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Military Strategy in Iraq; Racial Tensions in a Small Town; Imagine a World

Aired August 14, 2014 - 14:00   ET

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

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HALA GORANI, CNN HOST (voice-over): Tonight: as the U.N. declares a massive humanitarian emergency in Iraq, we ask, should the West be doing

more? My interview with the top former British commander.

And later in the program an explosion of racial tension in one American town after an unarmed black teenager is shot by police.

But are riot police controlling the situation or fueling people's anger?

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GORANI (voice-over): Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Hala Gorani. Christiane is off today.

The U.S. says it is scaling back its efforts in Northern Iraq after declaring that its airstrikes on Islamic militants there were a success.

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GORANI (voice-over): For days, thousands of Yazidi refugees have been trapped on a mountain in the north of Iraq by those militants, who've been

threatening to kill them, who've killed some of them in fact. Last night, American and British security forces went to the region to plan a high-risk

operation to airlift the Yazidis out.

But they found that many refugees have now been able to escape and those left behind were in a better condition, it was said, than expected,

thanks to the week-long humanitarian effort.

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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We broke the ISIL siege of Mt. Sinjar. We helped vulnerable people reach safety and we helped save

many innocent lives. Because of these efforts, we do not expect there to be an additional operation to evacuate people off the mountain. And it's

unlikely that we're going to need to continue humanitarian airdrops on the mountain.

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GORANI: The evacuation mission may be on hold for now but the crisis in Iraq is far from over. ISIS militants are continuing their rapid and

deadly advance just today they took three more towns near the northern city of Kirkuk. And right now they're locked in a battle with Kurdish forces

for control of a fourth town.

The U.N. is so concerned about the jihadist onslaught in Iraq that it has declared its highest level of emergency.

So is now the time for the West to ramp up its military support? Col. Tim Collins is a highly respected former British Army commander who's just

returned from Northern Iraq. He says the U.K. has a responsibility to do more. And he joins me now.

Thanks for being with us.

COL. TIM COLLINS, BRITISH ARMY (RET.): My pleasure.

GORANI: What do you mean, a responsibility? Many people in the West are saying Iraq again? We spent 10 years there. Why again?

COLLINS: Well, Britain helped -- well, Britain created Iraq in 1920 that did so between three groups and really outs on the Ottoman Empire, the

vilayet of Mosul, which is Kurdish, the vilayet of Baghdad, which is Sunni and the vilayet of the Basra, which was Shia.

The vilayetian lawyers after our intervention jointly with other forces, including the United States, has come unstuck. And it's hard to

say at this moment is there such a nation as Iraq because the Iraqi prime minister's writ really runs from Baghdad south on the Shia areas. He --

there is no Iraqi military anywhere near the fighting.

The closest is in the green zone. And there's a caliphate (ph). They have to -- the Islamic State have declared a caliphate (ph) which actually

spans its most easterly city is Mosul; its most westerly city is the outskirts of Aleppo. Its (INAUDIBLE) there's Deir ez-Zor and its capital

is Raqqa in Syria. And then of course you have the Kurdish regional government.

They're moving increasingly towards independence. They're going to have a plebiscite. It could become an independent --

(CROSSTALK)

GORANI: But what do you mean by responsibility? And what kind of intervention do you think would be effective? Because that's really the

important question here, airstrikes, boots on the ground, humanitarian drops, airlifts to evacuate refugees.

COLLINS: Well, I think on the one hand, there's a diplomatic effort needed with the rump (ph) of Iraq, to ask them to think about a more back

balanced country as ever they're going to come together and that may never happen.

In the north, the Kurds need three things. They need equipment; they need ammunition and they need training in order to match up to the very

well equipped Islamic State who inherited a lot of equipment, American latest equipment, from the Iraqi Army, who ran away and abandoned it,

because President Maliki or Prime Minister Maliki had purged the Iraqi Army of the American trained officers and with what officers and soldiers ran

and left the gear behind.

So the Kurds need to balance that up. And then finally somebody needs to be speaking to the Sunni tribes. The Sunni tribes have the ability to

eject Islamic state. That happened before --

(CROSSTALK)

GORANI: Now who's that somebody? Because we saw that in 2007 with the so-called Awakening, where you had these Iraqi Sunni tribal leaders

join with U.S. forces in rejecting the predecessor of ISIS and Al Qaeda --

(CROSSTALK)

GORANI: -- they did.

COLLINS: -- they probably did the majority of the fighting. But that was brokered by General John Allen, who was then the one-star deputy

expeditionary force commander. He went on to be the four-star ISAF commander. The tribes knew him. The tribes respect him. There's a

difficult message to be passed to the tribe. It's twofold.

It's, first of all, if we fight and spill our blood, will we get the same support the Kurds are getting if we fight IS?

And the second question is, what is the outcome if we defeat IS? Are we marching back into Maliki's spiral (ph) government, where we've become

second-class citizens? Are we going to better share government in Iraq?

And these are --

(CROSSTALK)

GORANI: But is that America's responsibility? Is that Britain's responsibility or should this be an Iraqi affair? Because in the end,

intervention creates such a domino effect, they don't have to --

(CROSSTALK)

COLLINS: -- anyone sees intervention per se. I think it's in terms of having a trusted international broker to talk to the tribes. But the

solution is within the area of the northeast, should we call it Iraq, because it spans into Syria. It's the caliphate state. It's the Kurdish

regional government and it's the sposhay (ph) area.

They don't want to hear from the central government in Baghdad. So it needs to be something from outside who they trust. It could be a Turkish

minister.

I don't think we -- Britain have anyone who the tribes would respect because they didn't have the same interface. I can't think of anyone else

in the United States, certainly in my service, working alongside the Marines at Anbar, which held many single like the respect John Allen is.

But I'm sure there is other generals -- John Kelly, perhaps, who was the commander of the follow-on force. But they need somebody about

stature, a John Kelly or a John Allen to talk to them, to tell them here's what's going to happen. And even if the answer is no, we're not

interested, at least they'll know where we stand.

GORANI: A mediator from the U.S. invasion force, do you think the Sunni tribal leaders are ready to listen again after having done what they

did in '07, in '08 and then having felt marginalized, excluded from power by the Maliki government?

Do you think there is that appetite?

COLLINS: Well, the alternative's to do nothing and I think that I -- what I would say is that we simply couldn't tolerate having a caliphate

because it was the Taliban state in Afghanistan, which we eventually ended up going to war with, was focused on a similar agenda, but not with outward

attack on the West, to stay the aim of the caliphate is to fight us all. The war will --

(CROSSTALK)

GORANI: So you think this isn't just the Middle East issue? This isn't just a problem for Iraq and Syria? It's a problem for Western

countries, this ISIS caliphate?

COLLINS: I think that ultimately Western diplomats would like this to be limited in the area. In their mind, they like to do nothing better than

nothing. And they want to do nothing. And that's what's going to happen.

GORANI: Or they're doing close to nothing.

COLLINS: Close to nothing.

But the reality is, when we look at the end of the First World War, when these nations were created, it's something happened to the north which

was significant. And that was a small group of people called the Bolsheviks took on the Russian -- the kingdom of -- or the empire of

Russia.

At that stage, against them were the White forces and the forces of the international community. And everyone said the Reds don't have a

chance. Well, they created the Union of Socialist Republics. This could happen again.

GORANI: Now one of the things in 2003 before when your forces, when you were commanding British forces in Iraq, is you gave this inspirational

speech that -- and there are, by the way, does it hang, did it ever hang in the Oval Office in the White House?

Because that was one of the things that was said about it, saying -- and the last line of which -- and I'm paraphrasing -- let's leave Iraq in a

better state that what we found it to be in right now.

When we -- when you look at Iraq today, do you think really was it worth it?

COLLINS: Well, currently, I think that whether we'd done that invasion or not, the state of affairs would exist anyway because of what

we've called the Arab Spring. It's the Arab revolutions. There would have been an uprising against the Ba'athist regime in the same way there was in

Syria.

So I think it would have happened anyway. And also remember, we started the -- where's the starting of history? Let's call it the crossing

the border in March of 2003. Is this the end? This may be only the middle. It may well be that we end up with a federal Iraq of Sunnis,

Kurds, Shia, with a minority Christians and Yazidis, Jews and Mandaeans, which is a fairer, better place than it's been.

So who knows. This may be growing and this could be part of the story. It's too early to say. We're only partway through the story.

GORANI: What will it take to defeat ISIS, not just contain it, but truly to seed it as a fighting force, A, and, B, are you surprised by how

far geographically they've established themselves and don't seem to be over stretched here?

COLLINS: ISIS can only be defeated by being rejected by Sunni and Muslims in the region. But the problem is Sunni Muslims in the region feel

very oppressed. They look at the regional countries. They're either dictators like Assad or Saddam Hussein or they look at some the royal

families that live there, live with great opulence. But they're not sharing that.

They look at countries like Egypt. They look at countries like -- these are the Sunni countries. Ninety percent of the Muslims in that

region are Sunnis. And they look at kind of like Gadhafi's regime. They look at the regime in Tunisia, in Egypt. They look at the instability in

Syria. Everything could -- countries are working hard to stay stable.

I'm sure tonight, even as we speak, the Saudis will be thinking about how this might affect them. Certainly the emirates will be a kingdom of

Jordan is under threat. The Lebanon itself was attacked, Lebanese soldiers were murdered. Not all the Sunni Muslims in the Lebanon are entirely on

the side of their army. That's the problem.

This is spreading like a cancer. It's spreading like communism.

GORANI: It's spreading like cancer, ISIS. That's a good way to put it, because when you see how it spreads, how it attaches itself to certain

territories and how helpless those who are its victims have been --

(CROSSTALK)

COLLINS: But one of the things I was going to emphasize is that they are like a cancer holding on to healthy cells. The healthy -- they're

hanging on to the population. And when we look at the people who have taken over Iraq, it's really a group of three people, three groups.

There's the jihadis themselves. And the cells are split down between hardened fighters and young kids who are bloodthirsty from the West, whose

minds have been corrupted by some evil creed.

Then there's the former regime elements. These are the well-trained former Ba'athists, military and technocrats, who can show them how to use

the equipment captured off the Americans. They've been to foreign staff quarters. They've been to their own colleges. They're very effective.

And then there's the mass of the Iraqi people, who are very tribal. And they do as they're -- generally speaking, as their tribal sheikhs say.

And at the moment, there's an opportunity.

But again, we have to look back at that -- at the Taliban in Afghanistan. They looked at the tribes in Afghanistan and they carefully

dismantled what we call Pashtunwali, the 2,000-year old tradition of the tribes in order that they could spread their creed. And they were

successful in that.

So I expect to see the Islamic state attacking tribal leaders, murdering tribal leaders. That's what they did in Anbar. That's what we

can expect to see here. That's what they're already doing in Syria. So this will be a fight against good against evil, quite simply.

GORANI: All right. Col. Tim Collins, thanks very much for coming on CNN. Appreciate your thoughts on this.

And while America tries to halt the violence in Iraq, these scenes are playing out in President Obama's own back yard. What are riot police using

tear gas and stun grenades in the American state of Missouri? We'll find out when we come back.

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GORANI: Welcome back. I'm Hala Gorani, sitting in for Christiane.

This was America last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GORANI (voice-over): Well, at least part of it.

Racial tension in Ferguson, Missouri, a town you've probably never heard of, but that's making headlines all across the country. It's a

suburb of St. Louis. It is running high, the tension there, after police shot an unarmed black teenager last Saturday.

Michael Brown was just two days away from starting college when he was walking to his grandmother's house with a friend. Witnesses say a police

officer confronted the two and after a short verbal dispute, shot Brown multiple times, even as he had his hands in the air.

Police dispute that account and say Brown assaulted the officer, whom they are not naming. As a result, the town has erupted.

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GORANI (voice-over): The police have taken to the streets in full riot gear, drawing attention to the increasingly militarization of

America's law enforcement and bringing into focus America's racial disparities and tension.

Two journalists were detained Wednesday night while sitting peacefully in a McDonald's restaurant. They were later released.

Ferguson is a town of just 21,000 people, whose population is nearly two-third black. But you wouldn't know it from Ferguson's leadership. Its

mayor and police chief are white and of its 53 police officers, just three are black.

Civil rights investigators at the Department of Justice are looking into the case, and even the president has been briefed on the matter.

Joining me now from Ferguson, Missouri, is Jamelle Bouie. He's coverage the case for "Slate," where he's a staff writer and he's written

some very interesting pieces on slate.com in the last 48 hours.

Jamelle, thanks for being with us. First of all, we here outside of the United States have been seeing photos and video of police officers that

look like they should be on the streets of Baghdad during the U.S. occupation of Iraq, not in a small Missouri town.

What's going on?

JAMELLE BOUIE, STAFF WRITER, "SLATE": So one thing you have to understand is that the last 20 years, Congress set a program that allows

police departments, local and state, to purchase military grade weaponry from the surplus. It's to get the surplus from the Pentagon.

What that means is that countless little small towns like Ferguson, countless small municipalities like Ferguson have -- they have tanks. They

have armored vehicles. They have mine-resistant vehicles. They have assault weapons. They have helicopters. They have sniper rifles. They

have a whole host of equipment that is really more appropriate for a war zone than it is for a small town policing.

GORANI: And what impact is this having in an already very tense situation like the one unfolding in Ferguson?

BOUIE: So what I think it does -- and this is my observation looking at yesterday's events -- is that when there are just regular police who

have their riot shields and stun batons, like the usually equipment, there's some tension. But it's not exacerbated.

When you bring in the armored cars and you bring in the rifles, I sat and watched snipers from the top of armored cars, train their sights on

demonstrators. When that happens and when people see it happen, it agitates them. Completely reasonably. I don't think there's anyone really

who could experience and not come away from it a little shaken.

And what it does is agitates and makes people less likely to listen, make people want to confront and then it leads to situations where the

police feel like they have to use tear gas and use rubber bullets, which is a completely disproportionate response to what was a very peaceful

demonstration.

GORANI: And some of the things we've been seeing circulated, especially on social media, among other things, video of a "Washington

Post" journalist being confronted by a man in full body armor and a helmet inside a McDonald's. It's a pretty surreal scene.

And then we had a gas canister, tear gas canister fall at the feet of an Al Jazeera America team as well.

What's going on with journalists? There seems to be a lot of tension there between security forces and reporters.

BOUIE: Yes. The St. Louis County Police, who are the ones bringing in the SWAT teams, once they begin the crackdown, they get very nervous

about journalists being there -- and for good reason. And so but the two reporters of the "Huffington Post" and "The Washington Post" reporters who

were arrested yesterday, that was them finding, clearing out as many cameras and as many observers as they could. Likewise, they began marching

down the street where Brown was killed, they began telling everyone , reporters included, to get out of the area. They began asking for people

to turn off their cameras and their camcorders.

Whatever it is about the St. Louis County Police Department -- and I don't know what has created this dynamic -- they feel, they believe that

they have crack down on everyone, media included.

GORANI: What -- now this case, of course, as the Trayvon Martin case did before it, highlights this racial tension issue in so many parts of

America, where especially young black men feel they are targeted by police, that they are profiled by police as well.

Is this what's behind so much anger in this particular case in the U.S.?

BOUIE: You know, I think it explains quite a bit of it. I mean, you -- places like St. Louis County and St. Louis City are very segregated.

St. Louis is one of the most segregated areas in the country. What segregation means in today's America is that you have communities that are

cut off from resources, cut out from jobs, cut off from opportunities and then also are subject to an unbelievable amount of policing.

I've talked to quite a few young men here who say that on an average month they're stopped five, six, seven, eight times by the police, which is

just incredible when you think that most people in a year will never have any interaction, period, with the police.

And so when you add all these frustrations together, when something like the Michael Brown killing happens, which is to many of the residents,

you know, just an atrocity, you can have an explosion of anger like you've seen here.

GORANI: And I know that it's difficult to express in a sound bite, obviously. But how do you begin to tackle this problem?

(LAUGHTER)

GORANI: How do you begin to tackle this problem of black people, either minorities -- I mean, it happens in Europe with Arabs in certain

parts of Europe, et cetera, where they say we're just profiled. We're not given the chance to be individuals. How do you begin to fix that in

America?

BOUIE: That is a very tough question. I think one part of it is making sure that everyone is a stakeholder in their community. And one of

the things to come across in your reporting here is that there are many people of color in Ferguson, in St. Louis. You don't feel like they are

stakeholders, who don't feel like the police are there to protect them; rather, they feel that the police are there to protect others from them.

So I think the first and foremost is there needs to be representation and needs to be a sense that everyone is in this together for anything to

move forward. Because long as that's not the case, where people don't feel that's the case, you're going to have anger and discontent.

GORANI: And quickly is the expectation more demonstrations, more anger? What's the situation now?

BOUIE: Well, right now, behind us at the police department, there is a demonstration happening. It's expected that there's going to be another

demonstration on the street where Brown was killed. You know, I would expect there to be a lot more activity going on here in the next few days.

GORANI: All right. Jamelle Bouie in Ferguson, Missouri, a staff writer for "Slate," thanks very much for joining us on CNN today.

Appreciate it.

And while social media has been a factor in giving voice to the young, the black community in Ferguson, the dangers of Twitter were exposed once

again today, when none other than the prime minister of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, was hacked. The prime minister shocked the world when he tweeted

from his official account, "I am resigning. I am embarrassed by the actions of the government. Forgive me."

As the tweets went on, it became more obvious that something was awry, including this tweet, where he said, "We will think about banning

electricity." The tweets remained live for half an hour until his office confirmed it was a hack and he was not stepping down. And when we come

back, someone else on the world stage who's no stranger to social media, the pope was one of 4 million Twitter followers. Well, he's in Korea.

We'll look at the kind of welcome he had after this.

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GORANI: Welcome back.

It's fair to say that His Holiness the Pope got a mixed welcome on his official visit to Korea. While his reception in the south was warm and

enthusiastic, indeed there are almost 5.5 million Catholics there, Kim Jong-un was less effusive. North Korea fired two missiles off the eastern

coast as the pope's plane approached South Korean airspace.

Pope Francis delivered a message of hope on arrival, saying, quote, "Peace can be won through quiet listening and dialogue," unquote. The

North Koreans conducted another missile test that afternoon.

Despite the rockets in the air, there were some signs of detente in the region. Traditionally the pope sends a telegram to the head of every

state his plane carries over. The pontiff's plane has always had to avoid Chinese airspace before, as there are no official relations between the

Communist government and the Vatican.

But this time the plane was allowed to pass over. And Pope Francis telegraphed to the divine blessings of peace and well-being on the nation

on his way.

North Korea rejected an invitation for 10 North Korean Catholics to attend a reconciliation mass in Seoul on Monday. But perhaps something as

small as a telegram message is evidence that change is possible even in the most difficult of circumstances.

That's going to do it for our program tonight. And remember you can always contact our website, amanpour.com, and follow me on Twitter,

@HalaGorani. Thanks for watching and goodbye from London.

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