CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Global Security

Interview

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BLITZER: Brian Todd, thanks very much.

Let's dig deeper right now. Joining us, the Republican senator from Idaho, James Risch. He serves on both the Intelligence and Foreign Relations Committees. Senator Risch, welcome back. Thanks for joining us.

SEN. JAMES RISCH (R-ID), INTELLIGENCE AND FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEES: Good to be here.

BLITZER: Let's talk a little bit about this raid, first of all, in Syria. We now know the real name released by the U.S. Real name, Fathi Ben Awn Ben Jildi Murad al-Tunisi. Al-Tunisi means "the Tunisian." What can you tell us about this guy?

RISCH: Well, first of all, he had several aliases. Obviously, when he was first gotten, they called him Abu Sayyaf. They've got his wife also at the same time. The position is a really critical position. And I think that that victory that we had this weekend was kind of overshadowed by the real setback in Ramadi.

But the way that this organization, ISIS, ISIL, DAISH, whatever you call it, one of the reasons they've been so successful, compared to al Qaeda, both from how quickly they've been successful and really, the overall success that they've had, has been because they know how to imagine finances. They bring in a lot of money, as was just pointed out. They get it from oil sales. They get it from kidnappings. They get it from extortion, theft. Whatever.

[17:10:33] And this gentleman played a real key role in that. And that's the reason that the United States was willing to take a high- risk operation. And this was a high-risk operation.

BLITZER: Was he also directly involved in killing American hostages?

RISCH: You know, I can't tell you that. I don't have that information at this point. They're still vetting who he was because of the various aliases that he had. But he was a real player in the ISIS organization. And particularly because he was so good at handling the money and being able to direct traffic as to how it would come in and where it would go.

BLITZER: Well, if he was the chief financial officer of ISIS, as he's been described, presumably -- he's dead now -- somebody else could come in and replace him, right?

RISCH: Well, that's true. But as you watch these organizations over there, one of the things that they're really short on is leadership. They don't have the same kind of leadership that you have, for instance, in a first-world country where, when someone steps aside, somebody else can easily step in and take their place. That isn't the way these guys operate. They're really long on foot soldiers and really short on leadership.

BLITZER: You've been briefed on this. Based on everything you know right now -- you don't know everything, but a lot. You know a lot more than the rest of us. Based on everything you know, was the president right in making the decision to risk the lives of these Delta Force commandos, go in on this high-risk mission into Syria and kill this guy? RISCH: First of all, they were going to try to capture him, as

opposed to killing him. But nonetheless, the operation that we've been briefed on, what I've seen and particularly the actual technicalities of it, I think there's no question that the president made the right call and indeed, because of what was in place in other things, it was...

BLITZER: And he was the target, this guy, right?

RISCH: He was clearly the target.

BLITZER: There was nobody else? They just found this guy, but the real target wasn't there? There's speculation and rumors along those lines. You haven't heard anything?

RISCH: No. This was the target along with his wife. You know, women don't ordinarily play high-role positions in this organization or, for that matter, the other organizations over there. But his wife actually played a much more strategic role than women generally play in these organizations.

BLITZER: Umm Sayyaf as they called her. What was her role?

RISCH: Well, she was involved in decision-making with him, from what we're able to tell. And in addition to that, there are at least claims that she was involved in the hostage situation.

And as you know, there was another woman that was taken that was -- supposedly has been called a slave. She was involved in those kind of operations. So she was -- she was much more pivotal.

BLITZER: She's a Yazidi sex slave, if you will. And she's now being interrogated by the U.S.

RISCH: She is. His wife is being interrogated by the U.S.

BLITZER: Any good information yet?

RISCH: They are getting information.

BLITZER: Is it good?

RISCH: They are getting information. Whenever you get information on these, you never take it at face value. It's always got to be vetted.

BLITZER: But she's talking?

RISCH: And they will get -- they will get what they can get from her.

BLITZER: She's talking?

RISCH: They're interrogating her, and she has answered at least some questions. And how deep that goes, I really -- I really can't go into.

BLITZER: All right. Thanks. Don't go away. We have more to talk about, including what's going on in Ramadi, because it doesn't look good. Pretty ugly picture. Much more with Senator Risch right after this.

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BLITZER: The Obama administration says the fall of the Iraqi city of Ramadi to ISIS means, in their words, a long slog ahead in the fight against the terror group. We're back with a key member of the Senate Intelligence and Foreign Relations Committees, Republican Senator James Risch of Idaho.

The -- Susan Rice, the president's national security adviser, she says it's a long slog. That's what the U.S. can expect. The White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, says it's a setback what happened in Ramadi, the defeat of the Iraqi military. ISIS takes over. Would you call it a long slog, a setback? How would you describe it?

RISCH: Well, I think setback is an understatement. The fall of Ramadi is a big deal. What you have here is really a key city in a key region, and it is occupied by Sunni people.

And they have been in other parts of both Syria and Iraq. The Sunnis have been sympathetic towards ISIS, because they're also Sunni. So it's going to be interesting to see how this plays out.

There's going to be a huge battle over -- over there. Open sources today are reporting that the -- that the Shiite militia are converging on Ramadi. They're both Iranian-backed and non-Iranian backed. You know, we also watched what happened in Tikrit and see pictures of what's left at it.

I suspect by the time they're done with Ramadi, the pictures are going to be very similar. I'm so sure that the -- that the script isn't very close.

BLITZER: It's a city that used to have, not that long ago, half a million people. At least 120,000 have fled, refugees. And more are trying to get out right now. But ISIS presumably not necessarily letting them leave.

[17:20:17] These Shiite militias that are going in there to do the work of what the Iraqi military should be doing. That's going to really antagonize the Iraqi Sunnis in the area. They hate these Shiites.

RISCH: There's absolutely no question about that, Wolf. You just mentioned an important point that needs to be underscored, and that is that we all thought that maybe the Iraqi forces were going to step up. Remember right at the beginning they turned tail and ran when ISIS showed up.

BLITZER: In Mosul, they abandoned Mosul, the second largest city.

RISCH: Exactly.

BLITZER: But these are American-trained, American-financed, American- armed troops. The U.S. spent a decade training the Iraqi military and the first sign of a bunch of terrorists come in, they flee. What happens?

RISCH: Well, I think really, what you have here is you have people that are not committed to the cause they're fighting for. People fight for a cause. And when we first saw them turn tail and run, that was the first thing that went through my mind, is that you can train them all you want. Training doesn't -- if they don't stand and fight because they don't believe in the cause they're fighting for, the training doesn't make any difference.

BLITZER: Because now the U.S. wants to send in more weapons to spend for money, U.S. tax dollar money to train more of these Iraqi troops when they simply, at least in recent experience, they run away, they leave the weapons behind. Those weapons wind up, including in Ramadi, in the hands of ISIS.

RISCH: And that's a very good observation. And again, I come back to it isn't the training. It's what they're willing to fight for. And so far we just haven't seen it.

BLITZER: So what's the solution here?

RISCH: I don't know what the solution is there. There in Tikrit, it was call in the Kurds. And unfortunately, of course, this area is too far south for the Kurds. Probably to even be interested. But it's going to get -- it's going to get ugly there as the Shiites pour in.

BLITZER: I want to show you some video released by the Iraqi defense ministry. Let me put it up on the screen. Take a look at this. You see Iraqi military helicopters flying over Ramadi. These are Iraqi soldiers, desperately trying to escape Ramadi right now, because they're fearful of what these ISIS terrorists are going to do to them if they capture them.

They run to the helicopter. They get out of there. They leave all their weapons behind. And this is going on and on. Now, the Iraqi defense ministry releases this video. The defense minister, by the way, of Iraq is a guy named Khaled al-Obeidi, who himself is a Sunni. And it's a tense situation between the Shia, Iraqi Shia and the Iraqi Sunnis. Why do you think they released this video, which is real good propaganda, if you will, for ISI?

RISCH: Yes, it is good propaganda for ISIS. I guess it's speculation as to why they would release something like that.

The other thing is that the reporting is pretty clear that ISIS didn't have nearly the numbers that the Iraqis had. The Iraqis outnumbered ISIS and still turned tail and ran.

BLITZER: And because the Iraqi military that was going there, a lot of them were Iraqi Shia in a Sunni area and they said, "You know what? This is not any territory, not my land. I'm getting out of here. Not worth dying for."

RISCH: Well, again, it comes back to what you're willing to fight for. Because they're not willing to fight for it. You can't -- training and weapons won't make any difference.

BLITZER: Should the U.S. continue to fund, train and arm the Iraqi military?

RISCH: Well, obviously, not if they're going to continue to act like they're acting.

We were hopeful when the -- when we had other Arab nations around there get together and talk about that they were going to put boots on the ground. There's no appetite in Congress or the American people to put boots on the ground.

But -- and we do a lot of good things with air power. But it is going to take some boots on the ground at some point in time, somewhere along the line. And right now the Iraqis certainly aren't showing that they've got the -- that they've got the fire in the bell.

BLITZER: The U.S. now has 3,000 troops in Iraq supposedly training the Iraqi military. Lindsey Graham was here yesterday. He said that number should go up to 10,000. Do you agree with him?

RISCH: You know, I'm going to leave that to Lindsey for his estimate. He's closer on the military things than I am. The Iraqi troops have got to do better than they're doing or it doesn't make any difference how many trainers you put there or what kind of training you give them.

BLITZER: Fair enough. All right. Senator Risch, thanks for joining us.

RISCH: You're welcome.

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