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Unlikely Story of British Adviser to U.S. Military; Daniel Barenboim Unveils New Piano; Imagine a World. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired May 26, 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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[14:00:06] FRED PLEITGEN, CNN HOST (voice-over): Tonight: trying to save Anbar and trying to save face. Iraq's forces launch a huge military

operation against ISIS but will that be enough without political reconciliation? I speak with a top adviser to the U.S. military in Iraq.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EMMA SKY, FORMER ADVISER TO GENERAL RAY ODIERNO: You can give this army as much training and equipment as you like. But its psychology, its morale,

its willingness to fight is very much reflected by this lack of political agreement at the center.

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PLEITGEN (voice-over): And can music be a weapon for peace?

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PLEITGEN (voice-over): Conductor Daniel Barenboim on bringing long-time adversaries in tune.

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PLEITGEN: Hello, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Fred Pleitgen, sitting in for Christiane today.

After its humiliating collapse last week, Iraq says its troops are now fighting back, launching what they call, quote, "a vast military operation

to oust ISIS from Anbar province."

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PLEITGEN (voice-over): Ramadi is surrounded by Iraqi security forces and Iran-backed Shia militias from three directions but they are yet to move

in. Operations northeast of Fallujah have also begun while in Salaheddine province, the Iraqi army is trying to cut an ISIS supply route to liberate

the key refinery town of Baiji.

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PLEITGEN: But will this offensive work and is there enough political will to mend the deep sectarian rift between Sunni and Shia in Iraq?

Not many are hopeful and with so much going wrong in Iraq, it's important for us to talk to those who appear to be getting it right -- at least for a

while.

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PLEITGEN (voice-over): Between 2006 and 2009, the so-called surge seems to be making a difference. Violence was down and the country's Sunnis slowly

gained trust in the Shia-led government. The military architects of the turnaround were U.S. generals David Petraeus and Ray Odierno.

Odierno's main adviser was a British woman named Emma Sky. She's just written a book about Iraq, frequently called "The Unravelling." And she

joined me earlier to talk about how Iraq got to its sad current state and what can be done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PLEITGEN: Emma Sky, thank you for joining the program.

SKY: Thank you.

PLEITGEN: First of all, we need to talk about how you got involved with the U.S. military because you and General Odierno are kind of an odd couple

and you used to be a peace activist; you even volunteered to be a human shield. And he is obviously the epitome of the American soldier. And I

just want to read a quick code from your book, where it says, "What I valued most about Western society was the freedom to take to the streets to

protest our policies. What General O" -- General Odierno -- "valued most was the willingness of soldiers to go around the world to defend what he

saw as freedom."

How did you guys mesh?

SKY: Well, it is an unlikely story. Back in 2003, after the invasion, the British government asked for volunteers to go out to Iraq for three months

to administer the country before it was handed back to the Iraqis.

And I was against the war. I thought, this is my opportunity to go out to Iraq. I will apologize to Iraqis for the war and I will do my bit in

helping them rebuild their country. I'd spent a decade in Israel- Palestine. So I had some skills in institutional development, conflict mediation. So I thought, I've got, you know, I'll go and be useful.

And I wandered around the country, looking for a job. I ended up through sort of bizarre series of events, ended up in Kirkuk when I was told, OK,

you are now the person responsible for the province. And Kirkuk was one of the provinces that came under the authority of General Odierno. So that's

how I met him.

PLEITGEN: You are very different personalities, presumably.

SKY: Well, we are very different. So the first time I saw him, I was in shock because I'd never seen such a large human being in real life. I

mean, he is very, very, very large.

PLEITGEN: I think they refer to him as Genghis Khan, some do, didn't they?

(LAUGHTER)

SKY: He was the boss of the colonel. So in all the meetings I was in the meetings. And the general kept asking me questions. And I thought, oh,

you know, this guy's intellectually curious. He really wants to understand what's going on.

So that's how we first met. Then a few years later, when he was put in charge of the operational plan for the surge, I got this email from him out

of the blue, asking me will I come back to Iraq to be his political adviser.

[14:04:59] PLEITGEN: Now what we have is a situation where we're looking at Ramadi, for instance, where the Iraqi military was ousted because

clearly they didn't have a foothold there to begin with, because they didn't have the trust of the population and now Iran-backed Shiite militias

are being sent in to liberate the place.

That can't be a long-term strategy, can it?

SKY: It is really difficult. When you look at how contested the politics are in Iraq today, this has an effect on the army. You can't have a

national army when you don't have the politicians agreeing what the nation is.

So you can give this army as much training and equipment as you like. But its psychology, its morale, its willingness to fight is very much reflected

by this lack of political agreement at the center.

So at the end of the day, it's only the Sunnis of Iraq that can really defeat ISIS. But they're only going to turn against ISIS; they looked at

Maliki, they looked at ISIS and they thought maybe ISIS is the lesser of two evils.

(CROSSTALK)

PLEITGEN: This is very interesting that you say that. If you say that, then does Iraq, the way it's currently going, have a future as a state?

If it doesn't manage to bring the Sunnis into the boat because clearly, I mean, we're nine months on from the U.S. beginning its airstrikes, from the

coalition coming together. And clearly there hasn't been very much political movement.

Do you think this -- that Iraq as a country has a future then?

SKY: I don't think Iraq is going to go back to a centralized system, try this and it's failed. I think the prime minister, Haider Abadi, wants to

do the right thing but he doesn't have the capacity to do the right thing. He's up against Shia militias and Shia politicians, who are scared that if

they give weapons to the Sunnis they won't just use it against the Islamic State, they'll then use it against the Shia.

You've also got Iran as the strongest player in Iraq today. And that makes reconciliation very difficult. So when you look at this situation, you

think, what can be done? We can't keep using the same old methods and expecting different results. It's not going to happen.

So I think the best hope we have is that America, Iran, Saudi, Turkey actually come together to hammer out some agreement on how to defeat the

Islamic State and what a post-Islamic State Iraq could look like. And that's going to have to be confederation with Kurdistan, decentralization

down to provincial level and Sunnis recruited on a provincial level to fight against the Islamic State.

PLEITGEN: It looks as though when you talk about these things, it's obviously very emotional for you because it was a very pivotal time in the

history of Iraq, where it could have gone either way.

How angry are you or how bitter are you about the U.S. decision to leave Iraq and to support Nouri al-Maliki? Because it seems as though what

you're saying is we almost got it right. We almost made it to the finish line. When we were conducting the surge, when so many people were

sacrificed.

SKY: I think it is very difficult for anyone who served in Iraq during this period, particularly when we saw all the progress being made during

the surge. And when I left Iraq, I'd seen what had gone wrong in 2010, when we upheld the election results. We had decided it would be easier to

just keep Maliki in power and then we'd not succeeded in doing it. Iran had done it. So I saw Americans' influence go down. I saw Iran's

influence go up. And when I left, I was very angry and I really struggled, what it had all been for.

All that loss of life, all that investment, what had it been for?

And that's really where I started writing because I think we honor those people who sacrificed their lives. We honor that. It's 4.5 thousand

Americans, almost 200 Brits, 150,000 Iraqis. We honor the sacrifice by trying to learn the right lessons from this war. And I wanted to

acknowledge the huge efforts that had gone into trying to make Iraq a better place.

And I wanted to pay tribute to Iraq as a country I came very much to love.

PLEITGEN: What about the Obama administration's policy? I mean, it seems to many people that that -- and this is something that Obama said as he was

on the campaign trail, that he wanted to get Americans out of Iraq.

Do you think that there was much beyond that?

SKY: I believe the drawdown was the right decision. But I really felt that we should have done more to try and broker an inclusive agreement

among the elites in 2010 that would have created a better balance in Iraq and a better balance in the region and might have allowed us to keep a

small contingent of U.S. forces in Iraq.

But it wasn't so much the troop numbers that were important to me. It was the political agreement between the elites. It was all the violence that

we see. It's all about politics.

PLEITGEN: Do you think that the Iraqi people, in spite of their politicians, the Sunni, the Shia, the Kurds, want to live peacefully side

by side with each other in a state? Or are they now at a point where the Kurds say we want Kurdistan, where the Sunnis say we don't want to have

anything to do with the Shia anymore and where the Shia say we want this rump state that we have, which is sort of the southern portion of Iraq?

SKY: When you look back through the centuries, the people living in this land have mostly lived in peaceful coexistence.

[14:10:07] So what we see today is abnormal, this level of violence, this level of fighting is really abnormal. But we are where we are. Iraq today

is in a very, very different place.

But there are still a large number of people in Iraq who are intermarried, Sunni and Shia. And so something needs to be done to try and bring the

violence down and to allow people to live peacefully.

PLEITGEN: You've outlined what you think needs to happen, confederation, a loose confederation. Do you think it will happen?

Do you think this state does have a future?

SKY: I think the state has a future if these regional powers, including America, come together to hammer out some agreement because if they can

reach an agreement on how to fight ISIS and what a post-ISIS Iraq looks like, then they can cajole and pressure the Iraqi politicians to agree to

this.

PLEITGEN: Right now Iraq is in so much turmoil and there's many people who feel or there are some people who feel that the Islamic State, for as

brutal as it is, gives them at least a measure of stability. And people always say that the Islamic State is neither Islamic nor a state. And

certainly they aren't Islamic. But are they less of a state than the Iraqi state at this point?

SKY: I don't think the Islamic State is here to stay. When you look at the vision Islamic State gives for the future, it's apocalyptic. That's

not a vision that people want to live under. If you speak to young Iraqis, they want to live in a country that looks like Dubai, not daish, not the

Islamic State.

So I don't think it's got a future. It's a symptom of a problem in the Middle East. And the problem in the Middle East is the change in the

balance of power and bad governance. And until the balance of power is improved between Iran and the Gulf states, and until governance is improved

in the Arab states, the Islamic State has -- you know, it can gain supporters.

PLEITGEN: Emma Sky, thank you for joining the program.

SKY: Thank you very much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PLEITGEN: And while Iraq fights for its survival, next door in Iran, free speech and freedom of the press are under fire. Our colleague, Jason

Rezaian, of "The Washington Post" went on trial in Tehran today. The proceedings are closed to the public and the possible penalty is

devastating. Jason is charged with espionage among other things, and could be imprisoned for up to 20 years.

Activists call the charges politically motivated and here on this program, Christiane Amanpour spoke to Jason's mother, who made a desperate appeal to

Iran's leaders in Farsi.

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MARY REZAIAN, JASON'S MOTHER (from captions): Jason is not just my beloved son, but he is the son of Iran, too. What mother can accept her son being

in jail? Release our son.

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PLEITGEN: And we will be monitoring the proceedings very closely.

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PLEITGEN (voice-over): And after a break, I speak to the man who unified the youth of Israel and Palestine through music. Daniel Barenboim on his

new collaboration, the past and the present, after this.

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[14:15:24]

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PLEITGEN: Welcome back.

A two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians seems more elusive than ever these days. Today, a reported bid by the Israeli prime minister

to discuss West Bank settlement borders was quickly rejected by the Palestinians.

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PLEITGEN (voice-over): Chief negotiator Saab Erekat saying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's proposal is, quote, "nothing new."

While those leaders refuse to talk, I speak to a man building bridges through music. Daniel Barenboim is one of the world's greatest pianists

and conductors.

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PLEITGEN (voice-over): He is Jewish but holds Argentinian, Spanish, Israeli and Palestinian citizenship and he created the West-Eastern Divan

Orchestra in 1999. To this day, it bring together Arab and Israeli musicians defying fierce political divides. I met Daniel Barenboim at

London's Royal Festival Hall as he launched a new piano he helped design.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: Never one to shy away from political issues, he also shared his thoughts on the state of affairs in the Middle East.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PLEITGEN: Daniel Barenboim, thank you for joining the program today.

DANIEL BARENBOIM, MUSICIAN: Thank you.

PLEITGEN: There are many people who, when they've achieved what you've achieved, when they've been performing for 65 years, be pretty content.

You come in and you've designed a whole new piano.

What's behind it? Why did you do it?

BARENBOIM: It started quite by chance in 2011, which was the bicentenary of Liszt, Liszt's birth. I happened to play on one of his instruments and

I was very much taken by the transparency and the clarity of the texture of the sound that was coming out of the piano.

And I -- it -- from that day on, I had a dream to have a piano made that had all the advantages especially the volume.

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PLEITGEN (voice-over): Now your life's work has always been, obviously, music but also making people and cultures intersect. And one thing that

you're also doing is you're also giving the Edward Said lecture. He was a good friend of yours. You shared the passion for music and the passion for

intercultural relations.

How important is this lecture and what do you want to convey there?

BARENBOIM: It's a lecture mostly about the possibility if not necessity to think in and with music. You know now music has been put in an ivory

tower. Why? Because in the general schools, there's no music education and the music schools, there is no general education. And therefore you

get all the children and the young people in the schools learning about geography, literature, biology, et cetera, et cetera, and nothing about

music. And you have in the music schools young musicians, talented, who are taught to play the instruments and maybe a little about music but not

enough.

And that's why I would like to -- I would talk about these two problems and how one can put them together. The fact that music has been proved to be

very beneficial for the cerebral development of children.

PLEITGEN: It certainly has. But at the same time you obviously use it to bring cultures together with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra.

How important do you think that is today? I mean I know that you don't believe that music necessarily solved political crises. But right now the

Middle East is in a pretty big political crisis.

BARENBOIM: The Middle East is a disastrous situation politically and --

(CROSSTALK)

PLEITGEN: Some would say worse than it has been for a very long time.

BARENBOIM: I'm sure, I'm sure --

PLEITGEN: -- on a pretty low scale already.

BARENBOIM: And as far as our Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it's worse than ever because it has -- it's not anymore in the front pages. And you have a

government in Israel at the moment that is doing everything not to come to terms with the Palestinians and there is no Palestinian leadership that is

--

PLEITGEN: It's difficult for them to find negotiating --

[14:20:00] BARENBOIM: -- and Europe is either too weak or unwilling to exercise pressure, which is absolutely essential. But the reconstruction

of Gaza is an essential point. And then, from then, you can develop a solution for the whole conflict.

And music, when they come, the musicians come together, they share this wonderful passion.

Now what do they do? They come and they sit, let's say, Syrian and an Israeli on the same stand of the cellos. They sit next to each other.

They play the tune the same. They play with the same bowing. They try to play the same length of notes, the same volume, the same sound --

(CROSSTALK)

PLEITGEN: -- musical language.

BARENBOIM: -- the same, the same, the same. You know, once they have shared that and it is a very passionate thing, they can begin to try and

come closer to each other by talking to each other.

PLEITGEN: It is more radicalized than it ever has been. I mean, you have the new Israeli government, where the prime minister before this last

election, said that he doesn't want a two-state solution. I mean, he's since backed off of all this. You have Hamas and Gaza. You have at the

same time Syria falling apart. You have Iraq falling apart. Right now that -- everything is important, isn't it?

BARENBOIM: Everything is terribly important. The situation is really very dramatic, you know, because the Israeli government at the moment is not

only against a two-state solution, it is -- one-state solution, two, it's in favor only of an Israeli Jewish solution. And this is not possible.

We are either blessed or cursed with living either together or next to each other, but not back to back. And this is what has to be done now.

PLEITGEN: One of the things that people also say is with the current crisis in relation to the Middle East, is that anti-Semitism is also on the

rise in Europe.

Do you feel that? Do you believe that? And do you believe that music can work against that?

BARENBOIM: Music is a very strange, very -- can not in any way work against it because if a Jewish musician is bad, they will say, you see.

They are no good, the Jews. And if a Jewish musician is good, they will say the Jews control everything. So this is not that. But the anti-

Semitism of course is different in different parts of Europe.

I think, for instance, in Germany, the rise of anti-Semitism is milder and not so aggressive and of a different kind than in France, where you have so

many people that came from North Africa, who already have different understanding of anti-Semitism and are more -- and are stronger in their

anti-Semitic feeling.

I think that it is -- it must be possible to criticize the policies of the Israeli government and not because it is an anti-Semite.

PLEITGEN: You obviously have a great career and you don't seem to be tired in any way, shape or form. You seem to search for new endeavors.

What's next in your future?

The Berlin Philharmonic is something that people have been talking about.

BARENBOIM: No, no, no, I always say that I'm not a candidate and I'm not a candidate for the Berlin Philharmonic. After this, I tell themselves what

they want and I'm sure they will do it.

PLEITGEN: Daniel Barenboim, thank you for joining the program.

BARENBOIM: Thank you very much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PLEITGEN: And we'll see whether he takes that job or not. And as Daniel Barenboim tries to create dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians

through music, Sepp Blatter is trying to forge a compromise over football.

The FIFA boss is leading a charm offensive, across the divided region, to defuse a very delicate situation as Palestine is pushing football's

governing body, FIFA, to vote to suspend Israel from that body, arguing that Israel is violating the organization's non-discrimination rules.

Blatter has met with both sides in a bid for peace before the FIFA World Congress this week.

And after a break, we'll stay in that region as Israel, running out of space for burials, is building an underground city for its dead. Stay

tuned.

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[14:26:56]

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PLEITGEN: And finally tonight, imagine a world where the tensions bubble over on the surface what lies beneath is a place of calm. That's soon to

be the case underneath Jerusalem, where a vast expansion project is taking place, Israel building a city for its dead, an underground necropolis, one

could say.

Above ground, cemeteries are quickly running out of space because so many Jews from around the world want to be buried there. The new catacombs will

hold the remains of 22,000 people; like the world's ancient catacombs, it aims to be a dry, cool and peaceful place. But also quite a luxurious one.

Graves will cost up to $10,000 apiece for Jews from abroad. And there will even be elevators so families can visit their deceased loved ones often and

easily.

Of course the idea of caves as burial grounds in Jerusalem is not new. After all, more than 2,000 years ago, Jesus Christ was entombed in a cave

believed to be in the city after he was crucified. But with demand for final resting places in Jerusalem growing, the crypts aim to take pressure

off the markets for space for the dead to make sure there is enough for the living.

And that's it for the program tonight. Remember you can always see the whole show online at amanpour.com, and follow me at -- on Twitter

@FPleitgenCNN. Thank you for watching and goodbye from London.

END