Transcripts For CNNW CNN Newsroom With Ana Cabrera 20191027

CNNW CNN Newsroom With Ana Cabrera October 27, 2019

Were involved in the raid that there were no american casualties and he thanked russia, iraq and the kurds in syria for cooperating. Not much is left of the compound where baghdadi was confirmed to be hiding out. Thats where the isis leader ran until he was cornered. He died after running into a dead end tunnel whimpering and crying and screaming all the way. He had dragged three of his Young Children with him. They were led to certain death. He reached the end of the tunnel as our dogs chased him down. He ignited his vest killing himself and the three children. His body was mutilated by the blast. This is one of the few images of baghdadi has seen. President trump told reporters today hes aware that others may come forward to take baghdadis place. To that he sate, quote, we have them in our sights. To the pentagon now, what more has emerged about how this military raid unfolded . Well, by all accounts, it appears that in the last couple of weeks the intelligence came together enough that by the end of last week they were able to go to the president and say we want to do this, we think we can do this and he approved it and that was the very key step to lead to the very to the end game of the final planning to put everything in place. It appears to be about 100 u. S. Troops landing in eight helicopters, some of the most elite highly trained u. S. Special forces. These are the troops that do these very difficult and dangerous raids against socalled high value targets, the terror targets, the terror personnel that are most wanted by the United States. They land they have a good solid techniques and procedures. They land at night under cover of darkness. They land with overwhelming fire power. It is a surprise to those on the ground when all of this suddenly appears in front of them and thats one of the key things for the u. S. Troops to keep themselves safe, surprise and overwhelming fire power. And there were only two minor injuries to u. S. Troops already returned thankfully to duty we are told. Have a listen to a little bit more of what President Trump had to say about it all. The level of intelligence, the level of work was pretty amazing. When we landed with eight helicopters, a large crew of brilliant fighters ran out of those helicopters and blew holes into the side of the building, not wanting to go through the main door because that was booby trapped and there was something it was something really amazing to see. I got to watch it along with general milli, Vice President pence, others in the situation room, and we watched it so clearly. So i think its important to say for the special forces that do this kind of work, theyve been doing it for the last 18 years in so many places around the world. In north africa, in yemen, iraq, afghanistan, syria. Again, very highly Trained Personnel that know how to conduct these missions. This time they of course got the target they were looking for. Now the question at hand of course, who else is out there . Are there other high value very significantitis, al qaeda or other terror personnel, other terror commanders in syria that the u. S. Wants to get, especially before President Trumps orders that eventually everyone will come out of syria, all u. S. Troops will come home. No indication of when thats going to happen but there may be other targets they want to get before it does. Okay. Thank you for that reporting. Lets go live now to the white house where the president says he watched this raid unfold. Cnn White House Correspondent Jeremy Diamond is there for us. What do we know about the timeline of President Trumps involvement . Well, the president did provide some pretty extraordinary details about all of this and it all began yesterday, saturday a typical saturday it appeared with the president hitting the golf course, something that he frequently does of course as we know. He returned to the white house around 4 30 p. M. But by 5 002 president said he was huddled in the situation with some of his Top National Security advisors. We can see that the president was flanked there by his Vice President , secretary of defense as well as his National Security advisor and some of his top military brass. Moments later after the president arrived in the situation room at 5 00 p. M. The president says that those eight helicopters carrying u. S. Special forces took off enroute to baghdadis compound, an hour and ten minute flight and its there that those u. S. Special forces cornered baghdadi where he ultimately ignited his suicide vest and the president of course described his final moments in quite graphic terms, very much insisting that baghdadi did not die a heroic death but died as a coward. It was only then after those u. S. Forces left the compound after retrieving some intelligence and making it back to the base where they had taken off from that the president tweeted that something very big had indeed happened. Now, despite all of those details, the power politics didnt actually notify some of the key congressional leaders before this mission actually took place. And the president insisting it was because he didnt want any of these operational details to leak. We were going to notify them last night but we decided not to do that because washington leaks like ive never seen before. Theres nothing theres no country in the world that leaks like we do. And washington is a leaking machine and i tell my people, we will not notify them until the our great people are out. Not just in, but out. Now, the president is not obligated to notify those congressional leaders but it is protocol and they have been notified in the past without any leaks including when bin laden was killed during that raid under president obama. Nancy pelosi and Chuck Schumer both said they were not notified. As for the republican top leaders Mitch Mcconnell and the House Minority leader, they declined to comment about whether or not they were notified by the white house. Thank you. Joining us now cnn military analyst mark hurtling and seen year fellow on the counsel on relations. Also the author of invisible armies. Good to have you with us. General, first to you, how big of a victory is this for the president . Theres a lot of strategic targeting packages that go on against key enemies of the United States. This is a big one. Baghdadi was a high value target at the strategic level. Special operators are used to going after these kind of individuals and most cases they are very successful on how they do it and what they do and what they can accomplish. But in this case, it is a psychological strike. Its very good. Its it is somewhat revenge because of all the things that baghd baghdadi did which the president recounted to a degree this morning in his presentation, but the thing thats most important, you know, the focus is on the special operators that conducted the operation, but the intelligence, cia, dia, other nations specifically iraq and the kurdish fighters were the ones that provided the Key Information which led to the tracking down of baghdadi and this has been going on, the attempt to get him has been going on for over five years and they got not only great intelligence but they also got lucky. Does it alleviate any of the concern of the u. S. Pulling out of syria and having those people on the ground especially when it comes to the concern of the power vacuum involving isis there. . No, i dont think so. And if you remember back about five years ago when the fight against isis first started, we had zero personnel in syria and the commanders on the scene were asked to go in there. General and a special Operation Command commander had a really, really tough mission to execute because they had no intelligence of the ground. You cant take the fighters in, the socalled pipe slingers until you get the intel to bush you in there. Theyve built a network of intelligence over the past five years that gives them this kind of information and leaving that area and baghdadi was certainly a high valued target but there are going to be a whole lot of other targets who have already taken his place. When you read the journal of isis, it will tell you there are already new leaders in place and this is going to continue. We obviously heard the president going into vivid detail about what happened and he somed to offer a rationale for doing that. Well, he died like a dog. He died like a coward. He was whimpering, screaming and crying and frankly, i think its something that should be brought out. So that his followers and all of these young kids that want to leave various countries including the United States, they should see how he died. He didnt die a hero. He died a coward. Max, isis was the main reason the u. S. Went into syria. Now the isis leader is dead. Does this sort of put a bow on the president s rationale for pulling troops out of syria . Might this go a long way to convincing the American People its time for those troops to leave, Mission Accomplished . People do take that perspective but i think it will be very shortsighted. Simply killing a terrorist leader does not necessarily kill the organization. Remember in 2016 a u. S. Drone strike killed the leader of the taliban and the taliban are as much of a threat as ever in afghanistan. Also remember in 2006, the u. S. Joint special Operations Command killed and did that eliminate alqaida in iraq . No it didnt. It transformed alqaida in iraq to an Islamic State and it became more powerful than ever and im quite worried that the details in syria right now isis still has Something Like 18,000 fighters between iraq and syria and theyre ramping up operations after theyre losing their cal fate. Now im worried about what is going to fight isis now that President Trump has decided to pull out most of our forces out of syria. The president made a comparison with the killing of bin laden. He became big with the world trade center. This is a man who built as he would like to call it, a country and was trying to do it again and i had not heard too much about his health. I heard stories about he may not have been in good health but he died in a ruthless vicious manner that i can tell you. General, the president s suggesting there this is an even bigger deal than what happened with bin laden. Whats your perspective on that . I dont see it that way. What ill tell you and ill reenforce what max said a little while ago. In my several years in combat we killed quite a few leaders of terrorist organizations and every time we killed one of them and it was a high value target another one would pop up later. This is an organization, these islamic extremist will continue to repopulate. The very fact that baghdadi killed himself with a suicide vest tells me everything i know. They still have the will and the desire to fight till the death and again, reading these magazines and the intelligence that comes out of this organization tells you they are still willing to fight anyone they can on the battlefield for their ideology. Just killing one or two people, it doesnt matter who they are. Baghdadi, bin laden, theres always someone to take their place until you kill the ideology and as max just said, isis, 2. 0 if you will, still has a lot of fighters and a lot of money and they can repopulate themselves and they are still a threat to human kind. Max, after everything weve heard and learned about this raid today, what are the biggest questions you have . About the raid itself . I dont have any huge questions about the raid. My question is about what is the u. S. Policy in syria. Because part of that President Trump went on and on, were keeping troops for the oil fields. That doesnt make any sense. Exon mobile is not going to want to take gas from the syrian governor. Whats the point of abandoning our you mentioned that several times. Sni were not going to steal syrian oil and ship it over here. We dont need it. Its probably illegal under national law. The policy doesnt make a lot of sense and the larger issue i have as i suggested earlier is s how are we going to keep isis at a resurgence and weve ended our Successful Partnership with the kurds and now you see the minority expanding its reach across and those are precisely the conditions that gave ride to the rise in the first place so i am concerned that President Trump does not have a plan Going Forward for eastern syria. Our withdrawal is destabling it and creating greater opportunities for an isis resurgence. Thank you both very much. Our breaking news continues on the raid that killed isis leader albaghdadi. President trump says this is bigger than the death of bin laden. Youre live in the cnn newsroom. Take in fragrance inspired by nature. With air wick essential mist. With kits starting at just ten dollars you can transform natural essential oils into mist at a price that is just right. Its not acceptabled or nothing. And its definitely not close enough or nothing. 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This picture was taken in the situation room as special forces closed in on baghdadi who was holed up in a compound near the turkish border. Senior political analyst joins us now. What kind of legacy defining moment was this for President Trump . Its interesting. I think this will rank high for the accomplishes for the president in office but i also dont think its going to rank very high when they ultimately write his obituary. I think the biggest impact, the biggest legacy impact of the president , like him or loathe him is his impact on american Race Relations and our broader political divisions and i find it hard to find anything he can do in history than the divides. It is an important moment but isis is not the threat that it was a few years ago. So in some ways this is kind of maybe nail the coffin shut or i dont know if thats the right analogy, but also it has never been quite the same in the american imagination as al qaeda for obvious reasons. It did not execute the largest attack on the american mainland ever. This is the biggest moment for him but i dont think its a defining moment for him. The Trump Campaign is fund raising off this. Your reaction to that. Well, you know, the whole process here as others have noted, is so different than what we have seen from previous president s. The language he used in describing it. The detail that he gave about it. The fact that he talked about viewing it in live, you know, live time real time on the video screens. All of this is kind of of a piece with the way he has approached the presidency, much less reserved, much less distanced. You know, much less a refusal to recognize many of the traditional constraints on the way the president talks and raising money off of it, but its really a continuation of what he saw from him this morning at that press conference. And donald trump even before he was president has downplayed obamas role in the death of bin laden. Lets listen to what he had to say. I keep hearing about bin laden. The military did an incredible job and they called him and said we have him and he said, go get him. Whats he going to say, dont get him . And he gets all this credit . Its a lot of crap. Do you think President Trump deserves credit for this operation . I think any president in office when Something Like this happens does but there is reporting already out tonight in the New York Times and elsewhere talking to senior officials in the intelligence and defense departments who say that the president s rather abrupt decision to withdraw from syria complicated rather than abetted this operation so theres going to be a lot of debate in the next couple of days, but more broadly about how these two things fit together, this is a powerful strike against isis, no question. On the other hand his decision to abandon the kurds wh

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