CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: On Force Against ISIS And On Russia and Ukraine

Interview

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BLITZER: What a sad story all of this is.

All right, Pamela Brown, thank you.

The president's moves today set the stage for the first war powers vote in Congress in more than a decade. Let's talk about this and more. Joining us in THE SITUATION ROOM, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. He's a prominent member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Senator, thanks for coming in.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: Thank you.

BLITZER: Are you going to support this language the president has put forward authorizing the U.S. military to go out there and destroy ISIS?

GRAHAM: It's fatally flawed. No.

When the president says he wants to destroy ISIS, I don't think anybody believes it, including me, because his actions are not consistent with that statement. His speech today is never going to replace Churchill when it comes to rallying people to a cause. And he continued a damning narrative. Among our friends and our allies, he is seen as an uncertain trumpet to follow. And among our enemies, he is seen as weak. And if you could understand what he was saying today about our commitment to destroy ISIL, you did a better job than I have been able to do.

(LAUGHTER)

BLITZER: Well, he says he wants to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIS.

GRAHAM: How do you do that?

BLITZER: He said that a few times.

But he says you can do that with airpower, some ground forces as advisers, but let the Iraqi army, the Peshmerga, the Kurds, the Free Syrian military, some of the moderate Arab states, let them get the job done, instead of the U.S. having another Iraq or Afghanistan-type war that will last for decades.

GRAHAM: Number one, is ISIL a threat to our homeland? Do you think it is? Do you?

BLITZER: Doesn't everybody?

GRAHAM: Yes. OK.

So let's act as if it's a threat to the homeland, not somebody else's problem. Let's play out this strategy. I asked the White House a very direct question yesterday. Does this authorization to use military force allow us to protect the Free Syrian Army that we're training from being barrel-bombed by Assad? Because here is the plan.

We're going to train free Syrians, if we can find them. We're going to send them in to fight ISIL. And likely, most likely, when Assad sees them coming and gaining capacity, he's going to attack them, because he knows one day they will turn on him.

I asked the question, in the event that Assad goes after the people we train, can we defend them? And they said no.

BLITZER: What do you want? What do you want this language to include? Do you want another kind of Iraq or Afghanistan deployment of tens of thousands of U.S. troops to go in there?

GRAHAM: No. No.

BLITZER: If the U.S. sends 100,000 troops into Iraq and/or Syria, with the airpower, the U.S. military capability, they could get the job done, right?

GRAHAM: Yes. But you don't need that.

I want to actually destroy ISIL. I want a strategy that makes sense.

BLITZER: How do you do that?

GRAHAM: Well, the first thing you do is that you train the Iraqi army, the Kurds. You increase their capacity. You try to get the Anbar tribes away from ISIL.

The first thing you do is convince people you're actually committed to winning. When you ask people to go in on the ground, you have got to be willing to go with them, because they have capabilities that they lack.

BLITZER: You want boots on the ground. You want combat forces. How many combat forces do you think would be necessary to destroy ISIS, American troops?

GRAHAM: We have 3,000 now. I have been told by experts that you need American advisers probably at the battalion level. You're going to need helicopter support. You're going to need medevac. You need special forces. You're going to need logistics. You're going to need things they don't have.

Somewhere around 10,000. Here is the good news. We can do this, I think, with around 10,000. The bad news is, we don't have a strategy to accomplish the job in Syria. There is no ground component in Syria. The Free Syrian Army, it's going to take 50 years to train enough to defeat ISIL at this rate. To get any Arab army to go in on Syria, in the ground on Syria, you have got to take care of Assad.

Why won't the Arabs follow us in Syria? Because our game plan doesn't include Assad. They don't want to give Syria to Iran through Assad.

BLITZER: So, you want the U.S. to launch airstrikes against Bashar al-Assad's regime, not just going after ISIS targets in Syria? Is that what you're saying?

GRAHAM: I want to make sure that the people we train to go in and fight ISIL can't be destroyed by Assad. I want a no-fly zone. I want a no-fly, no-drive zone.

When we send people into Syria to fight ISIL, I want to make sure Assad doesn't kill them. The big problem in the Mideast, I was told by our Arab allies, it's better to be America's enemy than her friend. You respect your friends. This statement by the president and this strategy by the president will not get the job done in Syria.

BLITZER: But you can't really rely on the Iraqi military. It's a Shiite-led regime in Baghdad.

GRAHAM: You got that right. You got that right. Absolutely. Absolutely.

BLITZER: We spent hundreds of billions of dollars in Iraq. We trained them. We built a strong army, a strong air force, and all of a sudden, a few ISIS guys come in from Syria, they run away. They leave their armored vehicles, their tanks. They leave their weapons. They run away.

Mosul, you have been to Mosul. I have been to Mosul, a city of nearly two million people, the second largest city in Iraq.

GRAHAM: Yes. Yes.

BLITZER: They abandon it. And ISIS takes charge.

Do you believe this new government of Haider al-Abadi, who is very close to the Iranians, as you well know, is any better potentially than Nouri al-Maliki's government?

GRAHAM: Yes.

Everybody in the region tells me so. It's just not my view. But what you see is predictable. We argued that if you leave no troops behind, if you leave Iraq without a residual force, this will happen. Three years ago, we said if you can do a no-fly zone and train the Free Syrian Army today, Assad will be gone.

The decisions not to leave a force behind in Iraq, not to do a no-fly zone, trained the Free Syrian Army three years ago have come back to haunt us. But the army in Iraq is a Shia-led group. The political progress in Iraq is not going to progress until we show a commitment to stay with it.

We're the glue that holds it together. When you take us out of the mix, everybody goes back to their sectarian corners. And, again, as to Syria, this president is not serious about destroying ISIL because his policy strategy toward Syria makes no sense.

BLITZER: All right, Senator, I want you to stand by. We have more to discuss.

We will take a quick break.

Much more with Senator Lindsey Graham right after this.

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BLITZER: We're getting new information about the war in Ukraine. We are going to get to that in a moment.

But I quickly want to discuss what's going on in Iraq and Syria, this war against ISIS.

Senator Lindsey Graham, a member of the Armed Services Committee, is still with us.

I look at the situation in Iraq right now, and it's painful to say this, but the big strategic winner, maybe you agree or disagree, at least in that part of the world, seems to be Iran.

GRAHAM: Without question, they are the biggest winner of what's going on, on the ground in the Mideast.

But I asked a question of the White House general counsel about the authorization to use military force. The people we're training, the Free Syrian Army, we're going to send them into Syria. They are going to fight ISIL. But they hate Assad. They're eventually going to turn on him. And he knows that. Assad does.

So, if he does attack the people we train, I asked the question, will we defend them from an air campaign?

BLITZER: The Free Syrian Army?

GRAHAM: Yes. And he said no. And I said, why? That's militarily unsound, really, quite frankly, immoral. He said, we don't want a backlash from Iran. And that says all you need to know about...

BLITZER: Because Iran is totally supporting Bashar al-Assad's regime.

GRAHAM: You got it.

BLITZER: But they are closely aligned with the Iraqis right now, this new government.

(CROSSTALK)

GRAHAM: They are running Iraq.

BLITZER: Yes. It's a very disturbing situation.

I want you to stand by, Senator. There's more coming up.

Our senior international correspondent, Nic Robertson, is joining us live from Minsk in Belarus.

Critically important talks, I take it, Nic, they are still under way even at this late hour where you are. What is the latest?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Six hours of talks so far still under way. Started off with the heads of state. They brought in the foreign ministers to build out on the discussions.

And what one of the Russian news agencies is quoting Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, as saying is that the talks are going better than super. It does seem the Russians are quite, if you will, buoyant about the way things are going. The German delegation that we have been talking to are saying they are not going to share details as the negotiations go on.

Somebody else in the Russian delegation tonight has said the talks will go on as long as necessary. One of the Russian-backed separatists in the southeast of Ukraine has commented that the only way forward in this is for Ukraine to be politically, militarily, regionally neutral.

So, there are clearly big issues still at stake. Quite what is being agreed is not clear. But there's some sense that something is coming together, Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, we're going to stay in very close touch with you at this late hour over there. And we're going to be watching what's going on.

Senator Graham, what's your reaction to they may be, may be close to some sort of deal?

GRAHAM: I think the fact that the Russians are happy is all you need to know. I think the French and Germans are about to sell out the Ukraine.

In the late '90s, the United States and Russia and other countries signed a Budapest memorandum saying to the Ukrainian people, if you will turn over your nuclear arsenal, over 2,000 nuclear weapons, we, the United States, will guarantee your sovereignty.

Well, look what Russia has done. They have dismembered the Ukraine. And our European allies are more worried I think about their economic relationship with Russia than they are about the implications of allowing Putin to dismember a neighboring country. And what do you think the Iranians are thinking right now? Let's say there's a P5- plus-one deal.

BLITZER: With Iran?

GRAHAM: Yes, with Iran.

BLITZER: On its nuclear program.

GRAHAM: Looking at the West, given the deal we have already done with the Ukraine, don't you think the ayatollahs are thinking that no matter what I sign, if I break it, they're not going to do anything about it vis-a-vis the Ukraine?

BLITZER: That's a subject we will get into another time, because we're out of time right now.

Senator Graham, thanks very much for joining us.

GRAHAM: Thank you.

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