CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Senator James Risch on the Middle East

Interview

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BLITZER: Brian Todd, thanks very much.

Let's bring in Senator James Risch, Republican of Idaho. He's a leading member of the Foreign Relations and Intelligence Committees.

Senator, thanks for joining us.

Does the U.S. know right now how large Iran's actual military presence is in Syria?

SEN. JAMES RISCH (R), IDAHO: We do, Wolf, in certainly not specific terms, to the exact number, but we definitely know what it is.

This latest development, with this general being killed, I think underscores, and the takeaway from this is how committed Iran is to the battle in Syria. The pedigree that you just went through, this man had been around for a long, long time, was incredibly pivotal in just about every operation they have been involved in for decades. And for him to be in the middle of this and actually to the point where he was in harm's way tells you how committed Iran is to this battle.

BLITZER: And to bolstering the regime of Bashar al-Assad and to fighting ISIS at the same time. When you said the U.S. knows, are we talking about thousands of Iranian troops inside Syria right now, hundreds?

RISCH: You know, Wolf, I'm going to pass on that.

Obviously, those things are classified, but we have good sources being able to obtain those kind of numbers. And let me just say that it's very, very significant. The fact that this person was killed tells you just how significant it is. I think that's probably an indicator of what Iran has committed to this.

When they get the money that the president is going to release to them through the agreement that was just entered into, they are going to be able to up the ante even substantially more in Syria.

BLITZER: When the sanctions are lifted.

Does Iran's increased military presence in Syria benefit the U.S. and its allies, because it's also, among other things, fighting ISIS?

[18:10:04]

RISCH: Well, certainly, to some degree, but I would say it's de minimis when you compare the fact that the Russians, Syrians, the Iranians and Hezbollah, all of those groups have banded together to crush the opposition that's trying to unseat Bashar Assad.

That is the bigger component. That is the bigger objective of not only Iran, but the Lebanese, Hezbollah and the Russians and the Syrians. They want to protect Assad and keep him in power. That is their primary goal. ISIS certainly is there, but that isn't -- that isn't the goal.

BLITZER: The Pentagon announced today it's abandoning its training program for so-called moderate Syrian rebels. This is a failure. This whole program has been a failure from the beginning until now. Today, they acknowledge it. What do you do going forward?

RISCH: Well, first of all, I would say it's about time.

When they tried to do this in the first place, those of us who voted against it said this simply was not going to work. Those -- you don't need troops with training nearly as much as you need troops with commitment, troops that are willing to fight, troops that have a real, honest-to-goodness commitment to what they are doing.

We were told from the beginning that the people that the administration has chosen to side with and to press this fight supposedly against ISIS really didn't want to do that. They wanted to fight Assad. And whatever else happened, when they were done training, when they were done being given weapons, their focus was going to turn to Assad.

And indeed that happened in many, many, many cases. We wound up with one of the -- well, we had a very credible report that said a half-a- billion dollars resulted in four or five individuals on the battlefield. I mean, just piddling around the edges like they are doing here is not going to work.

BLITZER: Yes, they wanted to fight Bashar al-Assad. They didn't want to fight ISIS because ISIS was fighting was Bashar al-Assad at the same time.

Senator, stand by. We have more to discuss, including U.S. weapons, armored vehicles,

other equipment being provided to some of these so-called moderate rebels. What happens to those weapons? There is a disturbing new development.

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[18:17:21]

BLITZER: We're back with Senator James Risch.

Senator, as U.S. officials are suspending the troubled mission to train and equip moderate Syrian rebels to fight ISIS, they're also promising that the program will be overhauled.

Will this new approach by the Pentagon work?

RISCH: You know what, Wolf? I can't say.

We're having real difficulty with the administration. As you know, they have got a real disdain for the first branch of government. We can't get the secretary of state or anyone from the State Department to come into either the Intelligence Committee or the Foreign Relations Committee and explain where they are going, what is the strategy?

We can't get answers to that. And if you can't get answers to that, you really can't make judgments on whether it is going to work or not. There's a lot of disgusted people. And it is not just Republicans. It's people on both sides of the aisle, where the administration just absolutely refuses to come in, explain where they are going, how they are going to do it, what they need. We're just getting nothing.

BLITZER: Well, is the Pentagon, the military briefing the Armed Services Committee?

RISCH: They are.

But when you ask them about strategy, what they will do is, they say, well, that's policy. You're going to need to go higher up as far as policy is concerned.

We don't know what they are doing. This thing that started with the training and arming the so-called moderate opposition was met with a tremendous amount of skepticism. And that it didn't work really doesn't surprise anybody, but where are they going to go from here? You can't fight a war by piddling at it.

You either do or you don't. Now, either one of those decisions takes a tremendous amount of courage, but someone is going to have to stand up and articulate what is the policy, what is the position of the United States of America, because the people that the administration has chosen to back are getting run right over the top of right now by some tremendous war machines there in Syria.

And to give them small arms to fight this with, this isn't going anywhere. This is not going to last very long, the way it's going.

BLITZER: Here's the problem, though. If you give them big arms, if you them armored vehicles, tanks, stuff like that, given the past history, there is no doubt, in my mind, at least, that at least a lot of those weapons are going to wind up in the hands of ISIS or al-Nusra or some other terrorist group.

These guys, very often, they simply run away. We have seen it in Iraq. We have seen it in Afghanistan. We're seeing it in Syria.

[18:20:00]

RISCH: There's no question about it, Wolf. You're absolutely right on that.

What the people that the administration has chosen to back need more than anything is air cover. I don't know what happened in that meeting between the president and Putin or between Ash Carter and his counterpart or John Kerry and his counterpart.

All I know is, the Russians said, look, we're coming into -- and we're bringing airpower in and we're going to do things in Syria. And all I know is, our people apparently have been told to stay 20 miles away from it.

If you have got people on the ground that you want supported, you can't cut and run with your airpower and assume that they are going to prevail. It's not going to work. Somebody has got to come up with a strategy that we can all get behind and look like we are the power that we are.

BLITZER: And amidst all of this, Russia is continuing to carry out lots of airstrikes, cruise missile strikes, but some of those cruise missiles aren't very accurate, apparently. They are supposed to go into Syria. They went into Iran, we have been told.

What happens if they go into Israel or Jordan or someplace else?

RISCH: Well, that's a good question. Obviously, that would be a transactional decision that would have to be made.

Our military might is second to none into world, and not by a little bit, but by a tremendous amount. But it doesn't do you any good if the other side is convinced that you won't use it, and that's where we are right now.

BLITZER: Barbara Starr from the Pentagon reporting that the United States is now seeing new indications North Korea is preparing for a weapons test around the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Workers' Party in North Korea. It happens tomorrow.

You're a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Have you been briefed on this? What are the indicators?

RISCH: Well, of course I can't talk about what the indicators are. Yes, we have been briefed on this.

What I can say in a very general sense is that when these type of anniversaries happen, you can expect, as everyone has said, that there is going to be some type probably show of force by North Korea. And so it shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone when they actually do something. It's being watched very closely.

BLITZER: Is it just, though, symbolic or does it show an increasingly aggressive Kim Jong-un?

RISCH: Well, what has happened in the past with North Korea is they will push the envelope and do something that can be very provocative.

Then they back away for some period of time, and then what they do is they come back out and push the envelope again. The dangerousness of all of this is you don't know how far they are going to push the envelope, because, as we all know, on the Korean Peninsula and where they are located, they could make a miscalculation very easily that would be very costly to the world.

BLITZER: We're all going to be watching in the coming hours what the North Koreans are planning to do.

Senator Risch, thanks for joining us.

RISCH: You bet. Thank you.

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