CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Senator James Risch

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

BLITZER: They certainly do. All right, Jim Sciutto, thanks very much.

Joining us now is Republican Senator James Risch of Idaho. He's a leading member of both the Intelligence and Foreign Relations Committees.

Senator, thanks very much for joining us.

I want to talk about Jim's reporting in a moment, but first the NTSB, the National Transportation Safety Board, supposedly, they're on standby to go to Egypt to get involved directly in this investigation and they haven't left yet. What is the U.S. able to do, for example, if they are not given direct access to the crash site?

SEN. JAMES RISCH (R), IDAHO: Probably not much, Wolf.

It is obviously land that's under a sovereign. And there's probably not much we can do about it. But, look, Egypt is an ally of ours. They have been a good friend of ours over the years. We have worked together on a lot of things.

And you have to give Egypt credit. They have been remarkably successful in keeping a lid on the Sinai for over 30 years, a very dangerous piece of ground between Israel and Egypt. And so we want to work with them.

I suspect they want to work with us. But, look, just like us, they have interests. And one of their interests is that they take in a lot of money from tourists that come to Egypt. And it's in their best interests to see that it wasn't a terrorist act that brought this plane down.

Look, it's really important that we put this facade aside. Everybody knows what brought this plane down. Everybody is saying, oh, let's take our time and what have you. There isn't a shred of evidence or a scintilla of evidence to point to anything except a terrorist attack and a bomb on that airplane.

And now why all I saying that we need to move this on? It's a dangerous situation if we don't admit that we have a soft "Spotlight", and we do have a soft spot and it's the backdoor. The people who are in the know on this know that this bomb was not brought through the front door of the airport.

And as a result of that, everyone needs to focus on the backdoor. In the United States, we have about -- in the hundreds of thousands of people that have access to the backdoor. That includes baggage handlers. It includes people that work in the concessions. It includes people who deliver supplies to the concessions.

And the U.S. isn't as much of a problem as when you go to countries that have large populations of radical Islamists who want to hurt people. And this needs to be -- people need to admit what happened here. We need to admit that we got a problem. We need to admit that there is a weak link in the chain. And we need to do something about it.

The front door has been closed. There is no question about it. But just closing the front door isn't good enough, as we have just learned.

BLITZER: When I spoke to the Egyptian foreign minister 24 hours ago, Sameh Shoukry, he seemed frustrated that the U.S. was not sharing intelligence with Egypt, at least not yet. Why would that be?

RISCH: Wolf, there are a number of intelligence agencies, as you know. There is a protocol for doing this. And I probably ought not go into

that.

[18:10:00]

But I think it is important that there is some sharing here. Part of it has to do with how you come by information. When you share some information, sometimes, that discloses how you came by it and that can be compromising.

So we will get through this, I'm sure, but the Egyptians have a lot of information right now and it's time that they step forward and said that what all things point to. They can reserve some amount of uncertainty if they want, but, look, we need to move this thing forward and we need to all put our heads together and say we got to work on this soft spot.

BLITZER: Senator Richard Burr, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, a man you know well, he told me that he would expect Russia to retaliate for this attack maybe in the next day or two. What are you expecting to see from Russia?

RISCH: Well, you know, that's a really good observation from Richard. He and I and a lot of others have been talking about, what is Russia going to do?

Russia last night, as you know, suspended all flights into Egypt for six months. That tells you that they know what everybody else knows. And given that, and knowing Putin, I don't think he's going to back away from this. I think he's going to ratchet up, rather than ratchet down. And I think that those people in the Sinai who are responsible for this are probably thinking about where is the biggest rock they can get under.

BLITZER: Are you suggesting that the Russians are going to directly go after ISIS in Sinai or ISIS targets, let's say, in Syria?

RISCH: I would not be surprised to see the Russians retaliate in just about any fashion.

Obviously, they work with the Egyptians. And they wouldn't do anything, obviously, without coordination with the Egyptians. But should that happen, it's not going to surprise me. As we all know, Putin is ruthless. He doesn't dither. I suspect right now he's looking at what his options are together with the people that he trusts and the people who he takes advice from, and they are making some decisions as to what's going to go forward.

I think ISIS is -- ISIS has awoken the Russians to something that they haven't been awoken to before.

BLITZER: Yes, I suspect you're right. Richard Burr, the chairman of your Intelligence Committee, I think he totally agrees. Let's see what the Russians do in the next 24 to 48 hours.

Stand by, Senator. We have much more to discuss. We're getting more information on what is going on. We will take a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:17:44]

BLITZER: We're back with Senator James Risch. He's a leading member of the Intelligence and Foreign Relations Committee, as U.S. intelligence agents pore over possible clues about that Russian airline disaster.

Senator, as you know, the U.S., Russia, Iran, the Saudis, a whole bunch of countries, they met in Vienna last week to try to coordinate some strategy in dealing with the future of Syria.

Here is the question. Should the U.S. and Russia be directly coordinating their military strategy to try to destroy ISIS?

RISCH: Well, they probably should, but that really is unlikely.

At least, it was, until that Russian plane was brought down. The Russians may now come to the realization that ISIS is a really serious problem for them, particularly now that they have entangled themselves in the Syrian mess. They should. Whether they will or not, we do have understandings and there are protocols as far as what they call deconfliction with the aircraft flying there.

They are, I think, satisfactory as far as keeping the planes from each other. They are not satisfactory as far as what is happening on the ground, in my judgment.

BLITZER: Take a look at this graphic showing what you have called the tangled web in the fight for Syria's future. And it's very, very tangled.

How does this particular graphic show how complicated this fight really is?

RISCH: Well, first of all, credit where credit is due. We use this as a worksheet as we have in front of us when we talk about these various things.

This was produced by actually Senator Dan Coats and his staff as we all try to wrestle with this. You come away from these meetings and your head is just swimming over trying to get a handle when we're talking about one of these particular lines that's on this graphic. Sometimes, it's maybe two or three lines.

I know this doesn't sound right, but the graphic is really oversimplified. There are 16 entities on there. There should be another 200 or so on there that's a combination of ethnic, religious and tribal groups that are also involved one way or another with these entities and with each other.

In addition to that, what we use in front of us -- and I couldn't bring them along because they are top secret documents, but we get maps regularly, and it shows how fragmented the country is. And the maps are multicolored. And they show who controls what, either by themselves or together with somebody else.

[18:20:07]

And when you see all this, you walk away saying you can't solve this problem. It is insoluble. I think what we're going to have to continue to focus on, though, is ISIS, because we know ISIS is a group that is very dangerous to the United States. It can cause us great harm.

It's a group that can reach out and bring down airlines, as we have seen in recent days. And as a result of that, we have got to keep the pressure on. That's all done with the background of what we're trying to understand here.

Now, the Russians leaked today -- I think it was early this morning, maybe last evening -- they leaked this so-called plan that came out of Vienna last week that talks about bringing together all the groups and having elections in 18 months.

Wolf, that's delusional.

BLITZER: Yes.

RISCH: When you look at this and you look at the fact that there are millions of people that have fled Syria and are living in refugee camps in Turkey and in Jordan and other places, you look at millions that have been displaced that are still in Syria, but displaced from their homes, and they're talking about elections?

BLITZER: Yes.

RISCH: It is just flat delusional

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: Eleven million displaced -- 11 million, Senator, four million externally, seven million internally. Elections, that seems pretty farfetched, indeed. We're out of time. But, very quickly, I just want to button up

the headline I'm hearing from Senator Richard Burr, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, yesterday, from you, another member of the Intelligence Committee today, that you're bracing for a very tough Russian response against ISIS in the next day or two. Is that right?

RISCH: You know, Wolf, I'm not going to go so far as to say a day or two.

But I will be very surprised if Russia doesn't respond to this and respond very clearly and with great force.

BLITZER: I think you're right. I think they are getting ready to respond. And you're not ruling out that response could even be directly in Sinai?

RISCH: It could be.

BLITZER: Thanks very much, Senator, for joining us, James Risch of Idaho.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source