CNN "Wolf" - Transcript: Syria

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

BLITZER: At least they have the guts in the House of Representatives (INAUDIBLE) fooling around with procedure as they often do and then they're about to leave on recess. All right, Dana, thanks very much.

The House vote on the Syria funding, it did pass. Democrats, though, voted -- many Democrats voted against the president's plan. In fact, more Democrats voted against the plan than Republicans in the House 85 Democrats voted against the president, 71 Republicans. Still, it will be interesting to see what the Senate does today, although it's a little bit more complicated, as we point -- as we point out -- just pointed out.

Let's go to Capitol Hill, once again. The Indiana Republican Senator Dan Coats is standing by. He's a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. What do you think, Senator, if it were a stand-alone vote, would you support the president's $500 million proposal to arm and train those moderate Syrian rebels? Senator, I don't know if you can hear me. Let me repeat the question.

SEN. DAN COATS (R), INDIANA: Yes, please.

BLITZER: If there were a stand-alone vote, Senator Coats, would you support $500 million to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels?

COATS: Yes, I would but reluctantly, Wolf, because I don't think the strategy is there yet. But to not vote for it, just means we were a doing nothing. I think over this next few weeks here before we return in December, we've got to straighten this out. And the president has to delineate a much better strategy than what he has so far.

BLITZER: So, the vote later today to pass the stop gap measure to continue funding the government, what's called a Continuing Resolution, or C.R., you will vote yes?

COATS: I will vote yes reluctantly because I think we should have a separate vote so people know where we stand on the particular issue, but that's not the way it's being presented to us by Harry Reid.

BLITZER: Why are they refusing to let the Senate do what the House of Representatives do, simply have a vote on that narrow issue on funding and training Syrian rebels?

COATS: I think the president's afraid it's going to kick up a storm or maybe he wouldn't win that vote. I think he would. Nevertheless, I think the orders come down from the White House to combine the two and force the vote on keeping the government open as well as supporting the president's plan.

BLITZER: There's a lot of Democrats that want to vote, like Joe Manchin, for example, the Democratic senator from West Virginia. He says he's not ready to support that kind of legislation. On the other hand, they don't want to vote to shut down the government. Susan Collins made that point. A lot of Democrats and bunch of Republicans, they're going to hold their nose and vote for this because they don't want to shut down the government.

COATS: Well, that's true and this has been the situation over this whole last two years. We haven't -- whether it's Republicans or Democrats. We haven't been allowed to let our yes be yes and no be no on a particular issue. A lot of votes haven't been able to be taken because the majority leader has not allowed that to happen.

BLITZER: What do you think about this debate over the considering, at least considering, combat ground forces to destroy ISIL, or ISIS, whatever you want to call them?

COATS: We're way behind the curve here. The time it will take to train up these free Syrian army people is going to put us way behind the curve. We have not yet gotten commitments from Muslim nations that they'll support this. Ultimately, you can't win this situation and achieve the goal the president outlined, which I support, and that is to take down ISIS. You can't achieve that simply through air power and what the plan is to train up some free Syrian fighters. You had to -- have to put boots on the ground. The question is whose boots are we going to put there and can anybody else's boots do the job? That's a big issue for the president to deal with. And right now, he's in limbo land.

BLITZER: Because the only one -- only boots on the ground -- and this is our last question, Senator, because the only boots on the ground what I can see are Kurdish fighters, maybe some elements of the Iraqi military which the U.S. trained and funded, turned out to be a disaster, maybe some of those free Syrian army rebels. I don't see the neighboring Arab countries or Turkey, a NATO ally, or any of the European allies being willing to send troops in there, combat troops on the ground. Do you?

COATS: I don't see it yet and I have a real question about whether or not what you mentioned is enough to deal with ISIS which is rapidly expanding. They're very sophisticated. They're well resourced. They're a fighting army, and I'm not sure we have put together the coalition -- well, I'm sure we haven't so far, the coalition that's going to be able to deal with that.

BLITZER: I think you're probably right. Senator Coats, thanks very much for joining us.

COATS: Thank you.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source