CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: On the Strength of ISIS, Confirmation of Loretta Lynch

Interview

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Senator, thanks very much for joining us.

Let me get your analysis, first of all, ISIS claiming responsibility for the suicide car bombing attack near the U.S. Consulate in Northern Iraq, in Irbil. They say the consulate was their target. They wanted to kill American diplomats, military personnel. You're on the Intelligence Committee, the Foreign Relations Committee. What can you tell us about this attack?

SEN. JAMES RISCH (R), IDAHO: Well, Wolf, first of all, that hasn't been confirmed as yet.

However, having said that, it is more likely than not that it was ISIS. And certainly the consulate was the target. What's interesting about this is Irbil, as your story just pointed out, is a city that's been really relatively secure. It's a city of about a million people. And it is very heavily Kurdish, if not almost all Kurdish.

And it's very hard to penetrate. So, this would have been a very, very sophisticated operation, and one that would have been very difficult to pull off.

BLITZER: Are Americans safe there now? Because there are a lot of them, hundreds of them at the U.S. Consulate there and a lot of private citizens are there as well. The U.S. has a good relationship with Kurdistan.

RISCH: We do have a good relationship and we need to continue to cultivate that relationship.

They have been good friends of ours, have been reliable. They're excellent fighters. Having said all that, in answer to your question are they safe, safe, I guess, is a relative term when you're talking about the Middle East. They're certainly safer there than they are in many other places, be it Yemen or be it Baghdad or other places in the Middle East.

BLITZER: There's a lot of controversy right now over what General Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said yesterday, referring to ISIS now closing in, taking over two hugely potential places in Iraq, the city of Ramadi, that's about 70 miles from Baghdad, a major city in the Anbar province, also moving in on the Baiji oil refinery, the largest oil refinery in Iraq.

[18:10:17]

General Dempsey said at the news conference at the Pentagon yesterday that the Baiji oil refinery is strategically more important than the city of Ramadi. He seemed to suggest that if Ramadi fell, it would be a setback, but it wouldn't be as bad, necessarily, strategically as the oil fields. Listen to this.

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BLITZER: There's been a lot of criticism of him for saying that, including from your Republican colleague John McCain, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. What do you think?

RISCH: Well, you know, I think what John was complaining about, or at least putting John's comments into context, I think he's more upset with the fact that the administration keeps spinning the story that, oh, you know, it's not so bad. Oh, yes, it is. You listen to these news stories that go on and

on, there's just no good news coming out of there, with the one exception today, which you have already mentioned, and that is that is the king of clubs was finally caught. That's about the only good. And interestingly enough, he was -- he was caught and killed by the Iraqi security forces.

That's about the only good piece of news coming out of there. And it's pretty de minimis compared to all of the other things that are happening. You haven't even touched on Yemen yet while I have been sitting here.

BLITZER: We will talk about it in a moment.

I want to you stand by, Senator, a lot more coming up, including AQAP, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, making major inroads in Yemen, what that means for the United States, when we come back.

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[18:16:24]

BLITZER: Tonight, new video of Saudi airstrikes in Yemen. The air campaign is now in its fourth week. But Yemen's civil war rages on, giving terrorists an opening to gain dangerous new ground.

We're back with Senator James Risch, a member of the Foreign Relations and Intelligence committees.

What do you make of the fact that AQAP, arguably the number one terror threat to the United States, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, has now taken over an airport in Southeastern Yemen? They have certainly wanted to launch airstrikes against the U.S. homeland, if you will. What does this mean?

RISCH: Well, Wolf, I think, first of all, what you have to do is looking at this from way up and down, this -- you got to blame the whole thing on Iran. It's Iran that enabled the Houthis to topple the government that was in place there in Yemen.

And once they did that, as we have seen, it deteriorates every day. There's a vacuum because the government is gone. The Houthis are occupying part of it. AQAP is occupying part of it. And while everyone has been focused on Sanaa over more west, AQAP, as we have seen in the last 48 hours, has been very active in Mukalla.

And the pictures I think you have shown tell the whole story. They -- that is Mukalla, although it's 500 miles east of Sanaa, it really holds an important geographical position. And there should be more attention being paid there. But, having said that, because of all the things that are going on both in Iraq and in Yemen at the present time and in Syria, things are so spread out, there's a vacuum that AQAP is filling and it is a very dangerous situation for us.

BLITZER: Yes, that's -- Mukalla, there's where -- not only where that airfield, that air base they have taken over, but that's where a prison was emptied out of a lot of al Qaeda and other terrorists as well, so you're right on that.

Here's a question, because you're a member of the Intelligence Committee. I wonder how good the U.S. intelligence is. Less than year ago, President Obama called Yemen a place where the U.S. counterterrorism strategy was working. Do you think he's getting bad intelligence, bad information? He also called ISIS the J.V. team. He gets a daily intelligence briefing. Is the intelligence community up to it? Because you get those briefings as well.

RISCH: I'm sure he gets the same information that we get. I'm astonished to hear him say that ISIS is the J.V. team.

BLITZER: He said that about a year ago.

RISCH: But you look at what they're doing right now, if they were the J.V. team then, they have certainly matured quickly and substantially since then.

To say that Yemen was the poster child for what we're trying to do, I wouldn't have said that when he said that. Certainly, he was getting the same information we were getting. Iran muddles in our affairs whenever they possibly can. They love to poke a stick at us. And everybody knew at that time that they were supporting the Houthis militarily, financially and every other way.

And the Houthis were a viable force to topple the government and they did it. And, of course, now we see what's happening with the chaos that's taking place. And it gets worse every day. It gets worse every hour.

BLITZER: Let's quickly shift to a domestic issue, the Loretta Lynch confirmation process. She's nominated to become the attorney general of the United States. As you know, we have spoken about this before, Senator.

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That nomination has been held up for more than 160 days, and President Obama, he was really irritated today. He called that embarrassing to the United States Senate. Even former Governor Jeb Bush, the potential Republican presidential candidate, says it's time for you guys to give her a vote up or down.

I know you're going to vote against her confirmation. But what's wrong with letting a confirmation vote simply happen?

RISCH: Well, I think we're doing just what the Democrats did when they were in charge.

And that is, we have lined up a series of issues that we're going to deal with and right now the issue that's right in front of us is a bill that Democrats have supported. And that is the trafficking, the illegal trafficking bill in human beings. They're supporters of that and they're filibustering that bill.

Well, that filibustering is going on. As Mitch McConnell has said, as soon as that filibuster is over, we're going to vote on it and the very next second, we're going to vote on the confirmation of the president's nominee for attorney general.

It's not as if we don't have a an attorney general. We have a an attorney general, nominated and confirmed. I also didn't vote for him. But we have an attorney general that is in place that is doing the job of the attorney general and as soon as Loretta Lynch is confirmed, and she will be confirmed as soon as the Democrats quit filibustering the human trafficking bill. She will be voted on.

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BLITZER: As you know, Senator, this irritates a lot of Americans. The human trafficking bill is one thing. That has nothing to do with the attorney general of the United States. Why can't you do both, deal with the human trafficking issue, which is an important issue obviously, and at the same time let her have a vote?

RISCH: Yes. Well, I don't set the agenda there. The leadership sets the agenda. But they do put it in place and go one, two, three, just like the Democrats did when they were in charge.

And the lineup is what it is right now. And all they have got to do, all the Democrats have to do is stop filibustering, we will vote on human trafficking. I suspect it's going to pass with a huge vote and the next vote is going to be Loretta Lynch.

BLITZER: So if you were in charge, you would simply let her have her vote, not link it to something totally unrelated to whether or not she's qualified to be the attorney general?

RISCH: I'm not in charge and it's a hypothetical question.

But I think the leadership is doing what the Senate has always done for many years, the leadership sets up these votes in line. And you can stop something by filibustering. And the Democrats right now are filibustering a bill. But that bill is filibustering in essence also the vote on Loretta Lynch.

BLITZER: Because Harry Reid, the minority leader, as you know, says there's a parliamentary maneuver he can take that would force a vote. Do you understand what he's saying?

RISCH: I do understand what he's saying. And he hasn't done it yet.

I think they're doing this simply because it causes an irritation, as you have said. They could move it along. They could do it simply by getting out of the way. These people co-sponsored the human trafficking bill. And yet they're filibustering it and stopping the vote on it. It's nonsense, absolute nonsense. You're right. People should be impatient with this.

BLITZER: Yes. People look at the way the Senate operates sometimes and they say, huh? What's going on over here? We need an attorney general. She's been nominated. Clearly, a lot of people think she's highly qualify. She's been approved by the Senate for other positions, as the U.S. attorney before. Let her have a vote and then move on, deal with the human trafficking issue.

Obviously, that's an important issue as well, but sort of unrelated to whether or not she should be the attorney general.

RISCH: Right. We do have an attorney general in place. He was nominated by the president.

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BLITZER: But you don't like him either, do you?

RISCH: Didn't vote for him either, for different reasons. My objections to Loretta Lynch is her view of the president's power on executive orders.

And she has a very broad view on that. I think it's wrong legally. I think it's wrong constitutionally and I can't support her for that reason.

BLITZER: All right, we have spoken about that before.

Senator Risch, thanks very much, as usual, for joining us.

RISCH: Thank you, Wolf.

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