CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Islamic State Strategy
Interview
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Let's go in depth now on all of this. Joining us is Senator Angus King of Maine. He's the independent senator who serves on both the Intelligence and Armed Services Committees.
Thanks very much, Senator King, for joining us.
SEN. ANGUS KING (I-ME), ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: Thank you, Wolf.
BLITZER: What -- have you heard anything?
Do you know if they at least wounded this guy?
Is he alive?
Is he dead?
KING: I've checked what intelligence sources I have and I hate to tell you, no confirmation either way. I think it's very unclear. I think most of the intelligence that we have now is coming from Iraqi sources. And there's no confirmation from our side as to what the impact of the strikes were.
BLITZER: Those Iraqi sources sometimes can be good. But very often, they can be pretty bad.
KING: Sometimes they have their own motives and motivations...
BLITZER: Yes.
KING: -- so you can't -- you can't always tell. You certainly can't take it to the bank.
BLITZER: If, in fact, he were at least injured, how big of a deal would that be, because you heard Brian Todd report there are a whole bunch of others waiting in the wings that could step up?
KING: Well, you've got to remember that the president's strategy here started out degrade and destroy. Degrade -- part of degrade is weapons, tanks, trucks, all of those kinds of things. But it's also leadership. I think it would be a blow.
Baghdadi traces his lineage back to the Prophet. He is not only a military leader, but he is a symbolic religious leader. And I think whenever you degrade the leadership of any organization, it's going to have an impact.
Now, as your correspondent said, there's a bench and there will be changes. But I think it could be an important step.
BLITZER: Because ISIS, you know, you've got to remember, is not just a bunch of, you know, terrorists. Many of the top leaders are military guys. They were generals, majors, colonels in Saddam Hussein's military. For whatever reason, they bolted and now joined ISIS, so they're pretty disciplined, pretty experienced.
KING: That's right. This is not a ragtag group. This is a serious, disciplined military operation. No other way they could have had the success that they've had.
But I think it's significant they really have stalled. Now, you know, this business in Anbar, as you mentioned, is critically important, because that's the approach to Baghdad.
We've stalled them. We and the coalition have stalled them throughout Iraq.
But whether they're able to mount an offensive toward Baghdad is really the great unanswered question.
BLITZER: And 80 percent of the Anbar Province -- and it's not far from Baghdad, the capital -- is now controlled by ISIS. And all of a sudden, the Pentagon today, as you heard Barbara Starr report, 50 U.S. troops, they are now there at an air base in the Anbar Province. This is a dangerous area.
KING: It's a very dangerous area. And that's why the crucial -- there are two crucial pieces of this, other than our air power. And that is whether this is a real coalition and whether we have the support of Arab states in the region. I think we do. That's an important step.
But secondly, whether the new government in Baghdad is inclusive and can reach out to the Sunni majority in those regions in Northern and Western Iraq. If they can't, this is a fool's errand, Wolf. It's not going to happen, because it's going to take retaking those Sunni areas and that's only going to happen if the indigenous population changes their loyalty.
BLITZER: The U.S. taxpayers, from 2003 until the U.S. pulled out of Iraq at the end of 2011, spent tens of billions of dollars arming, training, equipping the Iraqi military.
ISIS comes in. They leave those weapons.
KING: Yes.
BLITZER: They run away.
What makes the U.S. believe that the training, equipping and arming of the Iraqi military now, and the deployment of all these U.S. military, quote, "advisers," starting with 200, then 500, then 1,500, now 3,000, not just in Baghdad, not just in Mosul, but now, in Anbar, what makes the U.S. believe the outcome is going to be any different this time? KING: I think the only basis for it is that we have no other options, that we've got to work with this army and that they have to step forward. And there are units -- remember when the president sent about 1,000 troops over there four or five months ago, that was essentially an intelligence operation to determine the capacity of what was left of the Iraqi Army.
The other piece of this is the Peshmerga, the Kurds' Army, which is holding its own and which is a powerful force. This war cannot be won by airpower. No war ever is. It's got to be won on the ground.
But I think I speak for the Congress and many people in America, they're not going to be American boots on the ground. These have to be Iraqi boots.
BLITZER: Well, when Americans hear that -- and you know this, Senator, there are now going to be 3,000 American troops in Iraq.
KING: Right.
BLITZER: They'll -- these are all going to be on the ground and they're all going to be wearing boots. And this is a pretty dangerous area. They're going to be -- they're going to need protection.
KING: Sure.
BLITZER: They're going to go out there and they're going to be fully armed. And you know what, and I hate to think about this, but there are going to be casualties, probably sooner rather than later.
Is the American public ready for that?
KING: Well, I think it's going to be a problem, because I think there has been representations that this was going to be sort of clean and people hear what they want to hear, as airpower is going to take care of it. It's not going to take care of it. And the real question, as you say, is how much in harm's way are these troops in and what is going to be their mission?
If it is, in fact, train and do intelligence, then it's -- the brunt of the fighting, the door-to-door work is going to have to be done by the Iraqi Army.
BLITZER: And so when the critics say this is mission creep and they draw parallels to what the U.S. went through in the '60s in Vietnam, you say?
KING: I say that's a valid question. That's why Congress has to debate this and talk about what the authorization is that the president has to wage this war.
BLITZER: Well, Congress has been on vacation for the last two weeks.
KING: Yes, and you're right. And we should have done it in September. I'm hoping we're going to do it in the next two months. I heard today that they said, well, maybe it will happen in January. That's too late.
My view is, along with a lot of other members of Congress of both parties, is that is a responsibility that Congress has to define what our mission is, to define what our exit strategy is and to limit what the president is authorized to do. Otherwise, we've simply turned over that power to the president. And I think that's wrong.
BLITZER: And the fact that the Republicans will be in the majority in the next U.S. Senate, John McCain, presumably, will be chairman of the Armed Services Committee. He's a hawk. There's a whole bunch of other hawks.
What impact will that have on the overall war against ISIS in Iraq and Syria?
KING: Well, that's the question, because we can have broad agreement that there should be a new authorization that defines the mission. The question, though, is, you're going to have some people -- McCain, probably, and Lindsey Graham and others, who are going to say say it should be broadly defined with a lot of authority. Tim Kaine of Virginia and others are going to say, no, it should be more narrowly limited in time and scope.
So it's one thing to say we're going to have an authorization.
The next hard question is going to be, what does it consist of?
I think it's up to the president to step forward and say this is the authorization that I think I need. And then we will do our constitutional duty to analyze that...
BLITZER: You know, Senator...
KING: And come up with an answer.
BLITZER: -- the president says he doesn't need any more authorization. He says he has it.
KING: He changed that over the weekend. It was very interesting. Over the weekend, he made a statement. He's been saying, I don't need it, but I would welcome it. Over the weekend, he said, I want it and I need it.
And so I think there's a slight difference in the White House position.
We're going to end up, hopefully, with a serious debate about this. That's what we ought to be doing.
BLITZER: All right, I want you to stand by.
We have more questions, Senator King, including Iran -- Iran's role in what's going on in Iraq and Syria.
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BLITZER: We're continuing to follow the breaking news. Iraqi state television is now reporting an aide to the ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi, has been killed in that air strike near the city of Fallujah. That's in the Anbar province. Iraq also says an air strike wounded al-Baghdadi. U.S. officials say they have no confirmation of that. They're continuing to investigate.
We're back with Senator Angus King, the independent senator from the state of Maine, who serves on both the intelligence and armed service committee.
This whole Iranian connection to this government in Baghdad, it worries a lot of U.S. officials, because they think this new government in Baghdad is so closely aligned with Iran, it doesn't make any difference how much the U.S. gets involved. In the end, the Shiite-led government in Baghdad will be partners with the Shiite-led regime in Iran.
KING: If it turns out to be a purely Shiite government and a dominant Shiite government, and they're not inclusive of the Sunnis, it's lost. Because that's one of the preconditions for anything working over there.
The -- one of the -- the seeds of this problem were sown by Maliki, who excluded the Sunnis, discriminated against the Sunnis. And so when ISIS came to town, they said, "OK, we'll throw in our lot with these guys. At least they're Sunnis." And if it's going to turn around, that government has to be inclusive. And it's not in their nature. They -- you know, they're having -- this is a 600-, 800-year- old fight going on. But they're going to have to open up. They're going to have to channel their inner Mandela here to make this thing work.
BLITZER: And you think this new government in Baghdad is ready to end what you point out, 600 or 800 years of hatred between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq, that they're going to be able to deal with them?
KING: They've got to find some way to make it work. They've got to find -- I don't think they're going to be able to settle the dispute by any manner of means. But I think they've got to find some way to live together. And it may be some kind of federal system, where the areas of the country that -- where the Kurds are, where the Sunnis are, have more rights, more autonomy. And then you don't have this kind of creation of an artificial country. That's one of the problems.
As you know, Iraq was created at the end of World War I, but a British diplomat drawing a line on a map. It doesn't represent a natural kind of inclusion of peoples. And I think some kind of federal system is what is going to end up as the result. BLITZER: Joe Biden, when he was a U.S. senator, he supported that a
while ago. But obviously, it's come back right now, given the problems going on. Senator King, thanks very much for joining us.
KING: Thanks, Wolf.
BLITZER: Angus King is the independent senator from the state of Maine.
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