CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Death of CFO of ISIS
Interview
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BLITZER: Joining us, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Adam Schiff of California.
Congressman, thanks very much for joining us.
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D), CALIFORNIA: You bet.
BLITZER: So, now the U.S. has released the real name of Abu Sayyaf. He's the so-called chief financial officer of ISIS who was killed in that daring U.S. Delta Force raid, his real name, Fathi Ben Awn Ben Jildi Murad al-Tunisi, al-Tunisi, the Tunisian.
What role -- can you tell us, what role did he really play? How important a guy was this?
SCHIFF: He was a very important guy in terms of the financing of ISIS.
And by some estimates, they derive up to a million-and-a-half dollars a day from their -- just from their oil sales. They also have kidnapping operations. They levy fees and fines on people. So he is a key figure in their financing. Now, he is not the very top leadership of ISIS itself. But, nonetheless, he is viewed as having critical insights on how their finances are structured, who is responsible for the smuggling of oil and revenues back and forth, a lot of it over the Turkish border.
So, a lot of potential intelligence insights can be gained now from his wife, as well as the Yazidi captive, and all the documents and electronic materials that were seized.
BLITZER: Did they find a lot of documents and electronic material in that building?
SCHIFF: There was a substantial amount that was seized. We don't know yet what has been found in terms of exploiting that. My guess is that began immediately, because there is the potential for follow-on operations.
But, at this point, we're looking forward to briefing later in the week on just what we have been able to ascertain.
BLITZER: We heard from James Risch, Republican senator, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, that she is talking right now, Umm Sayyaf, the wife of this guy.
What is she saying? Do you know?
SCHIFF: That, I don't know.
BLITZER: But do you believe she has useful information?
SCHIFF: I think that she does. That's certainly the understanding and expectation, that she had a role beyond that of being the spouse, that she may have had her own responsibilities or certainly be knowledgeable of her husband's responsibilities. So we absolutely hope to gain insights from her.
BLITZER: Do we know if this husband and wife were directly responsible for the killing of any of those American hostages?
SCHIFF: One of the things we're going look at is what role they may have had in any hostages or what they may know about the financing of their operations by hostage-taking.
So, without commenting on any particular case, we're certainly going to want to find out any information they have on hostage-taking.
BLITZER: Where is she being interrogated?
SCHIFF: Well, I can't comment on that. I think we are working in conjunction, though, with Iraqi authorities. She is an Iraqi citizen, as I understand, and, ultimately, the decision will be made jointly about where she ought to be brought for disposition or prosecution.
BLITZER: Because what happens after they're done interrogating her, and they have gotten whatever useful information they might have? What happens to this woman? They leave her in Iraq? They bring her to the United States, they put her in a prison here? Do you know what they do with her?
SCHIFF: Well, it probably depends on what the evidence is against her. If she did have an operational role in the organization or if she had any role at all in terms of hostages, then I think there is a much higher probability that she will be brought to the United States for prosecution.
[18:10:01]
Otherwise, she may very well be provided to the Iraqi authorities. But I don't know what the disposition would be.
BLITZER: Had you ever heard of this Abu Sayyaf before this raid?
SCHIFF: I had heard the name. I frankly didn't know much about him. I certainly know a fair amount about the financing of ISIS.
But in terms of the particular personalities, there is not a lot I could have told you about him before this operation.
BLITZER: Based on what you know right now -- and, obviously, there is still more information you need to know. But based on what you know right now, was it worth the risk to those Delta Force commandos to do this raid, go in with these helicopters, these Ospreys, go in there, risk their lives to capture this guy?
SCHIFF: Wolf, I think it's a very close call, and a gutsy call by the commander in chief.
I'm going wait to see, not only what we find, because then that's just the advantage of hindsight, but what we expected to be able to gain from the intelligence, because I am very concerned about the risks. Had one of our people been killed or, worse, captured and then killed, you can imagine the reaction of the public and the momentum for further escalation in terms of our role and our boots on the ground.
So that has to be weighed very carefully. And I don't want to see us rush into a lot more of these operations without thinking about the real consequence if one of them goes bad, because these are unpredictable. And you saw just by the estimates of the number of security people that were killed by our forces, this wasn't easy by any means.
BLITZER: Was it smart to release this information, to tell the world what the U.S. tried to do?
SCHIFF: I think it is. I think we're still behind in the propaganda warfare with ISIS. And letting the world know, letting ISIS know, letting people who are watching ISIS around the world know that we can go after these people, that we do it very well, that in fact has been released. They used civilians as human shields in these operations, hid behind women. I think it is useful to get that information out.
BLITZER: All right, Congressman Schiff, I want you to stand by. We have more to talk about, including the major setback, as some are calling it, in Ramadi. What happened? Where were those Iraqi troops when the Iraqi people needed them?
We will have much more with Congressman Adam Schiff of the Intelligence Committee right after this.
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[18:16:30]
BLITZER: We're getting some breaking news.
CNN has now confirmed that a cruise ship has run aground near Bermuda. The ship, the Norwegian Dawn, it ran into a reef about 50 minutes ago in Bermuda's North Channel there; 2,675 people on board, we're told. We're told the ship is not, repeat, not taking in any water. There are no reports of pollution or injuries, for that matter. We will stay on top of this story, update you. But the Norwegian Dawn has run aground near Bermuda.
Let's get back to the other breaking story we're following right now, the U.S. strategy against ISIS.
We're back with a top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Adam Schiff of California.
Susan Rice, the president's national security adviser, says, as a result of what happened in Ramadi over the past few days, the Iraqi military collapsing, fleeing, the city is now fully under the control of ISIS. She says this is going to be a long slog, the war against ISIS in Iraq right now. This looks like pretty much of a disaster, what happened in Ramadi.
SCHIFF: It's a serious setback. And there is no sugarcoating it.
It means, I think, we really have to redouble our efforts to get the Baghdad government to incorporate the Sunnis more fully in the military, to help better arm the Sunni tribes and give them more encouragement to rise up and challenge ISIS.
I don't think the answer is more Iranian-backed Shia militias. And I don't think the answer is American boots on the ground, but rather addressing some of the sectarian problems that have yet to peel the Sunni tribes away from ISIS.
BLITZER: These sectarian problems, as you know, and you have studied Iraq, they have been around in that part of the world for hundreds of years, the rift, the battles between Shia and Sunni.
The only reason they were contained was Saddam Hussein during his rule, he was such a butcher, such a tyrant, he could control it, sort of like Tito did in the former Yugoslavia. Now they're back to this kind of sectarian fighting that is going on. What makes you or any other analyst think that the U.S. or anyone else can stop it?
SCHIFF: Well, we're not going to solve that rift, which, as you say, goes on for practically a millennia.
But I think we also have to look at how ISIS has exploited this, because it wasn't just Saddam who kept a lid on this. It's also the fact that ISIS purposely went out and tried to stir up these sectarian instincts and frictions and divisions by blowing up Shia mosques, by antagonizing and killing the Shia.
And that, I think, has contributed to this escalation, this orgy of violence. So we're not going to be able to fully resolve that. And I don't think we should try. But I think we can and have to insist that the Iraqi government, to the best it can, tamp down these tensions. If Iraq wants to stay one country, it's going to have to find a way to be inclusive of Sunnis, Kurds, and Shia. And I don't think that these political problems that the Iraqi government has, their as yet unwillingness out to fully embrace the Sunnis, ought to compel us to put our boots on the ground instead.
BLITZER: The second largest city in Iraq, Mosul, fell to ISIS last year, a city of nearly two million people. Hundreds of thousands of people fled. ISIS remains in control. Now Ramadi, a city of half-a- million people, the capital of the Anbar province, falls to ISIS; 120,000 people have fled there.
Who knows what these ISIS troops are doing. In both of these cities, the Iraqi military collapsed, they ran away and left tons of U.S. military hardware, sophisticated military equipment, tanks, armored personnel carriers, artillery behind.
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Do you support giving the Iraqi military any more U.S. military equipment that potentially could abandon and hand over to ISIS?
SCHIFF: Well, I certainly don't support them putting those kind of armaments in position where we can lose them.
BLITZER: You have any confidence in the Iraqi military right now?
SCHIFF: Well, you know, unfortunately, we have to deal with Iraqi military that they have. And we have to try to build its capacity. And there are going to be setbacks as serious as this one is.
BLITZER: Setbacks sounds like a modest word. James Risch, a Republican member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, he was just here in the last hour. He says this is a lot worse than just a setback.
SCHIFF: Well, I think it's a very serious setback.
But any way you call it, it -- it's harmful to the cause, and it's something we're going have to overcome. And it's part of the seesaw nature of this conflict. I think, as Ambassador Rice points out, this is going to be a long slog.
When you look at it overall, we have shrunk the amount of territory in Iraq that ISIS controls. That's positive. But yet, at the same point, we're way far away from any kind of a retaking of Mosul. And now we have got to retake Ramadi. And the challenges are extraordinary. But I don't think that means we can back away from a commitment to the Iraqi government and helping to arm these Sunni tribes to combat the scourge.
BLITZER: Do you think this prime minister really is a good guy, Haider al-Abadi, who took over for Nouri al-Maliki?
SCHIFF: I like Abadi. I think his heart and mind are in the right place.
The question is whether he has the ability, the capability, the political ability to bring the Sunnis in to overcome some of the Shia opposition, to overcome, frankly, the scourge of Nouri al-Maliki, who is still waiting in the wings, aggravating the sectarian divisions and wanting to make a comeback.
BLITZER: Let's see what happens, Congressman. Thanks very much for coming in.
SCHIFF: Thanks, Wolf.
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