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Mixed Priorities Muddle ISIS Fight; China's One-Child Policy in Focus; Imagine a World. Aired 11-11:30p ET

Aired August 05, 2015 - 23:00   ET

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

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FRED PLEITGEN, CNN HOST (voice-over): Tonight: as the U.S. launches its first airstrikes from Turkey, is there a clear anti-ISIS strategy? And

is everyone on the same page? I'll put that to the former U.S. ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford.

Also ahead: the abandoned baby girl found dumped in a toilet in China, what this story can tell us about the country's controversial one-

child policy.

And later: as flooding in Asia displaces millions of people, how this new satellite image can help scientists better predict weather patterns.

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PLEITGEN: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Fred Pleitgen in for Christiane tonight.

A, quote, "comprehensive battle," is coming against ISIS. That's what Turkey says as America, for the first time, launched an airstrike in Syria

from a Turkish airbase. That's strong rhetoric, but the priorities of the two countries remain hazy.

Turkey seems increasingly preoccupied with a domestic battle against the Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK. After a two-year cease-fire fell

apart, the two have traded airstrikes and a suicide attack.

And despite America's air campaign, President Obama remains wary of deep involvement. The past few days Al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, Al-Nusra,

captured five U.S.-trained Syrian rebels.

Nearly 10 percent of the just 60 people America has coached since it set up the program at the beginning of the year. America's top priority is

battling ISIS, but Turkey insists the fundamental problem is Assad. And many moderate Syrian rebels agree.

It's a complicated web of competing agendas and perhaps nobody better understands it all than Robert Ford, America's former ambassador to Syria.

He joins me now live from Washington, D.C.

Ambassador Ford, welcome to the program and first of all, I have to put to you the question. It seems as though the Turks are more interested

in fighting the PKK; most moderate Syrian rebels are more interested in fighting Assad while the Iraqis, on the other fringe, if you will, of ISIS-

controlled territory, seem to be more interested in pushing a Shia agenda.

Is there really a coherent strategy against ISIS?

ROBERT FORD, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO SYRIA: Well, as you said, Fred, there are many competing agendas, different countries have different

priorities. The American priority is the Islamic State. The Turkish priority is obviously the Kurdish PKK and also Assad. And the Syrian

rebels have a different agenda, say, from the people that are fighting in Iraq.

So, yes, it's complicated.

PLEITGEN: Well, how do you solve all that?

And is there enough trust in the U.S. in that region for these various factions, various countries to actually get fully on board a strategy to

combat ISIS?

Because, I mean, if we look at all the factors, we were talking about Mosul offensive at the beginning of the year. We were talking about

gaining ground against ISIS; yet they still have all this territory. Yet they're still in Ramadi, they're still in Fallujah. But the progress

really has been incremental, hasn't it?

FORD: Well, the progress has been incremental and the progress will be incremental in part because the Islamic State itself is very powerful.

It is not just a guy hiding in a cave, the way Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri were. This is a real organization with real

bureaucratic structures and with revenues. It's big and it's not going to be eliminated overnight.

It will be very helpful if the Turks finally seal their border so that the Islamic State cannot infiltrate fighters, cannot infiltrate supplies,

cannot exfiltrated back into Turkey for medical treatment, their wounded fighters. That will be a hugely positive step. And that's probably the

single most important development on the battle against the Islamic State over the last 10 days, if the Turks are really serious about closing that

border.

PLEITGEN: Do you believe that they are serious about it?

Because so far what we've seen is we've seen the talk about an anti- ISIS strategy but mostly go against the Kurds.

Who are -- some of whom are --

(CROSSTALK)

PLEITGEN: -- for America.

FORD: Yes. Well, the Kurds have a double agenda here, really a triple agenda. They do not like the Islamic State and they blame the

Islamic State for bombing in Turkey last week, which killed several dozen people. So the Turks --

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FORD: -- do not like the Islamic State.

However, the Turks also do not like Kurdish separatists who have -- some of whom have claims on Turkish territory. The Turks don't want to see

their country, Turkey, split apart and Kurdish pieces going into some independent country.

So the Turks' concerns about that are easy to understand; not so easy to manage. And if the Turks are really serious about closing the border to

the Islamic State, it will have a huge positive impact. We should talk, Fred, also about Iraq, where there has been incremental progress -- some

progress, let's be honest -- there's been some progress against the Islamic State.

But the fundamental political problems in Iraq, the fundamental political problems in Iraq are not being addressed and that's a problem on

the Iraq side on the eastern front of this work against the Islamic State.

PLEITGEN: We've just asked the question on whether Turkey is serious about fighting ISIS.

Do you think that this administration is serious about fighting ISIS?

Or do you think that their main priority is to get out of this conflict as fast as possible?

FORD: Well, I don't have the sense that the administration believes that it will eradicate, that it will destroy the Islamic State during its

remaining year-and-a-half in office and it probably, at this point, given the level of American commitment, it is unrealistic. So they're hoping to

contain the Islamic State.

As I said, if the Turks actually do close that border, that will be a big step. On the Iraq side, we're killing a lot of Islamic State fighters

and the Islamic State is recruiting a lot of new fighters. And so without some progress on the political problems in Baghdad, between the Sunnis and

the Shia, without some progress on those political problems, the Islamic State is going to be there for a long time. They just recruit new people

to replace the ones we bomb and kill.

PLEITGEN: The question is also if you look at Turkey, if you look at Iraq, if you look at the Sunnis in Anbar province, for instance, but also

in the east of Syria, why should they latch onto what America wants?

I mean, so far we've seen 60 rebels, I think, train so far. But America's pretty much made it clear what they want to do is to -- as you

said, contain all this and then get out of there, especially the Sunnis in Anbar province, have seen America walk away from them one time before.

Why should they all come together and fight this common enemy, America's enemy?

FORD: Well, what's interesting, Fred, is that a lot of the Sunni tribal figures in Western Iraq, in Anbar province, as you say, a lot of

them view the Islamic State as a threat to their own standing, to their own social position, to their own authority. And so they really are pleading

earnestly with the United States to provide them more weapons and more supplies. They promise that they have thousands of fighters -- and they

probably can mobilize several thousand more fighters.

However, the government in Baghdad, dominated by Shia political figures, is very reluctant to see those Sunni fighters in Western Iraq

armed. And so they -- the people in Baghdad, the Shia people in Baghdad, have really kept their feet on the brake so that the arming program in

Anbar to fight the Islamic State, that program goes very slowly.

PLEITGEN: There are some people who argue that perhaps it might be the time to try and at least work together with the Assad regime, work

together with Iran to try and get some sort of solution, many people say their solution, for instance, to Syria, if you don't work with the

Iranians.

What do you make of that?

FORD: Personally, I think it's a fool's errand. First of all, the Assad regime itself can't even retake the suburbs of Damascus now and it's

been trying for months. It can't even retake suburbs that are just 3-4 miles from Damascus.

Do we really think it's going to be able to go 300 or 400 miles to fight the Islamic State? The Assad regime is, little by little, weakening.

I see no reason to tie ourselves to a corpse.

With respect to Iran, in Iraq, certainly their Shia militias, the Iraqi Shia that the Iranians are arming and supporting, are fighting the

Islamic State and, in many cases, beating the Islamic State.

But we have to be careful how we handle that, Fred, because getting too close to the Iranians means that the Islamic State, which claims that

the Americans and the hated Persians, the Iranians, are working together against Sunnis. It will make it easier for the Islamic State to recruit.

There is no sustainable, long-term solution to the Islamic State problem until we undercut its recruitment.

So the Americans have to be really careful about cooperation with Iran --

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FORD: -- or they play into that extremist Sunni logic.

PLEITGEN: Do you think that we're in danger of reaching something like a point of no return, where the societies of Iraq and Syria have

fractured so much that these two states as states can't be salvaged and that the status quo will continue to cement itself and -- but the

international community will have to start dealing, perhaps, with a rogue Islamic State as a state?

FORD: Almost certainly Syria is going to fragment into different pieces and the Islamic State is going to one of the big pieces of what used

to be Syria. And it's going to be a big piece for a long time. And there are going to be other extremists operating in other parts of Syria; for

example, there's an Al Qaeda affiliate in northwestern Syria. The Iranians can't stop that fragmentation; the Russians can't stop it; the Americans

can't stop it, it's happening.

On the Iraq side, on the eastern front of the war against the Islamic State, there, too, little by little, the Iraqi state is fraying. There's

more and more talk among the Kurds in Northern Iraq of going for independence through some kind of negotiation that would be peaceful but

which would result in an independent Kurdistan and even in other parts of Iraq, including some Shia parts of Iraq, local people there are saying

they've had enough of Baghdad and they want to have more authority.

PLEITGEN: You're obviously an expert on Syria.

Do you believe or do you think that the Syrian rebels are so fractured that it'll be very difficult to muster any sort of force to go against

ISIS? I mean, so far, we've seen 60 rebels trained by the U.S. We've seen a lot of factions, even of the moderate rebels, cooperate with the Nusra

Front, who called America's involvement in all this "a cancer."

How are you going to get all these on board?

And how can the U.S., for instance, work together with factions that work together with an Al Qaeda affiliate?

FORD: Well, Fred, what I would say on that is, number one, there are a lot of more moderate Syrian opposition armed groups that are fighting the

Islamic State today, yesterday, last week, last month and will be fighting them in the weeks ahead. And they have been holding their ground north of

Aleppo.

I regret that the international media gives them very little attention. That zone that the Turks and the Americans are talking about,

the Islamic State has been fighting the rebels in that zone for now more than a year. And this is an opportunity, actually, once and for all, to

get the Islamic State out of that area and secure those rebel groups' supply lines.

Do some of those rebel groups tactically coordinate what's the Al Qaeda affiliate, Nusra, against one enemy, the Islamic State and against

another enemy, the Assad regime? Yes, they absolutely do. They do coordinate tactically.

Does that mean that they agree with them politically? No, that's a very different question.

To put it in a really basic way, Fred, you know, American troops fought with Soviet troops in World War II but I don't think anybody would

accuse the American government under Harry Truman, for example, of being a Communist sympathizer. So there are tactical alliances on the ground

against common enemies. But it is a very different thing to say that they share a common political mission.

That's not true.

PLEITGEN: Former ambassador Robert Ford, thank you so much for joining us today, live from Washington, D.C.

And of course, the situation in Syria has caused millions to flee that country, many of them to Turkey, as we've talked about so many times.

Some of those refugees have gotten at least a little respite as two Turkish newlyweds on the Syrian border chose to share their wedding

banquet, inviting around 4,000 Syrians in need to share their food and also, as you can see, their celebration.

After a break, a crisis in China also in need of respite, shocking footage of a baby rescued from a toilet has brought on the debate on

China's one-child policy. An influential Chinese voice shares her reflections -- next.

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PLEITGEN: Welcome back to the program.

China's one-child policy is once again in sharp focus after these dramatic pictures emerged, showing the rescue of a baby girl dumped in a

toilet in Beijing.

The baby survived and police are now looking for her mother. But this newborn's story, unfortunately, is nothing new. There are over 100,000

abandoned children in China every year.

So why do parents resort to such desperate measures? I spoke to Xinran, a Chinese journalist and author, whose latest book, "Buy Me the

Sky," focused on the country's one-child policy. She joined me here in London a short time ago.

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PLEITGEN: Xinran, welcome to the program.

XINRAN, CHINESE AUTHOR: Thank you.

PLEITGEN: The terrible thing that just happened in China is, of course, on the one hand that it happened at all but also that it certainly

isn't the only time that something like this has happened.

How frequently do people just abandon their children in this way?

And why?

XINRAN: In today's case, as you reported, I would say mainly is about the

traditional reason or one-child policy --

PLEITGEN: What does -- yes.

What does one-child policy have to do with it?

It is because people only want boys?

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XINRAN: One-child policy come to China from 1939. And wasn't the bigger policy until 1984 because, that time, more than 85 percent of the

population there are peasants and farmers, never been educated. They still believe they have to have the first child is the boy.

So in this case, so the path the policy changed, allowed the countryside have a two-children policy. But in the city it's a one-child

policy.

So when people have to make this kind of choice, they choose boys.

PLEITGEN: The families that do this, do they get any sort of sympathy from other people in the village?

Because people understand the situation that the family is in?

Are people shocked by this?

Are people surprised by this?

How do people view these cases? Because internationally, we see them, we say, how could anyone do this?

But what do people in China think?

XINRAN: Depends who they are and where they are, like I first time went to the countryside in 1980s. I was really shocked. I never knew we

had this part of China, people kill baby girls just like a home or house -- homework, housework.

PLEITGEN: They know how to do it.

XINRAN: Oh, they even --

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PLEITGEN: -- kill off baby girls?

XINRAN: Yes, they even surprised, say, you don't know how to do the girl, how to kill a girl? You are woman. You must know that.

It's in the very deep countryside.

But in the city, because the one-child policy or because the woman liberation, girls' value is much higher than before. It's no big

difference like America or U.K. or wherever.

But the situation is very complicated. And -- but very interesting is because the millions of migrants moved from countryside to the city, that

is a very interesting education revolution, I would call, because they feel something.

In a city, the girls can live as boys, at the same level and the same condition, the same respect. So many people wake up about their emotions

and the sympathy and the feeling about their own child.

Like during my radio program in China and the few women caught the -- and even thought then kill themselves, because they realize they kill their

own daughters. But they didn't feel the pain when they're in the countryside, in the village. But when they come to city, they feel that.

PLEITGEN: One of the other things that it seemed like it's not only girls that get abandoned or killed, it's also children with disabilities,

isn't it?

XINRAN: That's also true. And another reason, as everybody knows, since the Chinese government announced, from 2013 more than 100,000

children abandoned in the street every single year.

I would say from my earliest research it's very much a part of the sexual naive as well --

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XINRAN: -- because China bring the sexual education very late, until 2000 --

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PLEITGEN: You talk about a sexual revolution in China --

XINRAN: That's right.

So when there is Western idea coming in with -- like a McDonald's or DVDs or Internet, so lots of young people adopted this kind of sexual

relationship without any knowledge and about sexual protection or sexual knowledge.

So many young girls chose abortion or had no money to pay for abortion. So they waiting for when gave the birth to the baby. The boys

have been picked up by Chinese family because they need a boy. They buy it. But the girls --

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PLEITGEN: So there's a whole market for children. And there's a -- because that -- what's the other thing, the Chinese government has been

trying to counter all this with baby hatches, where you can give up your baby anonymously.

But presumably there must also be a huge market for trafficking, wouldn't there be?

XINRAN: Yes. That's also true. And I'm so glad now government announced about this kind of issue. Before, they always hide it.

Many Chinese, particularly overseas students, they're shocked by how many Western families adopted Chinese girls; actually it's more than

150,000 orphan girls being adopted by 27 countries.

So this --

PLEITGEN: And America is the biggest one --

XINRAN: -- is the biggest one, over, I think, must be over nearly 80,000 families.

PLEITGEN: But that's legal, right?

This is -- we're talking about --

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PLEITGEN: -- presumably there are also people who would sell children off, wouldn't there be?

XINRAN: Yes, actually the people had no idea about this until very recently, the government paid attention about this.

If you read it in Chinese news or website, almost each single day they have this kind of news. And that's about human trafficking.

PLEITGEN: You said it's good that the Chinese government is being more transparent about this.

Are they coming to terms with the issue?

Because the one-child policy is sort of a double-edged sword, isn't it?

China's economic growth --

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XINRAN: Yes. During the 30 years under the policy, 400 million population less. And that is a big state for this planet. And also I

think that China took the chance to rebuild this country from a very, very poor country until it is a superpower today. And because --

PLEITGEN: Because they have their population under control.

XINRAN: That's right.

PLEITGEN: But at the same time, it causes people to do that.

So what do you think could be a solution?

What does the government need to do that it's not doing at this point?

Is more education a solution? Birth control the solution? What can help?

XINRAN: Actually, as anything, you have the both side. And the back side of this policy, I have to say, one is very seriously, by 2020 or 2025,

there will be 30 million men more than women.

This kind of imbalance of population, I think, is very unique in the human history.

And secondly, between the government policy to the individual family, we don't have very much NGO system to support family or help kindergarten

or support school of society.

So that has become very fascinating situation, is the family, even they're very, very rich. But with their only child, the living is kind of

very -- how do you say -- lonely society. I would say it's a social island.

PLEITGEN: What can the government do then?

What can they improve in all this?

XINRAN: I don't think the government had time before to think about this.

PLEITGEN: But they -- now they presumably they have the funds and they're being more transparent about it. Surely there's -- whether it's

education or something else --

(CROSSTALK)

XINRAN: -- particularly from this year, in February, there is so many news come out based on this policy.

When the local authorities try to release this policy, then you see is the father a single parent, you can have second child. It's not the

government that try to stop. It's the first child of the family try to stop their parents to give them a sibling. And the brother, sisters, even

some of them, not one case, more than 10 cases happen already in the last three months.

And they kill themselves to against the family to have second child.

And 18 years old, a boy, and jump off the building. Before he kill himself, he said to his mom, I don't want anyone share my family and my

life.

PLEITGEN: Wow. Xinran, thank you for joining us today.

XINRAN: Thank you.

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PLEITGEN: So those are some of the consequences of the one-child policy shaping today's China.

After a break, we imagine the world as you've never seen it before, a fresh take on our blue planet -- that's next.

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PLEITGEN: And finally tonight, imagine our world so astoundingly beautiful but also with that awesome power to destroy. Around the globe,

nature is flexing its muscles. Asia faces what looks like the strongest storm of the year, while the U.S.' West Coast is fighting more than 20

wildfires at once.

In the Middle East, an unprecedented heat wave is beating down on the people there.

But imagine a world where we could better predict and then better adapt to these twists and turns. Today, a new weather satellite shared

this image, one of the most detailed ever taken of our planet and its complex weather systems.

Launched in July, the European satellite is so sensitive it can find objects that are just 1 kilometer across. While the super computer

supporting it on the ground can perform 16,000 trillion calculations in one single second, predicting, as scientists hope, any harsh weather the world

could throw at us, possibly saving countless lives as it sounds the alarms.

That's it for our program tonight. Thank you for watching and goodbye from London.

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