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Kerry Testifies on Obama's ISIS Strategy; Code Pink Interrupts Kerry at Senate Hearing.
Aired September 17, 2014 - 14:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BROOKE BALDWIN, CN N ANCHOR: All right, we want to take you inside the room. And you can see, it looks like Code Pink, it looks like some protesters inside this Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. They are there holding up those signs as we await big testimony today in a matter of minutes. We'll be hearing from the U.S. Secretary Of State John Kerry. You can see folks getting seated and getting ready to roll. It should begin any minute now. The introductions, the hellos.
We heard from the chairman of this particular committee, Senator Bob Menendez, speaking with Dana Bash, so we'll hear from him, and bring that to you live, the meat of his testimony from Secretary Kerry.
Before we get there, let me bring in two voices, CNN political analyst Josh Rogin and Michael Shank, associate director of legislative affairs for the Friends Committee on National Legislation.
Gentlemen, welcome to both of you.
Thank you.
BALDWIN: Josh, let me begin with you.
JOSH ROGIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: You wrote about this issue, and it's been asked many times about this notion of mixed messaging. Chairman Menendez was asked moments ago and he didn't seem too concerned. But the issue being President Obama saying one thing, as far as Americans are concerned, in Iraq and possibly Syria, and then hearing from his generals, I.E., Martin Dempsey, yesterday saying something differently. Are they on the same page? Are they not? What do we expect today?
We reported in "The Daily Beast" that there's a difference of opinion of the president and many of the top generals he's tasked to fight this war against ISIS. General Dempsey; General Allen, the new special envoy for the coalition to defeat ISIS; General Lloyd Austin, the CENTCOM commander, all believe in pursuing a quicker, stronger, more complete strategy to combat ISIS in Iraq and Syria than the president is currently willing to allow. It's not clear how that will play out in terms of tension between the military and the White House.
What John Kerry will do today, according to his prepared remarks, which we have obtained -- and this is first on CNN -- he will say very clearly ISIL must be defeated, period, end of story. He'll attempt to dispel the notion put out by himself and others in the administration that there's a containment strategy in place and that this will be a strategy to marginalize or manage the ISIS problem. And then he will call on the international community to build a coalition to help the United States achieve this goal.
In addition, Secretary Kerry will say that coalition members are pledging to use military force along with the Americans against ISIS in Iraq. He will not name those countries or their specific commitments. He will say those will be revealed next week at the U.N. General Assembly.
Lastly, he'll say this is a war unlike the 1990 Gulf War and 2003 Iraq War because American troops will not be used on the ground and fighting will be done by local forces. That will bolster his push for Congress to quickly pass authorization to train the Syrian rebels, which he says could lead to pressure on Assad for a political solution to civil war in Syria.
BALDWIN: That goes with what we heard from President Obama as far as this is not 2003 and not the same war. And the president saying in Florida, I will not commit you to fighting another ground war in Iraq.
But, Michael, you say -- listen, we want to hear all perspectives, and you are saying stop all military action before it gets worse. So let me just pose -- let me turn the question this way. What do you think would happen if the U.S. did not do anything?
MICHAEL SHANK, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS FOR THE FRIENDS COMMITTEE ON NATIONAL LEGISLATION: Well, we're never -- Friends Committee on National Legislation on my piece in "The Daily Beast," we're not suggesting that the U.S. does nothing. We're suggesting that military strikes are only aiding recruitment for ISIS. Numbers have tripled since we started air striking ISIS. We think the arming of rebels in Syria, Pakistan, Libya is problematic because it usually backfires. Those rebels use it against us.
We are saying Congress must be involved in any kind of oversight role, whether Senator Menendez, Authorization for Use of Military Force, the new one or the 2001 one, Congress has to be involved.
But in terms of a pro-active role the U.S. can take, we should make sure that Sunni moderates recruited by ISIS are politically and economically integrated into the Baghdad government. They haven't been historically. We're culpable for that, as is Maliki's government. But in terms of resource sharing, power sharing, we can do a lot more to make sure Sunnis are included.
And lately, regional governments have to be involved. The fact that Senator Menendez and Secretary Kerry have not invited Iran to the table is problematic. Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar, Kuwait are at the table but Iran has to be there as well.
BALDWIN: I understand the perspective you're coming from. I know what you've written. But my question was, what if the U.S. didn't do anything? Do you think some of these more hesitant Arab nations, more Sunni governments would be more willing and able to step forward and fight the fight? SHANK: We're already arming a lot of these governments. Armed sales
to Saudi Arabia and Qatar. They are doing it at our bidding. But Rand Corporations a couple of years ago put out a study looking at 300 terrorists groups and how they ended. What they found, from 1978 to early 2000, that 83 percent of terrorist groups ended through a political process, negotiations, intel, policing. Only 7 percent ended by military force. So we're very doubtful that further military strikes -- we've done several hundred -- are going to increase them and will be effective other than to aid recruitment on the ground for ISIS.
BALDWIN: Josh, let me ask you this. Of course, the United States, a leader in terms of global affairs, but why is it -- just a broader question as we await the secretary's testimony. Why does the U.S. have to lead and fix this problem, fix this terrorist threat in the other part of the world?
ROGIN: Right. I think this speaks to something that your other guest just said. While it's true that ISIS's ranks have been growing, it's not a causation due to the American air strikes. It's because they have been growing in strength in terms of money, capabilities. And lots of groups fighting the Assad regime and fighting on the ground are drawn to them because they are the best game in town.
We have seen what happens when the United States delegates the management of this war towards that -- to the Arab allies. That's what President Obama has done for the last two years and the result has been several countries arming several different groups who are fighting each other. Some of the worst groups against some of the best money and best guns, and it's a total mess. And the problem has gotten worse and worse. And then ISIS took over major cities and major oil refineries. And so that policy has been a disaster. I don't think there's anyone inside the government who believes that we can allow this to continue where the Arab governments are in charge.
What we're hoping to do is unify them into some sort of common effort. The problem is that the president announced that strategy without doing the coalition building first. So now he's trying to go back and fill in the coalition, and all of these countries have different agendas and different interests and they don't have faith in the credibility that United States will stay there and leave the effort toward the very end.
So I agree that military strikes are not totally the answer, but at this point, absent American leadership, there's no one else in the world who will be able to coalesce this coalition to take on the enormity of this problem which gets worse and worse by the day.
And as for Congress, while most congressmen are rhetorically in support of Congress having an oversight role on the war, the congressional leadership has not been enthusiastic to hold this vote before the elections. It's largely a Kabuki Theater effort to pretend like they want to vote on the war and then not actually impose their authority. So Congress is complicit in its own marginalization in this case. BALDWIN: Chairman Menendez will be speaking. Asked about politics
and timing of this and the vote, or lack thereof, saying, no, it's not about the election. Just looking down at my notes. It's about getting it right now. The Senators perspective, the chairman's perspective. A lot of people echo what you say.
Josh and Michael, standby as we await these Senators of Foreign Relations Committee to be seated and as we await the hellos and introductions, and then, of course, the testimony, which we're all waiting to hear from the U.S. Secretary of State.
We have to get a quick break in. You're watching CNN special live coverage. Be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BALDWIN: Let's take it straight to Capitol Hill. Chairman Bob Menendez here, Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Some protesters in there chanting, "No more war. No more war." The introductions. Let's go live.
(BEGIN LIVE HEARING COVERAGE)
SEN. BOB MENENDEZ, (D-NJ), CHAIRMAN, SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE: -- will require fully engaged and fully contributing senior partners, a coalition that must be defined not by words but by deeds. The U.S. can lead this coalition but our partners, particularly Sunni partners, must be all in. We fully acknowledge that getting skin in the game will be different for different coalition partners but Congress cannot be providing a blank check for the anti-ISIL campaign.
I'm pleased by the willingness of our partners in the Middle East to support, fund and provide resources for this campaign. Our partners are sending the signal to ISIL that they are not welcome, that they have a bankrupt religious ideology, and that they will be aggressively confronted.
Above all, the problems in Iraq and Syria that created an environment susceptible to ISIL's advance can only be solved locally. In Iraq, this means an inclusive government with a national agenda and leaders ready to empower the Iraqi security forces and Kurdish Peshmerga forces to take the fight to ISIL. And in Syria, training and equipping a vetted Syrian opposition force that shares our vision for a pluralistic free Syria, free of ISIL and all violent extremist groups, but also free of Assad and his regime backers. This fighting force should be prepared to support a post-Assad political structure, whatever the circumstances under which he ultimately leaves Syria, by negotiated settlement or other means.
The president has laid out a strategy that purports to integrate all tools of U.S. power to defeat ISIL. What I expect to hear today is some specifics, the time line for this mission; the scope; the resources in personnel, funds, intelligence, military assets and assistance; as well as the role our coalition partners will play. We must be clear-eyed about the risks before providing our enduring support for this operation.
The fact is we are living in 2014, not 2003. We must not repeat the mistakes of the past, given the nature of the threat that we face. This means clearly defining the objectives, the political end-state that we seek through this anti-ISIL campaign. I want to hear what success looks like in Iraq and Syria across the region and what conditions will indicate when it's time to end military action.
Now, this is what we know about ISIL. It has brutally followed through on its threats to kill American hostages, James Foley and Steven Sotloff. It beheaded British aid worker, David Haines on Saturday, and threatened to kill another British citizen. It promotes genocide against anyone that does not share its warped version of Islam, moderate Sunnis, Shias, Christian, Yazidis, minorities. It enslaves women and children. It has seized U.S. and Iraqi military equipment and build a formidable fighting force. It's pumping oil and selling it to the tune of a million dollars a day to fund its brutal tactics along with kidnappings, theft, extortion and external support. It's recruiting disciples for its unholy war at a frightening pace, in Europe, the U.S. and anywhere they can find disaffected people.
These foreign fighters are crossing often from Turkey, which either because of fear or maybe ideology, is inclined to participate to stop that flow of fighters and to counter ISIL. It declared the territory it occupancy a caliphate with intent to seize more territory from U.S. partners and allies from Jordan to Saudi Arabia to Lebanon. The risk to Jordanian and Lebanese stability is real, it's urgent and it is grave. We would be fools not to take this threat seriously. ISIL is an enemy of the United States and the civilized world.
Now, as I have said many times, temporary and targeted air strikes in Iraq and Syria fall within the president's powers as commander-in- chief. If the military campaign lasts for an extended period of time which I gather it will, it is my belief that Congress will need to approve an ISIL-specific Authorization for Use of Military Force. I am personally not comfortable with reliance on either the 2001 AUMF that relies on a thin theory that ISIL is associated with al Qaeda, and not on the 2002 Iraq AUMF which relied on misinformation. I expect the administration today and in the days ahead to brief this committee on comprehensive strategy and the operational objectives by which we will defeat ISIL so we can draft an appropriate AUMF to address the very grave ISIL threat we face.
Let me be clear. I support the president's strategy and his sense of urgency.
And I commend you Mr. Secretary, with your allies in the region who face threats from ISIL.
Let's not, however, make the 9/11 mistake of running into an AUMF, an Authorization for the Use of Military Force, that has been the authorization for the last 13 years. It has been used for indefinite duration and has been used from South Asia to the Persian Gulf to Africa and Southeast Asia. The fact is we need to ensure that whatever Authorization for the Use of Military Force we consider is comprehensive and appropriate in scope and duration to meet the threat and sustain the fight. It is our responsibility to answer three fundamental questions. What will it ultimately take to degrade and destroy ISIL? How does this fight end? And what end-state do we seek in the region? We need to get it right in my view and not just get it fast. In doing so, we need a bipartisan approach that puts politics aside and the nation first.
This is a long-term effort and we in Congress must be very deliberate in our consideration of any new strategy, new authorities, and new funding that it will take to meet the new threat we face. I believe we need to defeat ISIL before they develop the operational capacity to perform a September 11th-like attack. I never want to lose as many citizens from my home state of New Jersey or from the United States as we did on that day. That is our responsibility. It is our solemn obligation.
With that, let me turn to the ranking member, Senator Corker, for his comments.
SEN. BOB CORKER, (R-TN), RANKING MEMBER, SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I appreciate the full and broad opening comments that you made and the way that you've expressed many of our concerns regarding ISIL and their capacity over time to harm Americans.
I know we're here a few days after the president publicly addressed this as the nation. And many others around the Western world -- around the civilized world are outraged over the conduct of ISIL. And I know Americans are greatly concerned about over time the effects they might have on this nation, as you just expressed.
We're also here exactly one year and two weeks after, in this very room, this committee voted out an Authorization for the Use of Force in Syria as one of the bright moments, in my opinion, of this committee, not necessarily because of the product, but because we all worked together in such a way to come to an end that we thought was best for the country, much in the light and in the tone that chairman just laid out.
So I just want to start by welcoming our secretary. We've had some conversations. I appreciate his hard work.
But I do want to say, as I've said to him personally, I'm very disappointed that the administration has chosen to go about what they're doing without explicitly seeking the authorization of Congress. I think that's a huge mistake. I realize that part of that unfortunately has to do with the political season that we're in, which is, to me, very unfortunate that that might be a factor to some. And I also realize that part of the strategy and plan or big parts of it are still being created and, therefore, it's being put together as we move along. And we're really not in a place right now for Congress to fully ascertain what the plan might be.
And as the chairman just mentioned, he's going to deal with an authorization, our committee will deal with an authorization. But I want to say to our secretary, I hope that's done, it's done with the administration explicitly seeking that, not saying if Congress wants to play a constructive role it can and it would be welcomed, but one where you seek it and you lay out in detail for us, in both classified and open settings, what it is we're seeking to achieve and how we're going to go about it. Again, I know much of this is being made up as we go along. I do hope -- I do hope that the secretary today will outline the true nature of the threat. I know he was in a meeting prior to coming in here where some of that was being discussed. I hope that clearly today you'll lay out what you think the true nature of the threat is.
Thirdly, and in just one glaring piece, I know that secretaries of state probably don't have the same opportunity that Senators do to visit people in refugee camps and to see people that we've said we would support, and don't. We've been pushing in this committee for years or for a long time to arm and train the vetted moderate opposition. We passed this out of this committee a year and a half ago, almost, on a 15-3 vote, that we've been pushing for it for longer than that. And in spite of the fact that there are some alleged activities occurring, we have not done what we have said we would do. Matter of fact, I would say that the position that the administration has taken over this last year and two weeks, since we were here meeting about the authorization and passing one, has led to many of the problems that we are facing today, many of the problems that are causing civilization itself to be fearful. And again, I appreciate the fact that the secretary is here today, that administration has stepped forward and has the beginnings of a thought process as to how to address it.
I do want to say that what I've heard about dealing with the moderate opposition, to me, is odd. I know that the administration, especially at the White House, has stated how generally feckless -- to use a word I think that describes it -- they believe this moderate opposition to be. And yet, we look at this and today it's our entire ground game. I have supported the training and arming of these rebels for some time. I will say I was shocked yesterday to hear that in the Armed Services testimony these rebels are actually going to be used against ISIS.
All of them that I met with -- and things may have changed -- but their focus has been taking out Assad. I know they had a two-front battle or war raging as they've tried to do that, but I'm surprised that the administration is basing their entire ground game on a group of people that are going to receive very little training under the small authorization that's been put forth, and that's our entire ground game, which brings me back to point two talking about the very nature of the threat. Seems to me the administration has placed many, many caveats on what we will not do and, at the same time, the rhetoric describing the threat is far greater than it seems to me the plan that's being put together.
I'll close with this. I know that typically when you have a coalition, you have the coalition put together before you announce it. I know, in this case, we're announcing a coalition and we are attempting to put it together. And I hope that what we're going to end up with is more than a group of coat holders. I hope that we're going to have people who are really going to be doing things on the ground that matter. But I do hope the secretary, through his hard work, is generating commitments that will matter as it relates to this. This effort, we all know, will not be a one or two-year effort. It's going to be a multi-year effort. Some people are saying a decade. Some people are saying a decade. So I do think it is important, as our chairman laid out, that all of us fully understand what we're undertaking, fully understand the nature of the threat, fully understand the commitment of this administration to deal with this threat in the appropriate way.
So I welcome you here today and I look forward to your testimony and to our questions.
MENENDEZ: With that, Mr. Secretary, we welcome you back to the committee you so ably and distinguishly chaired. We thank you for your service to our country. We know that you just recently arrived from building this coalition and we appreciate you being here today in order to inform members of what has been achieved, what is in front of us. And with that, the floor is yours.
JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: Chairman Menendez, Ranking Member Corker, and members of the committee, my friends and former colleagues, I really thank you for holding this hearing on an issue that's obviously fraught with all of the high stakes that both the chairman and ranking member just described and all of the members of the committee understand deeply. I really look forward to this opportunity to both define the threat that ISIL does pose, the ways in which it does and, of course, our strategy for defeating it and all of that could not be more critical for the country.
During the years that I had the privilege of serving here and working with different administrations, it always struck me that American foreign policy works best and is strongest when there's a genuine discussion, dialogue, vetting of ideas back and forth, really a serious discussion much more than articulation of one set of ideas and then another and they just oppose each other and they just sit out there, and there's no real effort to have a meeting of the minds.
So I want to make sure that by the time we're done here today, I've heard from you. I know what you're thinking and you have heard from me and you know what we're thinking and what the administration is thinking, and that you have a clear understanding of what it is that we have done so far, of how we see this, and how hopefully we can come to see it together what we're doing now and where we go next. And I state unequivocally, and it's not a passing sentence that I welcome the input, need the input of this committee because it is together that we're going to be much stronger and much more effective in guaranteeing the success of this effort. And it's a big effort in a lot of ways. It's about ISIL in the immediacy but it's about more than that.
So I want to underscore at the start, you know, there are some debates in the past 30 years, 29 of which I was privileged to serve in the Senate, that will undoubtedly fill up books and documentaries for a long time, and Iraq is certainly one of them. Iraq has caused some of the most heated debates and deepest divisions in the past decade, a series of difficult issues about which people can honestly disagree. But I didn't come here today in the hope we don't have to rehash those debates. The issue that confronts us today is one on which we ought to be able to agree: ISIL must be defeated, period, end of story. And collectively, we are all going to be measured by how we carry out this mission.
You know, as I came in here, obviously, we had some folks who spoke out. And I would start by saying that I understand dissent. I have lived it. That's how I first testified in front of this country in 1971. And I spent two years protesting a policy. I respect the right of Code Pink to protest and to use that right. But you know what? I also know something about Code Pink. Code Pink was started by a woman, and women who were opposed to war, but who also thought the government's job was to take care of people and to give them health care and education and good jobs.
And if that's what you believe in -- and I believe it is -- then you ought to care about fighting ISIL. Because ISIL is killing and raping and mutilating women and they believe women shouldn't have an education. They sell-off girls to be sex slaves to jihadists. There is no negotiations with ISIL. There's nothing to negotiate. And they're not offering anyone health care of any kind. They're not offering education of any kind. For a whole philosophy or idea or a cult or whatever you want to call it that frankly comes out of the Stone Age, they are cold-blooded killers across the Middle East making a mockery of a peaceful religion. And that's precisely why we are building a coalition to try to stop them from denying the women and the girls and the people of Iraq the very future that they yearn for. And frankly, Code Pink and a lot of other people need to stop and think about how you stop them and deal with that.
So --
UNIDENTIFIED CODE PINK MEMBER: More invasions will not protect the homeland!
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED CODE PINK MEMBER: More invasions will not protect the homeland!
KERRY: So it's important for people to understand --
UNIDENTIFIED CODE PINK MEMBER: More invasions will not protect the homeland!
KERRY: -- important for people to understand there's no invasion. The invasion was ISIL into Iraq.
