CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Middle East Strategy and National Security

Interview

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BLITZER: With us here in THE SITUATION ROOM right now, Republican Congressman Ryan Zinke of Montana.

He was a Naval SEAL -- a Navy SEAL commander.

He's now a member of the House Armed Services Committee.

Congressman, thanks very much for coming in.

REP. RYAN ZINKE (R), MONTANA: Great to be here, Wolf.

BLITZER: You served in Iraq so you know Iraq well. You served in Anbar Province. I'm really concerned about what's going on in Baghdad right now, because all of a sudden today, two more explosions at elite, very, very prestigious hotels.

There seems to be a pattern that the ISIS troops use. In Mosul, first, they had a lot of terrorist explosions. They scared the Iraqi military. They dropped their weapons and ran away.

In Ramadi more recently, a lot of terrorist bombings, improvised explosive devices. The Iraqi military, they were there in bigger numbers than the terrorists. They dropped their weapons and ran away.

It looks like they're trying to do the same thing in Baghdad right now.

Your thoughts?

ZINKE: Well, I think we're seeing a freefall in policy in Iraq. You have disenfranchised Sunni tribes. You have the Kurds up north that are just holding on. And now you have the Shia militias backed by Iran.

I'm not sure at this point we can put Iraq back as we know it. I think the big player has been Iran.

You have these Shia militias that appear to be coming from nowhere that are now in the 20,000s, led by Republican Guard senior military commanders. And when they're assaulting in the Anbar Province, which is Sunni, they're yelling out anti-Sunni war cries.

So the centralized government, from a Sunni perspective, is no longer a legitimate power.

And that's a huge problem.

BLITZER: So you say it's a freefall right now?

You're not sure...

ZINKE: I...

BLITZER: -- that Iraq can -- can be [you the back together?

Is that -- those were your words, right?

ZINKE: I think -- I think we're seeing a freefall of a policy gone wrong. It's a nightmare for the next president to inherit this -- this policy.

BLITZER: So what should the U.S. be doing?

ZINKE: Well, I think -- I think looking at it, we do need to arm the Kurds, solidify...

BLITZER: Directly, without...

ZINKE: Directly.

BLITZER: -- going through Baghdad?

ZINKE: And the same thing with the Sunni tribes that will fight. You know, my experience as the deputy and acting commander of Special Forces in Iraq, I served in Fallujah. And the Sunni tribes that rose up and fought with us, they'll rise again, because they are also against ISIS.

But to ask the centralized government to give arms and coordination is simply not going to happen.

BLITZER: Because the centralized government says if you do that, if you start -- the United States -- if you start arming the Kurds directly, which is, of course, what the Kurds want, because they don't trust the government in Baghdad either -- you start providing weapons directly to moderate Sunni tribes in Anbar Province and elsewhere, they say they're -- forget about the United States, they're going to basically align almost completely with Iran.

ZINKE: Well, look at the -- look at the challenge the Kurds have up north.

If they assault Mosul, you're looking at as much as 700,000 refugees.

And where are they going to go?

They're not going to go into ISIS-held territory. They're certainly not going to go to Baghdad. Turkey already has to million refugees and they're campaigning for jobs.

So the only place they can go is Kurdish-held territory.

And they don't have the resources. So the Kurds right now are holding ground. I don't see any significant movement from the Kurds. I think the Sunnis are now deciding whether they're going to side with ISIS or be on their own. But certainly going back to a centralized government that is now Iran influenced, if controlled, I don't think is a possibility.

BLITZER: Right now, the U.S. has about 3,000 troops in Iraq. Some, like Lindsey Graham, Senator McCain, they say bring it up to 10,000, maybe even more.

You say?

ZINKE: Well, you know, what we've done is we've -- we've played a card game by giving cards out and we have very few options left. We watched ISIS go from a few hundred to as many as 30,000 or 40,000. We watched Iran enter. Our play was air operations alone, which is not effective. We've seen the results.

So I think at this point we shore up the Sunni tribes who are willing to fight against ISIS and provide support in terms of intelligence and ground forces, provided that we support our ground forces.

[17:30:12] Sprinkling a few isn't going to be enough, because we know what happens, would happen, if one of our soldiers or sailors, airmen or Marine is captured. He's going to be burned alive in a cage. So you need sufficient force, medical. So we're talking as many as 10,000 if we are going to degrade and destroy ISIS.

BLITZER: Stand by, Congressman, because we have more to discuss. We're only just beginning with Congressman Ryan Zinke. He's a former Navy SEAL. He served in Iraq. He's a member of the Armed Services Committee. Much more when we come back.

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BLITZER: We're following breaking news. Just now over at the White House President Obama demanding swift action from Congress to prevent key terrorist surveillance programs from going dark this weekend. Senators will convene in a rare Sunday session. The president called on them to follow the lead of the House of Representatives in reauthorizing provisions of the patriot act.

We're back with Montana Republican Representative Ryan Zinke. He's a former Navy SEAL commander. He's a member of the House Armed Services Committee. I want to get to the NSA programs in a moment, but let's just wrap up what's going in Iraq -- going on in Iraq right now.

Representative Tulsi Gabbard, she's also an Iraq war veteran, Democrat from Hawaii, member of the Armed Services Committee, she says, "You know what?" Iraq is not Iraq anymore. Basically, she calls for a three-state solution: Kurdistan, Shia state and a Sunni state. Are you with her on that?

ZINKE: We're headed that way. Clearly, this is what happens when you don't have action. Inaction has consequences, too. What we've seen is, I think we're in a free-fall and unless we act now, the situation to try and dictate three months from now, it's going to be a different situation.

I think you can count on Iran to continue to expand their influence. They're in eastern Iraq, and they'll push as far as -- until they're stopped.

BLITZER: You served in Ramadi. You served in Fallujah. Ramadi now in the -- controlled by ISIS. Fallujah, there's a battle going on, but ISIS is pretty powerful there.

I was in Fallujah back in 2005 when the U.S. was in control of Fallujah at that time, thanks to a lot of Marines who were there. When you see what's going on right now and you're an Iraq war veteran, what goes through your mind? Was that war worth it?

ZINKE: Well, certainly, there's a lot of pain and agony, and Ramadi was the center of the Anbar province, Ramadi. It's the center of the Sunni part. And to see inaction and all of a sudden we're fighting and even in the Pentagon saying that the Ramadi doesn't matter. It does matter. It matters to the veterans. It matters to the Marine Corps that lost lives. I have friends that I've lost, you know, in that battle.

So I think the symbol of Ramadi, it runs deep in the American psyche, especially for those who fought.

BLITZER: I think about 1,200 or 1,400 Americans died in the various battles in the Anbar province over those years. And who knows how many came home severely injured, as well.

ZINKE: There's a lot of pain. And again, I think what we've seen is a lack of policy and a lack of -- we're in freefall. In ISIS, we still don't have is a foreign policy on what we're going to do about Syria: whether to have a regime change, whether not to. We're not even there yet and, of course, we watched Iraq fold and these different entities rapidly. We've made mistakes in the first war. Probably dismantling the army,

probably not showing up, the Sunnis leaving too early. There's been a number of mistakes, and now we're at a critical point whether Iraq itself can maintain itself as a federation or are they going to be a semiautonomous region divided into three.

BLITZER: Or just will be chaos like in Libya, which is the situation now over in Yemen.

ZINKE: Lawless. Lawless and dangerous state.

BLITZER: Libya is a failed state.

ZINKE: A failed state, and this is what happens.

BLITZER: Yemen, too.

ZINKE: We took out Gadhafi, and then what? Well, wait and see. Well, unfortunately, the wait and see part has been a tremendous failure.

BLITZER: Where do you stand on the extension of the NSA surveillance programs, because Sunday there's a deadline?

ZINKE: Well I don't think it's a crisis, per se. I think there's probably bigger threats: Iran having a nuclear weapon, our southern border, certainly cyber security. You know, the world's not going to shut down. The question is metadata and to say -- Senator Paul brought up some good points. Having metadata OK to be stored by phone companies and not OK to be stored by the government agencies, is either safer? Not really.

BLITZER: So you're with Senator Paul on this?

ZINKE: Well, I respect his opinion. I think we need to move forward. You know, certainly, cyber security looking at how the enemy is evolved, we need to have a discussion. Protecting civil liberties, our personal rights, is immensely important.

My view is that metadata is fine until you get to a name. The moment you get to a name, you better have a warrant and judge at that point. But gathering data. I think the -- storing the data needs to be in a safer place. Just having the data moved to a phone company, so 2,000 different phone companies is like pushing it in a closet. And is that closet safe? Well, the answer is no. It's no safer than the government.

And so we need to make sure that we protect civil liberties, and make sure we protect our nation's security. And I think we can do that, but I appreciate the senator's, you know -- he's steadfast in his position about civil liberties, which are important. Our Constitution shouldn't be trampled on.

BLITZER: Representative Zinke, thanks very much for coming in and thanks for your service.

ZINKE: Thank you. Always a pleasure, Wolf.

BLITZER: We'll have you back for sure. Ryan Zinke, he's from Montana. He's a member of the Armed Services Committee.

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