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@THISHOUR WITH BERMAN AND MICHAELA

Kobani, Syria, About to Fall to ISIS; Supreme Court Refuses Same-Sex Marriage Appeal From States; FBI Warns of Terror Attack; Fighting Ebola in America

Aired October 6, 2014 - 11:00   ET

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


MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN CO-ANCHOR: An important border city appears to fall as ISIS raises its flag in Kobani, Syria. One of the big questions this morning, are coalition air strikes working?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN CO-ANCHOR: It's the type of warning that can't help but get your attention. The director of the FBI says a terror attack could come, quote, "very, very soon."

So what does he know that has him so certain? And what is the United States doing about it?

PEREIRA: And stopping the spread of Ebola, the CDC and the White House considering extra screening at U.S. airports, some wondering should all flights be -- from Ebola-stricken countries be banned?

Hi, there. I'm Michaela Pereira.

BERMAN: And I'm John Berman. We have those stories and much more @THIS HOUR.

We're going to start with the battle against ISIS in Syria, because as we sit here, it's at a critical juncture, a key city on the brink of falling to ISIS right now, despite days of U.S.-led air strikes.

The city of Kobani might be all but lost already, frankly. Earlier this morning, ISIS fighters raised the group's flag above a building in the southeastern corner of the city.

PEREIRA: And just a short time ago, a second flag raised, this one on a hilltop a little further into the city.

Over the weekend, our Phil Black got caught up in the tension between Turkish security forces and local Kurdish people near the border.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PHIL BLACK, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You can see here there's a Turkish security forces vehicle here. It is coming under rocket fire from some of the local Kurds who have been watching the fight going across the border on in Syria.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: Kobani is so crucial because it would give ISIS complete control of a 62-mile swath of land between its self-declared capital of Raqqa, Syria, and Turkey.

BERMAN: As we said, this battle is raging right now. ISIS fighters are pounding Kobani with heavy artillery and tank fire. The Kurdish forces are far outgunned, and they are desperate for more help from the United States-led coalition. The question is, why aren't they getting it?

PEREIRA: Joining us to talk about it all, our military analyst, retired Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona. Arwa Damon, we know she is in the middle of it all, right there on the Turkish/Syria border. Arwa, I'm going to get to you in a second.

I think that many want to know, Colonel, is, after all of these air strikes, we have coalition forming here, working, yet ISIS is still gaining ground, two flags up. Talk to us about this.

LIEUTENANT COLONEL RICK FRANCONA, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: It's a very difficult target to affect from just the air. Without somebody on the ground to direct these air strikes onto specific targets and using fast-movers -- in other words, jets -- to attack these targets, you're not going to be as precise as we want to be.

You're going to be hitting a vehicle here, a vehicle there, but you're not going to be able to take out troops in the open and especially when you have these irregular forces.

So it's just not being as effective as we would like. Once again, we go back to the same old thing we've been saying. No boots on the ground, no spotters to control these strikes.

BERMAN: You say not as effective as we like. If you're bombing them and they're still taking over territory, the question is, is it being effective at all?

FRANCONA: Not as much as -- no, not really. we can -- in Iraq, it's been effective. In Syria, not much at all. It just hasn't achieved the desired results.

In Iraq, of course, we've got people on the ground. We've got the Iraqis and the Kurds, and so you're supporting them.

Here we're not supporting anybody. There's a couple of Kurdish snipers left. There's not like force on force. So I think it's just a matter of time before Kobani is in ISIS hands.

PEREIRA: Arwa, let's bring you into the conversation there on the border. Symbolic? Sure. The flags being flown in two locations, but as far beyond that, give us a sense of what ISIS is doing there on the ground. ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, they

continue to push towards Kobani, especially over the last few days, managing to entrench themselves in the southeastern part of the city, and we've been seeing this rising anger amongst either the Syrian Kurds who fled to Turkey that we've been speaking to or even amongst Turkey's Kurdish population towards this coalition, because despite fact there aren't spotters on the ground in Syria as was being mentioned there, people don't understand how it is that these various targets of opportunities that ISIS fighters presented weren't capitalized on.

For example, last week, there was two days a hilltop battle going on where ISIS fighters were completely exposed. We watched all of it from this side of the border.

There have been other instances with various reports of ISIS moving its equipment, its tanks towards Kobani, moving through fairly open spaces. You can see the terrain where we are. Effectively that is the terrain that is on the other side of the border.

So people don't understand why these various convoys were not taken out before they were able to even reach Kobani at this stage, and so people are beginning to become increasingly suspicious about this coalition's true intent.

There's rising anger, rising frustrations on both sides of the border, people effectively once again believing that the U.S. and its allies are betraying them.

BERMAN: And of course Arwa is standing in the territory of one of the new U.S. allies, Turkey, Turkey literally has troops on the border watching Kobani fall right now.

What the blank, to be blunt here, are these Turkish forces doing?

FRANCONA: This is so frustrating because you've got the Turks right there with the ability to affect this battle, and we're relying on aircraft that have to fly from hours away.

So we take Arwa's point very seriously. The problem is, by the time we react to a target that presents itself, by the time we can get fighters to the target area, it's so far away, whereas if the Turks were involved, they're minutes away. We're hours away.

It's frustrating to watch a new coalition ally just sit there and watch.

PEREIRA: Let's shift our focus to ISIS in Iraq, and I think we actually might have a map here. We understand our Barbara Starr has been reporting that helicopters struck ISIS targets in Iraq's Anbar Province over the weekend, trying to push back forces advancing near Fallujah.

Is there a sense that maybe they're having to play catch-up now? They underestimated ISIS's progress, if you will, in Iraq, we're so focused on Syria? FRANCONA: Once again, not having real U.S. controllers on the ground,

they've had to bring in Apache helicopters. Now bringing in Apache helicopters indicates they're not happy with fast movers, so they want to bring in something lower and slower and can concentrate something -- you know, machine-gun fire rather than just bombs.

Now this is -- an Apache is a tremendous platform. The problem is, when you get down that low without supporting --

PEREIRA: You're a target yourself.

FRANCONA: You're a target yourself. Exactly. And we know that ISIS has shoulder-fired missiles, and just recently they captured a bunch of very capable ZSU-23-4 system -- anti-aircraft system from the Syrians.

And, you know, we know ISIS moves things back and forth, so this presents a real challenge to the coalition.

BERMAN: It also represents -- make no mistake -- an escalation or uptick in the U.S. involvement. When you use this new weapons system, Apaches, you're putting yourself much, much closer to the battle.

FRANCONA: And we've seen different units in the States being alerted for deployment, including an A-10 unit, which is another low-and-slow fighter that operates down on the deck.

So I think what we're seeing here is the U.S. realization that doing it from high up in fast-moving aircraft may not be filling the bill.

PEREIRA: Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona and our Arwa Damon, thank you for joining us and for terrific reporting on the ground. Please stay safe, Arwa. We appreciate it.

All right, the Supreme Court -- we're going to turn our eyes to that -- decides to stay out of the same-sex marriage debate. What does it mean for your state?

We're going to take a look at this ruling in this hot-button issue and, of course, the broader implications.

BERMAN: Plus, some chilling words from the FBI director about a group of seasoned al-Qaeda terrorists and just how close they could be to attacking the United States.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: We turn to the Supreme Court now, refusing to get involved in the same-sex marriage debate, at least for now.

Just last hour, the justices rejected requests from five states to immediately review their bans on gay and lesbian marriages.

BERMAN: The states that brought the appeals are Virginia, Indiana, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and Utah. But, you know, not getting involved is in itself its own form of involvement here.

I want to bring in our Supreme Court head honcho Jeffrey Toobin. He understand this is better than anyone.

Jeffrey, as I see it, this has two immediate effects, where judges have ruled that same-sex marriage is legal, it's still legal and the Supreme Court isn't about to declare -- at least not this year -- any kind of national right to same-sex marriage.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: That's right. The one thing we know for sure is that there will not be a 50-state ruling same-sex marriage is required in every state in the union.

What is complicated and, frankly, somewhat mysterious, is what happens now in the states where the lower courts have said, "Under our interpretation of the Constitution, we believe there is a right to same-sex marriage."

Certainly in the five states you just showed on the screen, same-sex marriage will become law, but there are other states covered by rulings that were not brought to the Supreme Court, which also say same-sex marriage should be allowed. In those jurisdictions, I think it's a little more mysterious what will happen in the immediate future.

PEREIRA: So there's a lot of questions here. What will happen in the immediate future? What happens in the long-term future. But I want to know why. Why is this?

Because you make a point. You're making a decision by not making a decision. What -- give us some understanding into this.

TOOBIN: Well, you know this is why we have a Supreme Court, right, to settle complicated controversial legal issues.

Frankly, I think it's outrageous that the court didn't take this case. The way that the court works is it takes four votes to agree to hear a case. It's five votes to reach a judgment but four votes to hear a case, and apparently there were not four votes to take these cases.

Now the justices may say -- though they don't explain these rulings -- look, there's no controversy in the courts of appeals now. They have all ruled that same-sex marriage is the law. We don't need to settle a disagreement.

There could be some strategic voting going on on the part of some of the justices, saying, we don't want to take this case because our side may lose. That's something that goes on.

But frankly I think this was a real abdication of duty on the part of the Supreme Court. Lots of courts are -- sorry, go ahead.

BERMAN: Our friend Terry Moran has a theory, which is that the court essentially said that we want this discussion to take place amongst the American people for now.

We don't want to take this on yet. We want you to keep discussing this to come up with your own ideas, in a sense as a reaction a little to what happened to Roe v. Wade many, many years ago. Some people thought the court got out ahead of the national discussion. This time they want the discussion to come first.

TOOBIN: Right. That is certainly a theory that's been out there for a while, but the problem with that theory, I think, is that the discussion about same-sex marriage has been going on in this country for quite some time.

And the -- excuse me -- and the country has changed so much, and there are so many states that have it now that, yes, the courts shouldn't get ahead of the public, but the public is -- now all the polls show a majority favors same-sex marriage.

It's a place where it seems to me it's past time for the Supreme Court to step in. But you know what? I don't get a vote.

PEREIRA: You don't.

TOOBIN: They're the ones.

PEREIRA: It seems like a big missed opportunity to you, Jeffrey.

TOOBIN: They're the ones who get --

BERMAN: Yes.

PEREIRA: Yes. Yes.

BERMAN: Yes.

PEREIRA: You would look good in one of those robes, I think.

TOOBIN: Well, don't hold your breath.

(LAUGHTER)

PEREIRA: All right.

BERMAN: All right. Jeffrey Toobin, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

PEREIRA: Good to have you with us. Thanks for walking us through it.

BERMAN: Ahead for us @THIS HOUR, how close is the terror group Khorasan now from hitting the United States? The FBI director says the bureau is preparing as if it could happen tomorrow.

PEREIRA: Yes, he believes the group could be still planning despite U.S. airstrikes to take it out. We'll have that story next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES COMEY, FBI DIRECTOR: Khorasan was working and may still be working on an effort to attack the United States or our allies, and looking to do it very, very soon. I can't sit here and tell you whether it's -- their plan is tomorrow or three weeks or three months from now. Given our visibility we know they're serious people bent on destruction and so we have to act as if it's coming tomorrow.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: An unnerving comment from the head of the FBI about Khorasan. Remember that's the terror group described as seasoned al Qaeda operatives that the U.S. targeted in those first waves of airstrikes in Syria. But apparently they are still dangerous, at least according to the FBI. And they're still planning a terror attack on the U.S.

BERMAN: Yes. And as you just heard the FBI director James Comey say officials do not know where, they do not know when but they are planning as if this attack could happen tomorrow.

So let's bring international security analyst, former assistant Homeland Security secretary, Juliette Kayyem.

And Juliette, first off, this seems to indicate without much doubt that the FBI director didn't think those airstrikes against Khorasan did much good.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Or I have to say he thinks that they might have done good vis-a-vis what we knew about Khorasan at the time but that this terrorist organization has the capacity to reform. And so that may be what he's suggesting is, look, you never end terrorism, you just try to either delay it or minimize its impact. And I have to say, you know, the FBI director -- well, you want government to do a lot of things simultaneously. You should be able to rub its belly and chew gum at the same time.

PEREIRA: Sure.

KAYYEM: The FBI director, you want him solely focused on the potential terrorist attack or next terrorist attack so his words make sense to me even though they may seem a little bit dire or, you know, too -- you know, too strong for most people.

PEREIRA: They do seem dire and they do seem strong. I think that if you sort of add A plus B you should get to C. So if he's saying that the strikes didn't hit the target they were hoping and that the plots haven't been disrupted, why hasn't the U.S. gone harder against this group?

KAYYEM: Well, it may be planning that and also, look, we don't know what we don't know about terrorist organizations like this that are amorphous.

PEREIRA: Fair enough.

KAYYEM: They're small, they're not using easy means to be able to penetrate them in terms of intelligence and so he always is worried about the things -- the FBI director always is worried about the thing that he doesn't know. And so one has to assume -- and I've been saying this for 14 years, that there is always the potential for a terrorist attack in a nation like ours. We are open, we are welcoming, we are diverse, and so the goal is to sort of minimize that threat either internally or from abroad, but always believe that we are under some sort of threat, especially in a group like this.

BERMAN: And isn't that the problem, though? That there's so much that they cannot tell us, officials cannot tell us about what threats are really there and are not there. We understand that but, Juliette, you know, isn't the FBI director always preparing as if an attack could come tomorrow?

PEREIRA: Yes.

KAYYEM: Absolutely. And that's what you want him to do because you -- look, you know, you don't want the person focused on counterterrorism and on protecting the U.S. homeland in terms of law enforcement investigations to get too much mission creep. And so the FBI has transformed since 9/11 and has really focused on the international and national security threats. That is a good thing given what we experienced on 9/11 and the threats that we now face that could impact the homeland.

His language may have been a little bit more dire than we want or than maybe makes sense to most people but immanency him and for most in the field simply means, is there a group that has the motive and the means to attack us and the answer, unfortunately, is yes.

PEREIRA: Well, part of that threat in terms of means and motive is that, you know, he also mentioned that you have these Americans that have been fighting as part of ISIS and as part of this terror groups overseas, and that they have the ability to come back because they have U.S. passports and potentially could attack. They -- he also went on to say, "but we can keep track of them."

Comfort me here, Juliette. Comfort me.

KAYYEM: Well, look, you know, if you have a U.S. passport and you're a U.S. citizen you're going to be able to get in. This -- you know, this is what Britain is struggling with right now because the prime minister there wants to sort of give these people no safe haven but we do have the capacity to track them because if we suspect that someone goes abroad, they go missing for a couple months, maybe they're traveling to Turkey and cross over the border, they are tagged when they come back in.

It's not a perfect situation and certainly is enough evidence to justify an FBI investigation when they get back here. You know, this is the challenge of being a global -- sort of living in a global world right now and being the kind of country that we are. We can only minimize risk and then -- and then sort of, you know, look for those people or individuals or plans that might cause us harm.

BERMAN: Well, along that note. On the issue of threats, real perceived or otherwise, Juliette, I want you to stick around for a minute because we want to have another discussion with you.

Calls from the government to stop people from the Ebola hotspots from coming to the United States.

We're going to talk about whether those flights should be banned all together. Is that really the answer?

We'll talk to Juliette Kayyem, we'll also going to speak to an aviationist.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

PEREIRA: Another American sickened with Ebola is back on -- in the U.S., rather, for treatment. Ashoka Mukpo, a freelance photographer with NBC, arrived in Omaha, Nebraska, about three hours ago aboard a specially equipped plane after being evacuated from Liberia.

Meanwhile, the first person ever diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S., Thomas Eric Duncan, slid into critical condition over the weekend in Dallas. So far nobody who's come into contact with Duncan has become sick but about 10 people are still considered at higher risk for Ebola, including some of the health care workers.

BERMAN: The World Health officials say the current Ebola outbreak has infected more than 7400 people in three West African nations, some 3400 have died.

To confront Ebola here in the United States, the Obama administration is considering increased screening at major airports. Later today the CDC director Thomas Frieden will give the president an Ebola update.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

THOMAS FRIEDEN, DIRECTOR, CDC: We're looking at all options to protect Americans because that's our number-one priority. We do that 24/7. The first thing we did was to implement control measures in every airport in West Africa, every patient who leaves, every person who leaves has their temperature monitored. The patient in Dallas had a temperature of 97.3 when he left.

He didn't become ill for about four days after he arrived and we've had over 40,000 visitors from West Africa or people returning from West Africa, Americans and others over the past six months but we're going to look hard at every opportunity and see what we can do to further increase the safety of Americans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PEREIRA: I want to turn to our aviation analyst Mary Schiavo. Former inspector general for the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Juliette Kayyem is back with us, security analyst and former assistant secretary of Department of Homeland Security.

Mary, you have said on our air, you say no, people should not be allowed into the U.S. from the Ebola so-called hot zone. Still feel that way? You feel stronger that way?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, I do because so much of what we're hearing is really when you look at the numbers has to be lip service and all we have to do is look at how other African countries are handling it themselves. Thirteen have already banned travel or travel to some of the Ebola hot spots.