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Pentagon: Iran Fired About 200 Ballistic Missiles at Israel; Pentagon Updates Helene Response Efforts. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired October 01, 2024 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... F-16s, A-10s. I presume that they weren't involved in any of the interception activity. Can you talk a little bit about why they're there and what role they might fill now in terms of enhancing security for U.S. forces in the region?

MAJ. GEN. PAT RYDER, PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: Yes, absolutely. Well, you know, as we've been highlighting for a while, we have a robust amount of capability in the Central Command and U.S. European Command regions. And what those capabilities provide us is versatility in terms of responding to a variety of contingencies.

And so, you know, basically having the right tools in the toolkit to be able to respond appropriately to any type of attack or contingency situation. And so, as you well know, PAT fighter aircraft can perform a variety of missions to include taking down drones, taking down missiles, particular kinds of missiles, as well as, you know, providing ISR, electronic warfare, and types of capabilities. So all of this comes together to provide us with options on how best to respond to any type of attack and to protect our forces.

Let me come back to the room here. Yes, ma'am.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, General. First, on Iran, after today's attack and the expected response from Israel, is the assessment at the Pentagon still that the situation in the Middle East is under control and we're not in all-out war yet?

And the second question on Lebanon. Excuse me. What's your understanding to what Israel is calling limited ground operations or incursion? Is it limited by, like, in time, in scope? How do you see this?

RYDER: Sure. So in terms of your first question, as you know, we've been working very hard from the beginning to prevent a wider regional conflict. Certainly, the type of aggressive action that we saw by Iran today makes that more challenging.

But that continues to remain our focus and remain our goal is to prevent a wider regional conflict. And so we'll continue to stay laser-focused on that.

In terms of Israel's operations, again, they're in the best position to answer questions. But our understanding in consulting with them is that, again, these will be limited operations focused on dismantling facilities that Hezbollah has built along the border to stage attacks into Israel. And so, you know, part of those discussions, again, have been focused on, you know, making sure that there's an understanding as far as potential mission creep. And so, as it relates to the broader tensions in the region, but again, we support their right to defend themselves from Hezbollah attacks. And so we'll continue to consult with them on that.

As I mentioned, Wafa, ultimately, we do believe that a diplomatic resolution is the only way to achieve lasting stability and security there.

A few more -- Phil.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A couple of small questions. One is, why weren't land-based air defenses used? And did you find that you had -- did the United States have fewer partners in trying to knock down these Iranian missiles this time than it did in April?

RYDER: I would compare it to a pallet, Phil. You're going to use the, you know, capability that you need to respond to a particular situation. So, you know, I mean, as evidenced by the fact that our forces were able to so quickly support Israel's defense, we have a wide range of capabilities arrayed to be able to respond to whatever those threats may be in the most appropriate way possible.

So it's less about the platform and it's more about the capability. And so, again, we still maintain a robust capability to be able to respond to any potential future threats as well.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I just want to follow up on what Helene was asking, which was important in the sense, I think you said a red line that if Iran or its forces were to attack U.S. troops, there would be a U.S. response against Iran. At least that's what it sounded like you were saying. Is that correct?

RYDER: What I said is it should be very clear that if Iran or its proxies use this as an opportunity to attack U.S. forces, we will respond appropriately. Yep. OK.

Last question -- Nat.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thanks, Pat. I just wanted to clarify a few things that you said in terms of Iran's capabilities going forward. Is it clear from the U.S. side that this is the imminent risk is over of another attack from Iran?

[15:35:04]

RYDER: Well, look, you know, it's something we're going to keep an eye on. We certainly hope that there's not another attack. But obviously, Iran maintains a capability, and it's just demonstrated that they're willing to use it to directly attack Israel.

And so we're going to continue to consult closely with Israel on next steps and, importantly, on the defense of Israel. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And on Israel's limited incursion, have they provided any sort of a timeline on how long they would stay there?

RYDER: I'd refer you to Israel to talk about that. I don't think it'd be appropriate for me to talk about that.

Hey, folks, while there's been an understandable focus today on the Middle East, before we conclude, I would like to provide a quick update on a topic closer to home as DOD continues to work with federal, state, and local officials to support Hurricane Helene response efforts.

As of this morning, the department has more than 6,500 service members actively engaged in relief efforts across six states. Florida has nearly 3,500 guardsmen activated, and Georgia has around 1,400 guardsmen on duty. South Carolina has activated nearly 500 guardsmen, along with two helicopters, for their recovery efforts.

Tennessee has around 130 guardsmen and seven helicopters activated. And Virginia has activated nearly 60 guardsmen, along with one helicopter and numerous high-water vehicles. Additionally, since the storm passed, North Carolina has emerged as an area of particular focus after the historical levels of flooding that occurred in the western part of that state.

A multi-state, multi-agency effort is currently underway, with more than 80 guardsmen and 13 helicopters from Connecticut, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Ohio, New York, South Carolina, and Florida joining more than 800 North Carolina guardsmen in providing support to devastated North Carolina communities.

U.S. Northern Command is also providing active duty support efforts to FEMA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is providing emergency power planning and response teams to Georgia, as well as dam, levee, and bridge inspection to Tennessee and Kentucky, and temporary power to North Carolina.

For further questions about National Guard missions, I would encourage you to contact the specific states in questions, and for active duty support efforts to FEMA, U.S. Northern Command is standing by. For service-specific evacuation efforts, it's best to contact the services directly.

As the DOD continues to aid response efforts, Secretary Austin and department leaders will continue to be engaged and stay in close contact with federal, state, and local officials to ensure resources are available and to maximize a coordinated response. And in the days ahead, the department will continue to keep our fellow Americans who have been impacted by this storm's devastation in our thoughts.

Thank you very much, everybody. Appreciate it.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: All right, so there you have the Pentagon's spokesman, General Patrick Ryder, briefing not only on what's going on in the Middle East, a huge developing story with enormous potential implications right now, but at the very end, saying what the U.S. military is doing to help the folks in the southeastern part of the United States, Anderson, deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, and it's a very significant development as well. And thank God for those U.S. military personnel, National Guard, and other troops who have gone in to help those folks who desperately need it.

But most of his words were dealing with the crisis that's unfolding right now, the escalating tension in the Middle East. So far, he says no damage to U.S. troops, but he did say, and I think it was significant, exactly what Jake Sullivan, the president's national security advisor, said at the White House, what Antony Blinken, the Secretary of State, said, what Matthew Miller, the State Department spokesman, said, and basically saying we fully support Israel's right to defend itself, and the U.S. military will do whatever is necessary to help Israel in this effort.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: He also gave a little bit more detail about what the U.S. involvement was in the defense of Israel during this latest attack. He said they fired approximately a dozen interceptors from two Navy destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean. Those had been pre-positioned on site, along with a number of other assets, their fighter squadron assets, and a carrier strike group in the Arabian Sea.

But it was these two destroyers that were involved firing about a dozen interceptors. He did not specify whether, you know, what the results of those firings were, whether they each hit their targets. They're still doing assessments on that.

But the other thing that he also stressed was that this was what he is calling a significant escalation, which is the same language that Jake Sullivan has used and others, a significant escalation from the Iranian attack that took place in April, which involved drones and others. This was purely, as far as they know right now, ballistic missile strikes. He said it was about twice the size of that attack in April, which was viewed as the first time there was a state-on-state Iran-on-Israel attack.

This is now the second time, and it's being viewed as an escalation.

[15:40:00]

So the question is, does Israel's response also escalate to what Israel did before?

We're going to take a short break. We're following our breaking news. Our coverage continues after a quick message. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Anderson Cooper and I are back with our breaking news coverage. Major developments, Iran launching a barrage of ballistic missiles at Israel.

[15:45:00]

Iran's president now saying today's attack, and I'm quoting now, was only a portion, he says, of our power.

Our teams are on the ground witnessing dozens of missiles over the cities of Tel Aviv, even Jerusalem, and Haifa as well in northern Israel.

U.S. officials estimate Iran fired nearly 200 ballistic missiles towards Israel. Israel says some of them actually made a direct impact in central and southern Israel.

COOPER: Now, Iran says this attack was in response for the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and other commanders of the Iran- backed militant group. It says it targeted three Israeli military bases around Tel Aviv. Israel's military is vowing that Iran's attack, quote, will have consequences.

Moments ago, former President Donald Trump had this to say about the attack.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: The world right now is spiraling out of control. You might not have seen what's happened because it was a few hours ago. A lot of people were here.

There's so many people outside, which we appreciate, but a lot of people were here. A short time ago, Iran launched 181 ballistic missiles at Israel. I've been talking about World War III for a long time, and I don't want to make predictions because the predictions always come true.

We're not going to make, but they are very close to global catastrophe. We have a non-existent president and a non-existent vice president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right, let's discuss what's going on. Kim Dozier is joining us right now. Kim, you're a national security analyst.

Now we've heard Trump make similar claims before about conflicts, saying they never would have happened had he still been president of the United States. First of all, give us your reaction to this.

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, the counter to that is that Iran has been helping Hezbollah and Hamas plan for large-scale attacks against Israel for at least the past decade, so this confrontation was always in the offing. Wolf, I know you've been to Israel. I've been to Israel and gotten the briefings over and over and over about the 150,000-some missiles and rockets that Iran has helped Hezbollah store in Lebanon, ready to fire south.

Now, the one good thing about this attack, if there was anything good about it, is that Iran says it was aiming at military bases, so Iran hasn't escalated to the next step of hitting Israeli industry, Israeli ports, or even worse, Israeli civilian areas. So it wasn't successful in that it didn't overwhelm Israel and U.S. air defenses, and Iran also hasn't ratcheted it up by trying to attack and cause major civilian casualties.

COOPER: You should point out, though, Iran -- I mean, all U.S. officials are pointing out that Iran, they're saying it has escalated significantly by using purely ballistic missiles, whereas before in April they used slower moving drones, which are easier to hit, and it was actually double the amount of ballistic missiles than they used in April.

DOZIER: Yes, in April it was 110 ballistic missiles approximately, 30 cruise missiles, which are much slower, and then a selection and assortment of armed drones, which were also at that time knocked out of the sky.

Now, this time it was somewhere north of 180 ballistic missiles, and those are very fast. They can take about 10 to 12 minutes from Iran to Israel. So this was intended to strike its targets, but the air defense system proved superior.

The question is, how is Israel going to respond? Last time it took Israel about a week, and Israel hit the air defense systems near Isfahan.

These are the S-300 air defense systems that are designed to protect Fordow, one of Iran's most sensitive nuclear sites. It was like a signal that said, we could have hit your nuclear sites. We took out their defense, but we didn't go that far, so check yourself.

Now the question is, will they take that next step and hit closer to a sensitive target in Iran, and that's where you get into what we all call this escalation ladder. One serious hit followed by another more serious hit, and that's where you could spiral into something out of control.

COOPER: Our special coverage of this conflict continues. We're going to be talking to military analysts to look at what might be targeted in Iran if Israel chooses to respond. We'll be right back after a quick break.

[15:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: You're watching CNN's special live coverage of Iran's major attack on Israel. The U.S. National Security Advisor just confirmed an American Navy destroyer helped thwart Iranian missiles from hitting Israel. Jake Sullivan said Iran launched nearly 200 ballistic missiles toward Israel. The Israeli military said that no one was hurt.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps says the attack was aimed at military and security targets in Israel and was retaliation for the deaths of several senior officials in the Revolutionary Guard as well as in the group Hezbollah and Hamas.

[15:55:00] BLITZER: Those groups, Anderson, as our viewers know, are all backed by Iran big time. The deaths, the recent deaths include Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary General of Hezbollah, killed by an Israeli airstrike on Friday.

The fight against Israel has been intensifying since October 8th. That's when Hezbollah began firing across the border from Lebanon into Israel a day after the October 7th terrorist attack that killed more than 1,000 Israelis.

Israel has been firing back, and the cross-border battle has forced the evacuation of more than 60,000 Israelis and 100,000 Lebanese in the area.

CNN's Kim Dozier is still with us, our global affairs analyst, along with CNN military analyst, retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton. Colonel, first of all, what's your reaction to these strikes?

We heard the Defense Department spokesman, General Patrick Ryder, say that two U.S.-guided missile destroyers, the USS Cole and the USS Bulkeley, were involved in sending up interceptors to try to knock down those ballistic missiles coming towards Tel Aviv and elsewhere in Israel.

If the Israeli air defense missile system, the Iron Dome, for example, and the USS guided missile destroyer interceptors had not worked, what kind of damage would those Iranian ballistic missiles have done in a heavily populated city like Tel Aviv?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Wolf, the damage would have been considerable, especially if they had been even somewhat on target. You know, these types of missiles that the Iranians sent toward Israel are designed to have maximum explosive effect. And if they had hit a target, to like one of the intended targets, like, let's say, the headquarters of the Israeli intelligence service, the Mossad, the damage would have been probably quite severe.

But, as we know, that did not happen. And because it didn't happen, not only is the Mossad headquarters still intact, but other areas, civilian areas and other military or government installations are still operational in Tel Aviv.

BLITZER: So, Kim, what's your sense right now? I'm convinced that this is going to escalate big time, but I'm anxious to get your thoughts. Are they going to quiet things down or is this just the beginning?

DOZIER: I think you're going to see Israel respond in some way striking something inside Iran, as it did last time, but another warning shot, not something like they may find something to hit other than an Iranian nuclear facility, which would be an all bets are off kind of situation.

But this friction is going to continue because the Israeli incursion into Lebanon, it's going to go likely for some weeks, because what the Israeli Defense Forces are trying to do is penetrate all the bunkers and the tunnels where Hezbollah has stored other ballistic missiles like the ones that were fired tonight that could travel much faster and reach all populated parts of Israel. And that operation, as we've seen with the tunnels in Gaza, it takes a while to find them all and then to dismantle whatever weapons they find.

They've done something like 70 raids in the past 24 hours. But with hundreds of miles of tunnels reportedly built with the help of Iran and North Korea by Hezbollah, there's going to be a lot to map out and destroy. And each day that goes on, those missiles are supposed to be kept in reserve for Iran's use.

And Iran may want to try to do something to keep its strategic reserve from being completely destroyed.

COOPER: Colonel Leighton -- we only have about two minutes left -- but if Israel did choose to respond to try to strike directly at Iran's nuclear facilities, what capabilities do they have? What kind of damage could they do?

LEIGHTON: Well, Anderson, one of the key things about this is that the Iranians have designed their nuclear facilities under some really incredibly hardened facilities. One of the key things in Iranian universities is to study engineering specifically with cement. And hardened cement is one of the reasons that we have these bunker- busting bombs.

They're designed to penetrate these kinds of targets. So the types of capabilities, those 2,000-pound bombs that we've been talking about in Gaza and in Beirut and Lebanon, those would be the types of weapons, among the types of weapons that the Israelis would probably use if they were to do something like that.

BLITZER: Do you think they will?

LEIGHTON: I don't think they will at this point in time, but they're going to hold that in reserve.

BLITZER: Because there's been a lot of speculation in Israel, a lot of pressure on the government to use this moment right now to go after Iran's nuclear capability, prevent Iran from ever developing some sort of nuclear bomb, which they see as a major threat potentially down the road to Israel's very existence.

[16:00:00]

LEIGHTON: Yes, that's certainly true, Wolf. And, you know, one of the things that Prime Minister Netanyahu has to decide is whether or not he's going to go along that hard line route that you pointed out, or whether he's going to send a message, as we've been talking about just a few minutes ago.

COOPER: And obviously, the Israeli cabinet has been meeting, discussing this into the night. We'll obviously learn more in the coming hours.

BLITZER: Yes, it's going to be a dangerous situation, and I suspect it's going to escalate.

COOPER: Thank you all for joining us. This has been CNN special coverage of the Iranian strikes on Israel.

BLITZER: And here in the United States, the vice presidential debate is only five hours from now. I'll be back 5 p.m. Eastern for special coverage leading up to that event. Anderson will join the coverage at 7 p.m. Eastern. But first, right now, "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.

END