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CNN NEWSROOM

U.S. Planning Mosul Fight; Three Missing U.K. Girls; Climber Scales Niagara Falls

Aired February 20, 2015 - 09:30   ET

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


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: I hope it is too, Rick. But -- so like I'm just -- so do you think that politics is in part driving this rush to take back Mosul, Colonel?

LT. COL. RICK FRANCONA (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: I suspect that that's a part of it. I think Peter made a good point. Everybody is really revolsed (ph) by what we're seeing out of ISIS, the burning of the Jordanian pilot, the reported burning of these 45 Iraqi security people in al Baghdadi. You know, this has really generated a lot of anti-ISIS feelings. And I think the United States wants to capitalize on it and wants to push the Iraqis back into action, get them back out into the field.

But sending what basically will be regarded as a Shia occupation force back into Mosul is not a good idea. I think there's got to be a lot more political groundwork laid with the locals. If we can't get the Sunnis on board, if we can't get the Sunni tribes to get back on board, this is all going to be for not.

COSTELLO: So, Peter, when all is said and done and when we talk about the president's strategy, right, he says we're going to defeat and destroy ISIS, but is it just more of a containment strategy now that maybe we seem to be moving along too quickly?

PETER BEINART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think it's more than a containment strategy, but I don't think Barack Obama really thinks that ISIS is going to be destroyed necessarily in his presidency. I think that he thinks that over the long term it will be destroyed because it will become defunct ideologically. I think it's already on its way towards that. There will be more and more revulsion even amongst Sunni Arabs who are his potential base of supporters. But I think that what, in the shorter term, I think what he wants to do is kind of shrink its level of control.

And, remember, we have a better chance of doing that in Iraq than in Syria. We've been talking about the problems in Iraq, which are significant. But if you don't think we have good allies in Iraq, we have virtually no good allies in Syria right now. So it's just not realistic whatever you want to say politically to think that we are going to wipe ISIS out in both Iraq and Syria any time soon.

COSTELLO: Peter Beinart, Colonel Rick Francona, thanks to you both. I appreciate it.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

COSTELLO: All right, breaking news this morning. Three British school girls are reportedly missing and Scotland Yard fears they may be making their way to Syria. Take a look at this tweet. It seems to show these three girls, bags packed, heading off maybe to Turkey to get to Syria. We don't know. Nima Elbagir has been digging into this.

What can you tell us, Nima?

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the British police are launching this international appeal, Carol, because they believe that the girls are already in Istanbul. They say their flight from London Gatwick landed on Tuesday evening into Istanbul. They believe that they are on their way, these three teenaged friends from east London, are on their way into Syria and the hope is though that they haven't gone in yet. So authorities and their families are coming together to put out an appeal in the British media, internationally. They're also targeting social media. They're targeting the Turkish media because they want to get them before this window of opportunities closes.

Authorities both in the U.K. and in the U.S. have repeatedly said time and again how difficult it is for these teenagers who go into Syria, and once they're within the Islamic State to get back out. Once they are in ISIS hands to get back out to their families. So the families and authorities say that this is the window. Time is ticking and anyone who has seen these girls, please come forward to the authorities, Carol.

COSTELLO: So do we believe the girls are around the age of 15 or so?

ELBAGIR: Two 15-year-olds and a 16-year-old friend. The three were school friends. This is -- one contact described this to me as an epidemic. Teenage girls heading into the inter-ISIS held areas through some kind of delusional belief, almost infatuations. You go online, you go in some of these pro-jihadi forums, Carol, and they're rating some of these extremist fighters on looks, on whether they would make good husbands. It is an extraordinary world. One contact likened it to the way that pedophiles almost groom young girls. And then they're drawn into this net and their families lose them. So that's why authorities are saying the time to act is now. Anyone who has seen these girls and very soon we'll have still images of these girls, pictures that are being distributed by the British authorities, in the hope that anyone who has seen them either here or in Turkey can come forward, Carol.

COSTELLO: OK, I know you'll have much more on this later. Nima Elbagir, thanks for the great reporting. I appreciate it.

I'll be back.

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COSTELLO: Forget falling, try freezing. One of North America's most famous landmarks has a dramatic new look. Temperatures are so cold, parts of Niagara Falls have frozen over and tourists are flocking to see -- doesn't it look beautiful? I mean that is gorgeous. But, get this, there are ice climbers pulling off the stunt of a lifetime, scaling the more than 180 foot frozen -- that's crazy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILL GADD, ICE CLIMBED NIAGARA FALLS: It's the only place I've ever been where you can feel the earth shake from the force of the falls. Like you can feel it in your guts it's so loud.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: OK, dude, you're crazy. What was he thinking? Ryan Young is at Niagara Falls this morning.

You going to try that, Ryan?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm telling you, I'm feeling something else shaking, it's not the earth, it's my entire body. That's what's going on here. It is cold. Negative 31 wind chill, Carol. And I thought we had cold last week in Boston, but this takes the cake.

But you have to see this view. It's amazing. Let's walk you down this way just a little bit. And as you look over the side here, yes, there's frozen parts here, but that water keeps pushing hard because more than 20 million gallons of water flows through here, 40 million during the summer, but obviously it slows down for wintertime.

That leads to this beautiful misting that you see. And then, look, it looks like I'm in a snow globe with all of this ice that has just encapsulated the area. I'm told that down there gets ten stories high. And that's the American side over there. It looks more frozen, but water is still flowing underneath as well.

This is a beautiful sight. And like you said, tourists are flocking from all around to come see this and take pictures. We're told everything is going viral when people snap photos. And, in fact, people have been standing here kissing each other taking selfies, doing whatever they can to mark this moment. I mean, it's just an awesome sight to see.

COSTELLO: I am so envious. I am so -- and I've never been to Niagara Falls and I keep telling my husband we have to go. But we should go now.

YOUNG: Oh, you -- yes. Actually, this would be perfect timing. I mean we were in the hotel last night. Not a lot of people were here. But then when you come out here during the daytime, there are just streams of people all the way down the road who are snapping photos. It's a wonderful sight.

COSTELLO: Oh, that's awesome. So, enjoy and try to stay warm. Ryan Young, thanks so much.

YOUNG: Try to stay warm.

COSTELLO: Yes. Yes, right. I know. Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the defense rests and closing arguments

in the American sniper trial could happen as early as next week. CNN's Ed Lavandera has more from Texas.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, yesterday we heard from the defense's medical expert. Today we will hear from the prosecution's medical experts. I'll have that story coming up when CNN continues.

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COSTELLO: He thought his co-workers were cannibals. That's what a psychiatrist told a jury about accused American sniper killer Eddie Ray Routh. The defense says Routh suffered from mental illness and was battling a severe state of psychoses when he gunned down Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield at a Texas shooting range. Yesterday a doctor, who treated Routh after the killings, told the court that Routh was, quote, "delusional," and that he didn't know what he was doing when he shot and killed both men. Today, the prosecution is expected to call in their own medical experts.

Let's bring in CNN's Ed Lavandera. He's in Stephenville, Texas, covering the trial. Good morning.

LAVANDERA: Yes, good morning, Carol.

Well, you know, yesterday that medical expert for the defense said that Eddie Ray Routh did not know right from wrong at the time of the killings of Chris Kyle and Chad Littlefield. The prosecutors will bring their own medical experts. So the question here is, which of these experts is this jury going to believe?

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA (voice-over): This is the picture Eddie Ray Routh's attorneys want the jury to see, the image of a decorated Marine before he descended into darkness, gripped by demons and psychosis. His family helpless to stop it. Laura Biel wrote about Routh's mental health struggles in a book titled "The Enemy Within".

LAURA BEIL, AUTHOR, "THE ENEMY WITHIN": For them, it was sort of like watching a car crash in slow motion. You can see things getting worse and worse, but you -- your -- you feel powerless to help.

LAVANDERA: Psychiatrist Mitchell Dunn detailed Routh's journey through psychiatric treatment. July 2011 he's diagnosed with psychotic disorder and PTSD. The next month, another hospital stay. Once again doctors say he shows signs of psychosis. In September 2012, Routh is diagnosed as having major depressive disorder with psychotic features. And January 2013, just a week before the murders, doctors say he's paranoid and psychotic.

Routh believed American sniper Chris Kyle and his friend Chad Littlefield were hybrid pig people out to get him. That's what Routh told Dr. Dunn during a 6-hour interview last year inside the Stephenville jail where he's being held. Dunn says Routh is delusional, that he believes some of his co-workers at a cabinet shop where he worked were cannibals and believed pigs were taking over the earth. But Dunn also says Routh told him this about the killings: "As soon as I did it I realized I made a mistake."

But prosecutors say this is the picture of Routh the jury should see smoking from a hookah, ignoring the calls to stop abusing drugs and alcohol. CNN legal analyst Mark O'Mara says this is a powerful view for the jury.

MARK O'MARA, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: I think a jury is going to look at this and say you can't come into us and say I had these drugs from the doctors, these drugs not from the doctor, but let's consider them all and let me off for a murder case. I don't believe a jury is going to look at it that way.

LAVANDERA: Chris Kyle never fully knew the depth of Eddie Ray Routh's psychosis. Routh's mother testified again and she said she never told the Navy SEAL her son had held his girlfriend at knife point or was admitted to the VA hospital.

The prosecutor asked her, "You didn't think that would be useful information, maybe information that would have saved Chris Kyle's life?" After a painful, long, pause Routh's mother said, "It didn't occur to me at the time."

Defense lawyers rested their case right after Eddie Ray Routh told the judge he will not testify.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LAVANDERA (on camera): And that was as much as we've seen Eddie Ray Routh perform in this courtroom throughout this entire trial, Carol. In fact, it was the only time he's really spoken since he said he was not guilty at the very beginning. Most of the time, he just sits there and takes notes throughout most of the day. Carol.

COSTELLO: Whenever I see him in court, and then you show old pictures of him from just a few years ago, it always amazes me how different he looks today.

LAVANDERA: Oh, it's striking. They've actually talked about that, you know, several times throughout the course of the trial. But it is amazing to watch when you see all these different pictures, and especially all of the old -- the video from the night of the arrest and when he was taken into custody February 2nd, 2013. A dramatic change, to say the least.

COSTELLO: All right, Ed Lavandera reporting live from Stephenville, Texas, this morning.

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, it's enough to make Americans giddy and the oil industry cringe. Could prices really plunge to $10 a barrel? Some experts say yes. We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: It's a claim that would have been unimaginable just a few months ago. Could oil prices really plummet to a mere $10 a barrel? And I laugh when I say that. I can't help it. Some experts, respected within the oil industry, say it actually could. Keep in mind, prices have dropped by more than half over the past year.

Christine Romans is our business guru. I mean, really? Could that really happen?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: You know, Carol, in 1998 it did. In 1998, oil prices in the middle of the Asian financial crisis got all the way down to -- below $12 and gas prices were like $1 a gallon. That's recent history. So when we think of $100-plus oil prices, that's really been in the last ten years or so. And look at how quickly they have tumbled from $100-plus to now around $50.

Now, you've got a variety of people calling for $39 gas, that's Goldman Sachs. Stephen Schork, $10. Gary Schilling wrote an op-ed calling for $10 to $20, we should get ready for $10-$20 oil. On the other side of that, though, you have an oil minister in Saudi Arabia who says we could never see $100 again. Well, there's a lot -- there's a big difference between $10 and $100. And the OPEC oil minister, one of the OPEC oil ministers, has said we'll go back to $200 eventually when demand comes back.

No one knows where oil prices are going. I'm going to tell you that right now. And it's so interesting to me, because we forget it was at $12 a barrel before. We have been there before, but it took a very bad condition in the world to get there.

COSTELLO: OK, so what are we to make of all this? Because oil prices were going way down, and then gas prices fell, and they then they started to creep back up and gas prices went back up.

ROMANS: And I'll tell you that speculators, people who are hedging or just all out betting on the price of oil, can make oil move up and down much more quickly. But consumers, what consumers say, they think it's going up, Carol. They think gas prices -- because consumers, look, they know this is too good of a thing to last.

COSTELLO: It's because we're not stupid.

ROMANS: I know. $2.28 today. Consumers in a Consumer Federation of America survey -- $3.20 they think in two years. Back to $3.90 in five years.

COSTELLO: So we'll see. Time will tell and all those cliche things, right?

ROMANS: And what goes up must come down, and what goes down must go back up. But just be careful about all those forecasts. I've seen forecasts from $10 to $200 for a barrel of crude. Anybody that tells you they know is lying.

COSTELLO: Thanks, Christine Romans, with a refreshing breath of honesty. Checking other top stories for you at 54 minutes past, Ukrainians

commemorate a somber anniversary today. It's been exactly one year since deadly clashes broke out in Kiev's Independence Square. It was the bloodiest day of the revolution. More than 50 anti-government protesters were killed. Despite a truce last week, rebels remain fighting in eastern Ukraine.

New information on the deadly superbug outbreak in California. UCLA officials say the CRE bacteria was embedded on scopes even after cleaning guidelines were met. New sterilization efforts are now in place. Seven patients were infected during endoscopy treatments over the last several months; two have died. More than 170 others who were exposed have been sent home testing kits.

Rivals on the field, partners in the off-season. The San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders want to share this stadium in Carson, California. Carson is about 20 minutes south of Los Angeles. It would be privately financed and cost about $1.7 billion to build. And ain't it grand. We'll keep you posted.

The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM after a break.

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