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Amanpour

Top U.S. Envoy Reacts to Russia's Actions in Syria; SNC Condemns Russian Intervention in Syria. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired October 01, 2015 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

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CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST (voice-over): Tonight: day two of Russian airstrikes in Syria and Moscow insists that everyone is on the same

page fighting ISIS as well as other terrorists. Not so, says the top U.S. official in charge.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEN. JOHN ALLEN, (RET.), MILITARY ADVISER: That's clear now, that they haven't gone after ISIS in the first targets and perhaps even the

second set of targets.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Our interview ahead.

And coming up later in the program, the voice of the legitimate Syrian opposition. The president of the SNC tells me they are being targeted.

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AMANPOUR: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Christiane Amanpour in New York.

When Moscow and world powers are dueling over what exactly Russia is attacking with its new airstrikes in Syria, Russia's defense ministry

released these images of its latest airstrikes and announced that they have more than 50 aircraft and helicopters involved in the mission.

One day after the United States Defense Secretary of Moscow of, quote, "pouring gasoline onto the fire," officials from both sides are now holding

urgent talks to clarify this process. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Russia is attacking ISIS and all terror groups.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SERGEY LAVROV, RUSSIAN FOREIGN MINISTER: If it looks like a terrorist, if it acts like a terrorist, if it walks like a terrorist, if it

fights like a terrorist, it's a terrorist, right? I would recall that we always were saying that we are going to fight ISIL and other terrorist

groups.

This is the same position which the Americans are taking. The representatives of the coalition command have always been saying that their

targets are ISIL, Al-Nusra and other terrorist groups. This is basically our position as well. We see eye-to-eye with the coalition on this one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: But do they?

The legitimate Syrian opposition says they are being struck, too, and earlier today the retired U.S. general, John Allen, who's President Obama's

point man in this fight, told me that the murky picture quickly needs to be clarified.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: General Allen, welcome to the program.

ALLEN: Good to see you again.

AMANPOUR: Welcome back.

At a time when really we're not quite sure which end is up, what is Russia doing?

Its first sortie has been roundly criticized by the United States as actually not going off to ISIS, as they said they would.

ALLEN: Yes. Well, I think that's clear now, that they have not gone after ISIS and in the first targets and perhaps even the second set of

targets.

But the Pentagon is doing the analysis to ensure we have a sense of what in fact was struck and the damage that was done.

In terms of what Russia is doing, obviously we've seen this build up for some period of time. I think it's clear that this is really a

reaction. It's a reaction to their sense that their long-term client was in trouble, the Bashar al-Assad regime, was in trouble and potentially on

the verge of collapsing.

And so their actions here are not necessarily a surprise to us.

AMANPOUR: So you say not necessarily a surprise but certainly we did hear a lot of surprise coming out of the White House, what is Russia up to?

Why are they putting that kind of missiles and hardware? Even SACEUR, General Philip Breedlove has said, well, what they are putting down there

doesn't look like it's for targeting ISIS.

But you talked about reaction. So let me ask you right now.

There are some, as you know, critics who have said that, just as he did in Ukraine, President Putin perceives inaction, confusion on the side

of the West as weakness and takes advantage of it.

ALLEN: Well, I don't think he is going to find the same reaction here. We've had a very clear strategy with respect to dealing with daish,

ISIL, in Syria from the beginning of the coalition, which is about a year old now. It came into birth about this time at the United Nations General

Assembly last year.

And the intent has always been on the part of the United States to lead a global coalition -- it's about 65 members now, 63 countries and two

other entities -- in dealing with daish as the emergency that it is, which is to deal with it as a regional issue, some part of which, of course, was

going to occur in Syria.

But we've also had a policy objective within the United States that the problem in Syria is a problem of the governance and it's a problem that

ultimately resides with Bashar al-Assad.

And so what we seek is not only dealing with daish in Syria as the emergency that we face but also facilitating a political transition, a

political transition that ultimately leaves the government of Syria in the hands of Syrians with Bashar al-Assad not a part of that.

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AMANPOUR: Can you explain how that's going to happen?

Because, again, there are a lot of mixed messages. People are saying, including the United States, other Europeans, although there seems to be

some divisions; I've talked to several foreign ministers, who have a different nuance of what should happen, you know, those who say Assad has

no role, either because of his moral culpability or even the efficacy. If he has a role, it just sends more people into the arms of ISIS.

So what do you see as the actual result of the current facts on the ground?

Russia involvement and everybody else saying, well, we've got to see whether Russia's plans works.

ALLEN: Well, the facts on the ground is that we need to deescalate the war. And by attacking Syrian individuals on the ground who are not

part of ISIL, that is not where we want to head.

We aren't going to fight our way out of this problem. There's no military solution to this. This requires a political solution.

And so your question is exactly correct. There are many opinions about how this should be facilitated and that's part of what Secretary

Kerry and the White House has been doing and the president has been doing, is to facilitate a conversation that brings to the table the many different

voices and equities to try to find our way into a political, diplomatic track that can get us into this transition.

The modality of that conversation, the modality of that transition, I think, is part of that conversation. In fact, I don't think, I know it is

part of the conversation.

And at what point Bashar al-Assad departs the scene will be part of that conversation but the key is to begin that diplomatic and political

track. This problem will not be solved by military means.

AMANPOUR: What makes you think that Bashar al-Assad, with Russia backing him up, is going to decide to step down?

The way it is being presented, certainly by the secretary of state, is, in interviews, it is up to one man. He even said it in speeches and,

you know, other such public meetings this week here at the U.N. It is up to him.

What is going to make him step down if 4.5 years have not done that?

ALLEN: Well, our hope is, obviously, to bring to bear the weight of the opinion of the key external actors associated with this.

Russia is going to be an important part of the conversation, other regional partners, other international partners, to create a conversation

that is very clear that the future of Syria has to be one that is decided by the Syrian people.

And Bashar al-Assad could have listened to the legitimate voices of dissent in the spring of 2011. He could have listened to them but he chose

to attack his own people. We are passing 200,000-plus dead in a conflict where he has been, in many respects, the principal cause, not just for the

casualties, but also the rise of an organization like daish and Al Qaeda taking root.

That political transition has got to occur. And I think the weight of world opinion is with us on this issue.

AMANPOUR: Let's get to the nitty-gritty. The United States and particularly your area of responsibility was to try to fight ISIS by,

amongst other things, setting up a arm-and-train program to send people into battle against ISIS.

Can you tell me why that hasn't worked and why, by contrast, has Jordan been able to train tens of thousands, some -- I hear something like

35,000 to 40,000 people -- to fight ISIS near their border?

ALLEN: Yes. It is an important question. And I -- there are clarifications, I think, that are important here as well.

We learned a lot about the train and equip program as a function of a much broader approach that we were employing in Syria, of course. And it

didn't turn out the way we wanted. But we have looked very closely at the reasons for that and we're adjusting as necessary.

AMANPOUR: But it's on hold now. So it doesn't even look like it is going forward.

(CROSSTALK)

ALLEN: Well, it's not on hold, no, that we --

AMANPOUR: -- the news yesterday.

ALLEN: Well, that's not correct. We have troops that are training in the camps. We may make decisions in the future about how that program will

look or what its long-term future is, but that's not the only thing we have been doing, Christiane.

And I think one of the important points was that we learned from Kobani last year that there were Syrian partners who had real capacity to

fight daish and to defend themselves and what we learned from that was that the capacity to empower and enable those Syrian partners to achieve not

insignificant effect in Northeast Syria, for example, the Syrian-Turkish border from Iraq all the way to the Euphrates has been cleared of daish.

And the principal crossing point that daish relied on for its foreign fighters and other support, Tell Abyad, is now in the hands of those

fighters. And we have elements of those forces within 45 kilometers of Raqqa.

One other point, if I may, because it's really important, and that is we have engaged our old partner and friend, Turkey, in bilateral talks to

empower additional Syrian Sunni groups south of the remaining 98 kilometers that are in the hands of daish to close that border entirely and to deny it

to --

[14:10:00]

ALLEN: -- daish and ISIL.

AMANPOUR: Can you tell me about the serious allegations by some 50 senior intelligence officials that a lot of the intelligence, which is

meant to be honest, objective intelligence on ISIS, has been turned into "happy talk?"

Seniors at CENTCOM intelligence have been accused of this and apparently there's an investigation into that.

What can you tell me he about that?

And how has that set back the reality, the perception of the reality on the ground?

ALLEN: First, I won't go into the details of an investigation, as I think you would imagine. But I think the vast majority of us receive our

information from many sources. In my case, most of my intelligence information comes from the many different entities and agencies of our

intelligence community.

AMANPOUR: But we keep hearing that ISIS, that the war is being won. And one year after, as you said, the airstrikes began, we still have Mosul

under ISIS control; Ramadi has stalled and Syria is a mess, with ISIS running practically unopposed.

ALLEN: Well, what I would say is that -- what we're saying is that we have achieved progress in the year. We aren't talking about whether we're

winning or losing at this point. We are achieving progress towards our goal, which is the defeat of daish.

If you think back upon the moment that we faced a year ago today, Mosul was lost. We were seeing atrocities we could not have imagined. A

large part of the Iraqi security forces had collapsed. Baghdad was in real danger. ISIL was flowing both down the Tigris River and the Euphrates

River.

And in the period of time since that period, we have created the anti- daish coalition. We have stabilized the situation and, in fact, have recovered a significant part of the ground that daish occupied last year.

AMANPOUR: General Allen, thank you very much indeed.

ALLEN: It's great to be with you again. Good to see you. My pleasure.

AMANPOUR: Thank you. You, too.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: So up next, Russia says that it does not consider the legitimate Syrian opposition, the FSA and the SNC, to be terrorists. But

say they are being attacked by Russia right now. The president of the Syrian National Coalition joins me live when we come back.

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

Russia's foreign minister has been forced to clarify his country's motives in Syria, among growing concerns that Moscow is targeting the U.S.-

backed Syrian opposition there.

Sergey Lavrov says that Russia doesn't consider the opposition, the Free Syrian Army, to be a terror organization and believes the group should

be part of the political process.

So what does the political wing of the Free Syrian Army think of Mr. Lavrov's comments?

Khaled Khoja is the president of the Syrian National Coalition and he joins me now from our studios here in New York.

Mr. Khoja, welcome to the program.

Let me just start by asking you, are you being hit?

What is Russia hitting?

And do you believe when they say they have not actually hit your targets?

KHALED KHOJA, PRESIDENT, SNC: Well, the Russians have been deceiving the international community since the beginning. They say they want to

preserve the coherence of Syria and the -- to preserve the institutions of Syrian state.

But from the beginning, they were --

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KHOJA: -- supporting Bashar al-Assad to -- in order to kill more civilians and get rid of the opposition.

The Russians yesterday hit in Homs rural areas, such districts full with the civilians. Just one target, one FSA soldier has been killed. The

other 35 civilians, they were all, they were civilians. And today's attack in Idlib, they hit Free Syrian Army.

So the Russians are lying the international community. They are supporting Bashar al-Assad in order to kill more civilians and get rid of

the moderate opposition.

The ambassador of the regime, yesterday, he said they are accepting all the opposition, the armed opposition, as terrorists. So the targets

are being given by Syrian regime to the Russians and the Russians are targeting the FSA and the civilians.

AMANPOUR: Well, are you trying to tell the Russians then -- you're here in New York at the United Nations, are you trying to have a

conversation with them and say, look, you accept us as part of the legitimate opposition. Stop targeting our positions inside Syria. And

here are the coordinates of where we are.

KHOJA: No, we -- now we are perceiving the Russian invasion as occupation and we have the legitimate try to resist and free Syria from

this occupation.

AMANPOUR: What about Iran?

The president of Iran told me that, like everybody else, they believe now that ISIS is the principal target and needs to be defeated before

anything else, like political future, is discussed. There are reports that Iranian troops have gone in.

What are you hearing about this?

KHOJA: Well, they are using ISIL and Al Qaeda-affiliated groups as a cause. But they are targeting the civilians and targeting Free Syrian

Army. We heard the news from Hezbollah sources that there are some Iranian fighters coming to Syria.

But the Iranians were involving in this battle from the beginning. And we could defeat them in the north and in the south. Now the Russians

are coming to complete the Iranian missions.

We believe that the Russian will not help Bashar al-Assad to survive. We have our Free Syrian Army fighters are equal to the regime fighters. We

have more territory than the regime. The regime is controlling just 14 percent of Syrian territory, the rest is controlled by Free Syrian Army. A

few territories controlled by Al Qaeda-affiliated groups. Now ISIL is controlling just 11 percent of the territory.

So we have the superiority on the ground.

AMANPOUR: Mr. Khoja, can you just stand by one moment?

Because there are reports in the United States of a shooting out west with multiple casualties. And CNN is going to broadcast our sister

network, CNN USA.

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(DOMESTIC COVERAGE OF OREGON COLLEGE SHOOTING BEGINS)

END