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Amanpour

Interview with Prime Minister of Iraq; Interview with Bill and Melinda Gates; Imagine a World

Aired January 22, 2015 - 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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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST (voice-over): The Yemeni president and his government resign, raising fears Al Qaeda will exploit the instability.

But tonight the Iraqi prime minister tells me rival militant group ISIS is being pushed back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HAIDER AL-ABADI, IRAQI PRIME MINISTER: If we are talking about omitting (ph) Daish from the face of the Earth, I think that will take a

long time. But if we are talking about pushing out of Iraq, that can take months.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR (voice-over): And the philanthropic power couple, Bill and Melinda Gates, on their hope for a major breakthrough in fighting child

mortality.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MELINDA GATES, CO-CHAIR OF THE BILL & MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION: We've brought down child mortality. We've cut it in half and we'll have 25

years. That's incredible. If we focus on it, yet again, you can cut that childhood death down again in the next 15 years by half if you give kids an

education.

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AMANPOUR: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London, where foreign leaders and ministers are

meeting to map their way forward in the fight against ISIS. My guest tonight, the Iraqi prime minister. Four months after taking office he says

his forces and the international coalition are reversing the onslaught. The U.S. says it believes more than 6,000 ISIS fighters have been killed in

Iraq and Syria since the airstrikes began, including half the top command.

At a press conference this afternoon, the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry outlined continued support from the alliance.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: Coalition training and advising efforts in Iraq are underway and ramping up with the goal of ultimately

raising 12 new Iraqi brigades. And this spring we're going to begin training for the Syrian opposition forces at camps in Saudi Arabia, Turkey

and Qatar.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): But the coalition and the Iraqi government disagree on the pace of the fight. The British foreign secretary today

said it could take a year or two to push ISIS out of Iraq because the army isn't ready yet. But when I met the Iraqi prime minister, Haider al-Abadi,

at the British foreign office today, he told me his country could push ISIS out in a matter of months.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Prime Minister, welcome back to our program.

AL-ABADI: Thank you very much.

AMANPOUR: The last time we met was five months ago, September, and ISIS was in full swing. And you were very concerned and you are the savior

prime minister.

Do you believe that in those interim months you've been able to make any difference?

AL-ABADI: Yes, I think so. I think the reverses of Daish has been -- or the (INAUDIBLE) of Daish has been reversed; not fully. But they're

being reversed, is in the opposite (ph) Daish and now that's very important. I think we have made a change in the (INAUDIBLE) social

atmosphere in the country. I can assure you that our government has more support and there's a certain landslide on some politicians from these

areas because we have given an outreach during these months to these areas because, in our opinion, these areas cannot be liberated without the people

of these areas taking part in the fight against Daish. And they are taking part now.

AMANPOUR: There was a disagreement between the Iraqi government and your international partners about when to take back territory.

When are you going to take back Mosul?

AL-ABADI: It is not disagreement as such. It's become timetables. Everyone has got his own timetable; of course, it's due to logistics and

priorities. This is important that everyone matches the Iraqi timetable rather than their own.

AMANPOUR: So what is the Iraqi timetable? Because today your British counterpart, secretary -- Foreign Secretary Hammond, has said it could take

one to two years to push ISIS back and that your forces will not be ready for months to even start.

AL-ABADI: Well, I think we are talking about two different things. Now if we are talking about omitting Daish from the face of the Earth, I

think that will take a long time. But if we are talking about pushing out of Iraq, that can take months. I think we have the capability now within

the support from the international coalition. I have to be very blunt about this. We need this support. The support is essential. The fact

that the whole world is standing with us is very important for our own public, for our own soldiers who are the only country who has soldiers on

the ground who are fighting Daish. And it is important to the moral support for our soldiers.

AMANPOUR: How much more support? Because you've got airstrikes; you've got foreign forces on the ground in terms of advisers and trainers.

Presumably you're getting more arms and other such necessary things.

AL-ABADI: There was a very slow start in the first few months, but over the last month, I have seen a speedup because we have called for more

support. There has been a speedup on these deliveries. I can see there is a consistency of the air campaign against Daish. There has been an

increase of this bombing of Daish locations. There has been a very well liaised and continuation between our ground forces and the air cover, which

is provided for our armed forces.

I think now that the -- this cooperation is very good. I think it's taking off. My presence here in London is to consolidate this. We want to

consolidate and to match the two timetables together.

AMANPOUR: Tell me about the Mosul liberation battalions.

AL-ABADI: Well, this battalion has been already formed. There is a leadership. I've appointed a commander for that and (INAUDIBLE) for him.

I have located the force of our sources for them to work together. And I think they're doing a great job.

A, they are recruiting locals from the area and I think there is eagerness from the locals to join us. We have to be very careful, of

course, because we don't want a massacre to take place in our world. We're not ready. We have -- everything must move together when we are ready,

when that all is controlled, when we have (INAUDIBLE) in place so that we can have the final (INAUDIBLE) Daish in Mosul.

It may happen very swiftly and very quickly as we see this in many areas, where we have prepared for a long fight and it took only two days

for us to finish that fight.

AMANPOUR: Obviously one of the great hopes that everybody put into you was that you would be different from your predecessor. You would be

less divisive, less sectarian and much more inclusive. Now many say that you've made an incredibly good start. Surely the very unity of Iraq

depends on Sunni outreach.

AL-ABADI: Well, I agree. I think a Sunni outreach, Kurdish outreach, Shia outreach, as I say, we shouldn't polarize our society. We want to be

very careful here. I think we have made a very bold outreach in the last four months towards very successful (INAUDIBLE) are great. It will not be

soon. It takes some time.

But we have made the change on the ground. A lot of the fighters in Anbar are fighting with Iraqi security forces. Iraqi security forces, they

feel at home when they are in Anbar at the moment, not this is unlike a year ago.

AMANPOUR: What is your view of what seems to be now the new Western policy towards Syria because we're hearing that maybe it's not so much

Assad must go; it's Assad must go maybe at some point in the future.

How does that affect the problems in your country?

How can there be a fight against ISIS if it's not stopped in Syria as well?

AL-ABADI: Well, I think there is a bombing campaign in Syria against Daish positions, which is weakening the organization. And we are happy

with that for a simple reason, because Daish in Syria, Daish in Iraq is the same. They are crossing the borders. They're bringing in reinforcements

every time we hit them here.

And I think hitting Daish in Syria is important. Having said that, what will happen after we kick Daish out of Iraq? What will happen in

Syria next? Will Daish remain there? What happens if Daish is broken in Syria? Will another terrorist organization takes over? I think this is a

major issue which has to be solved. We're very eager to find (INAUDIBLE) solution for Syrian crisis.

AMANPOUR: So you think that leaving Assad there for a while, having a transition that includes him, that doesn't exclude him, is OK?

AL-ABADI: In our opinion, we have to make it easier for the Syrian people to choose a regime which is more representative. The current crisis

in Syria doesn't make it easier. It makes it worse. And the only way to do it not for arming some other groups in Syria, not to make the flow of

arms easier for Syria, because that will only contribute to the continuation of the infighting in Syria, but to find a political solution.

I can see because some countries have solidly supported the -- what's happening in Syria at the moment, is very hard for them to climb down. But

I think we have to be brave enough to come forward and we must work together to find a solution (INAUDIBLE). We in Iraq, we are working

towards that because it's in our own interest and Syria's a neighboring country. I think it's very hard for us to see Syria disintegrate and the

population of Syria subjected to so much misery.

AMANPOUR: How much has the fall in oil prices hurt your attempts to raise the army, you know, meet your budget requirements, et cetera?

And are you actually going to be pumping out more oil as one of your deputy prime ministers said in Davos this week?

AL-ABADI: We're trying. I think it's catastrophic, to be honest with you, by all accounts. The price of oil we had been selling it for this

month is 40 percent of what we are selling it before. And if you remember that our budget relies 85 percent on oil, you can see the disaster we are

facing.

And this is normal economy at the moment. Large part of our resources are going to the war. This is an ongoing war and you know what war is,

it's consuming a lot of our resources, a lot of our budget. So for this war to continue on, we have to continue with this war. We need a lot of

support from international community.

I mean, one of the reasons I'm here is to gather the support from the international coalition to support Iraq to keep its fight and to keep its

people. The minimum services must be there and the minimum which (INAUDIBLE) to our public must be there. At the moment, we cannot supply

this minimum.

AMANPOUR: Prime Minister, thank you very much indeed for joining me.

AL-ABADI: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And after a break, from saving Iraq to saving the world. Now everyone knows that Bill Gates has deep philanthropic pockets and a

mind faster than a speeding bullet. But who knew he could leap over a chair in a single bound? CBS News witnessed his youthful exuberance 20

years ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CONNIE CHUNG, CBS NEWS HOST: Is it true that you can leap over a chair from a standing position?

BILL GATES, BUSINESS MAGNATE, PHILANTHROPIST, INVESTOR, COMPUTER PROGRAMMER AND INVENTOR: It depends on the size of the chair, but I'll

cheat a little bit.

CHUNG: Yes!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Ah, we just couldn't resist because all these years later, the energy of Bill and Melinda Gates has gone into their foundation,

tackling health and education and poverty around the world. They tell me about their next 15-year agenda after a break.

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program. He is the richest man in the world, known as much for the amount of money he has as for the amount of

money he's given away. Fifteen years ago, former Microsoft CEO, Bill Gates, and his wife, Melinda, set up The Gates Foundation to improve health

care and education and reduce global poverty.

Since then, they've seen major successes, particularly in producing vaccines to help fight things such as malaria and pneumonia. Now at the

same time, many nations have raised hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. But despite this, the poverty gap within many nations has

actually widened.

Now as they headed for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Bill and Melinda Gates told me about their hopes for achievements over the next 15

years as laid out in their annual public letter.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: Bill and Melinda Gates, welcome to the program.

MELINDA GATES: Hi, thanks.

BILL GATES: Thanks.

AMANPOUR: Can I first start by asking you not just about your letter but specifically about Ebola.

A few months ago you donated $50 million from your foundation to help and now there's good news, that for the first time in six months, the

crisis is abating. And even in Guinea, kids are going back to school today. That's one of the hot zones where it started.

How did you do it?

BILL GATES: Well, I think there was a lot of good work done once it was recognized as a big emergency, groups like Doctors without Borders,

Partners in Health, the U.S. government bringing in the Department of Defense with transportation and the Centers for Disease Control and then

the U.K., France, China, Cuba, a lot of response was made.

I will say that if this disease had been more infectious, we would not have been moving fast enough. There are lessons of how, for the next

epidemic, we're going to have to move a lot faster.

AMANPOUR: But you know, the WHO and others were criticized for actually not getting on the ball quick enough.

Melinda, I wanted to ask you because I believe your foundation had some very serious interventions in Nigeria with their health system before

all this started, and that actually prevented this massively populous country from getting the outbreak.

MELINDA GATES: Well, we certainly got lucky in Nigeria. When the disease came to Lagos, a city of 22 million people, luckily it was detected

right away. A doctor saw what it was and they took one of the polio clinics and turned it into an emergency response clinic.

And they knew how to go out and do all the contact tracing and isolate people very quickly. That is the importance, though, of having a system

that works and building up the primary health care system in all the countries that we're talking about in West Africa.

It is imperative because that way we can deal not only with current issues, health issues on the ground but also if an emergency comes in,

we're prepared to do that.

AMANPOUR: Your letter specifically tackles a number of things, one of them is about child mortality and you hope to reduce that figure with

vaccines and other interventions in the next 15 years, I think, by half.

So how do you react then to what has been a warning by MSF, saying the price of vaccinations in some countries is skyrocketing so fast that it

makes them out of the ability of people to buy them?

BILL GATES: Well, in fact, the vaccines are now getting out to children far, far better than ever before because a group called the global

alliance for vaccines, GAVI, has raised money to buy these vaccines on behalf of the poor kids.

Now we work with GAVI to negotiate very low prices. And that's at the same, hey, let's get the prices down even more and that's fair. We were

working on that. We're bringing new manufacturers in. We're doing volume guarantees.

But to get a very state-of-the-art vaccine, like this pneumonia vaccine, out to the poor world's children required GSK and Pfizer to give

us very, very low prices. And so instead of waiting 30 years for when rich kids get it to when poor kids get it, we've now made that just a few years.

And that's a big reason why childhood death rates are going down.

AMANPOUR: You're on the way; you will be in Davos and their focus there, it looks like, is going to be on this rising income and other

inequality gap.

But Oxfam has just put out its paper that says that actually very soon 1 percent of the super rich, the elite, will own more than the entire rest

of people combined.

BILL GATES: Well, the fact is that the global inequality is going down; that is, countries like China, Brazil, have created a middle class

and reduced poverty so much that, on a world basis, we are making progress on inequality.

Within individual countries, inequality's gone up. And their tax policy, encouraging people to be more philanthropic, really can start to

deal with that.

The kind of opportunity that we need to create for everyone is good health, and that's very basic; good education, most of the poor are

farmers. So giving them better seeds, better education, that's critical.

MELINDA GATES: And what we'll say to people is you need to get involved. We believe the fact that an individual's passion created to

action changes the world.

Why is the -- why are these inequities actually getting better in certain places?

It's because we have goals as a world we're focusing on.

We've brought down child mortality. We've cut it in half in the last 25 years. That's incredible. If we focus on it, yet again, you can cut

that childhood death down again in the next 15 years by half if you give kids an education. Getting a child into school, boys and girls, changes

the whole pattern.

A girl who goes to secondary school, she has children later, she's married later. She's twice as likely to educate her daughter. That will

change the inequality, not just for her family and the community, but it'll lift up these low-income countries to middle income countries and that's

what will change the inequity. But you've got to make these investments.

AMANPOUR: Let me turn to the Internet.

How do you respond to this real worry right now that the Internet is competing with national security, is allowing so-called dark corners of the

Internet, is allowing the kind of terrorist conversation, plotting, planning actually that can't be surveilled as intelligence operatives might

have done in the past?

BILL GATES: Well, the Internet is just fantastic news. The -- two of the big breakthroughs in our letter, the idea of educational software being

there for even poor people with cellphones, the idea of digital banking, those absolutely depend on the Internet getting out to most of humanity.

Now that we have the Internet the policies of whether you should be able to look in and try and find terrorist activity and how you trade that

off against privacy, that's a very important debate.

AMANPOUR: I was talking to the E.U. counterterror chief. And he was telling me that there had to be -- start to be conversations between people

like him, governments and big companies like yours or Google or others.

Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GILLES DE KERCHOVE, E.U. COUNTERTERROR COORDINATOR: We start a dialogue with the big companies -- Google, Twitter, Facebook -- because

it's a Twitter war. It's something we have to address both by removing illegal content -- it's difficult because there is always a challenge of

freedom of speech -- and on the other hand you have to use Internet proactively to counter the single narrative of Al Qaeda, of Daish, and send

counter messages.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Again, do you think that in 2015, wherever we are, one can start a dialogue with people and companies whereby national security and

privacy there needs to be a bit of tradeoff?

Do you think that's possible at this stage?

BILL GATES: Well, the choices will be made politically. In fact, the idea of seeing what calls and connections are being made, people have to

decide, do they want their government in terms of finding terrorists to have access to that information?

Or do they not trust the government so they want it to be hidden and encrypted?

And by and large, the companies are just going to implement whatever they're asked to do. This was true of phone issues and how the government

could get access there. Now we're seeing it again with the Internet.

Do people want the government to find terrorists?

And if so, what are the approaches that make them feel comfortable that's being used appropriately?

AMANPOUR: Bill and Melinda Gates, thank you very much indeed. And good luck with all the great work your foundation does.

BILL GATES: Thank you.

MELINDA GATES: Thanks, Christiane.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And after a break, we turn to look at one of The Gates Foundation's success stories taking shape right now, not just imagining but

seeing a world stopping Ebola -- after this.

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AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, Bill and Melinda Gates say the planet got lucky with this latest outbreak of Ebola. But despite all the hard

work in the hot zone, who would have imagined even a few months ago that the disease would be on the wane now? Infection rates have dropped to six-

month lows across West Africa and nowhere more so than in Guinea, where the epidemic started 10 months ago. In September, 500 cases of Ebola were

detected there every week. Now whole days can go by where no cases are reported.

This week, even schools there have opened their doors again for the first time in six months. Guinea's children can get back to their books

while their vigilant teachers arm themselves with thermometers and clean water so students can wash their hands.

And there seems to be a domino effect across West Africa's worst-hit countries; Liberia is set to follow suit in just a few weeks and when

schools reopen again in Sierra Leone in March, education, we're told, will be subsidized by the government.

The World Health Organization has described the current situation as a turning point and the CDC director, Dr. Thomas Frieden, joined the chorus

of optimism saying that he's confident there will be, quote, "zero cases" if things continue the way they're going.

So good news.

And that is it for our program tonight. And remember you can always see the whole show online at amanpour.com, and follow me on Facebook and

Twitter. Thank you for watching and goodbye from London.

END