the 7th century A.D. So quite a long time ago. And he wants to revive that institution and to be the head of it.

BALDWIN: By being the head of this caliphate, what would that mean for him, for those who would like to join?

WOOD: So to be the caliph of the Muslim world means to command the allegiance of all the world's Muslims. So, in his view, if you are not with him, you're against him, even if you are a Muslim. So what he's been able to do is to take control of a large swath of territory in Syria and Iraq and to -- for the first time in really quite a long time, to revive this institution that for 1,000 years didn't really exist in a workable form. And if he's able to do that, then he will be really the caliph of the Muslim world and the person who all radical Muslims will have to obey.

BALDWIN: In your piece in "The New Republic," you weave together the history, bringing it up to the current day. But what I thought was so fascinating was this line about al Qaeda and their beards. Let me quote this. You say when it comes to al Qaeda's discontent with ISIS, you write, "the grayer the beard, the less enthusiasm for rule by Baghdadi." Explain that for me.

WOOD: Yes, that's right. So one thing about Baghdadi is that he commands a younger generation of jihadists. So we all know al Qaeda from the war on terror. But what we might not realize is that there's actually a big gap between what ISIS wants and what al Qaeda was working for. So al Qaeda never controlled territory in the way that the caliphate does, which meant that in no way could they credibly claim to have a caliphate. That means that now that this youngish upstart has shown up, many of the older generation of jihadists have rejected him and actually there's quite a bit of acrimony between them. So the old guard of al Qaeda, the gray beards, are pretty strongly opposed, in fact, to the caliphate and its declaration by Abu Bakr al Baghdadi.

BALDWIN: On the notion of al Qaeda and specifically on bin Laden, I read this piece on "The Washington Post." Terrance McCoy (ph) wrote this about bin Laden's regrets. And this all ties together. Just hang with me. "The consequence of unmitigated violence is a lesson Osama bin Laden himself learned." He goes on, "before he was killed in 2011, his final months were reportedly filled with delusion and regret. He feared that his Muslim brothers had turned too many against al Qaeda with indiscriminate brutality."

Now, we know bin Laden is gone, factions of al Qaeda are still very strong. But if Baghdadi were to be taken out, which could be, and I imagine would be very difficult, what then would happen to ISIS?

WOOD: Well, the first thing would -- that would happen would be another caliph would rise in his place. They almost certainly have people in line.

BALDWIN: That quickly, you think?

WOOD: Yes. I think they almost certainly have someone in place who would rise to take his place. But one thing that taking him out would do, according to some scholars I spoke to, would be to make it less credible for them to claim to be a caliphate in the sense of the rightly guided caliphs of the 7th century. So what they want is a continuous, one-person-led Muslim government that expands as far as possible over the world. If they take him out, as you say, then I think there is a good chance that that dream will look further from reality and they'll have fewer recruits as a result of the propaganda value of having established a Muslim caliphate state.

BALDWIN: So forgive me, but just final question, back to your point about having this territory and having this caliphate. I mean, bottom line, is this more about like bragging rights for potential young jihadis, that they would want to join an ISIS versus an al Qaeda?

WOOD: Yes, that's exactly what it is. In previous generations, when the radical jihadists did not control huge amounts of territory, it wouldn't have been plausible for them to claim that they had a caliphate. It would be like claiming that you were the new roman emperor or that you were reconvening the Knights of the Round Table. Now that he's been able to do that, he really has a huge coup in propaganda value and has been able to get large numbers of recruits from overseas as a result.

BALDWIN: I see. I see. Graeme Wood with "The New Republic," thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it.