FOX "Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace" - Transcript: Sochi Olympics Safety

Interview

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WALLACE: Congressman Schiff from the intelligence that you have received as a member of your committee, how dangerous is the situation in Sochi?

REP. ADAM SCHIFF, D-CALIF.: Well, there certainly are a lot of risks. But I think they're manageable risks. If people stay where they're supposed to. They don't very often are in charge of areas, minimize the time that they spend in train stations and minimize the degree to which they demonstrate where they come from. It wouldn't be wise, I think, to be broadcasting that you're from the United States. I think the risk can be contained. As Mike pointed out, those risks are probably greatest in the soft targets outside of Sochi. And I think that to the degree that people are mindful of their surroundings, I would go if I had tickets and enjoy the games. We aren't getting the kind of cooperation that we would like from the Russians in terms of their internal threats. I think as a matter of Russian pride they don't want to share that. As a matter of not disclosing their sources and methods to us, they don't want to share that. But it means that we're less effective in protecting of our people. And that's a frustration. But all things considered, I think that it's relatively manageably safe to be at the games.

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WALLACE: Let me switch subjects on you, because a lot of us found out this week about an attack on a substation, a power substation in San Jose, California, last April, in which snipers knocked out 17 giant transformers. Congressman Schiff, this happened in your state of California. How sophisticated was the attack? What does it say about the vulnerability of our electrical grid and what can we do about it?

SCHIFF: Well, it was a sophisticated attack. There's abundant evidence of preplanning. The people that went in knew exactly what they were doing. They knew what they were going to shoot at to try to disable these transformers without blowing them up and attracting attention. They cut fiber optic cables in advance to prevent telecommunications. So it was sophisticated. We're hoping that this was not a dry run. But that is obviously a great concern. And one other thing I think -- that I think it highlights is we put a lot of our focus on cyber security, on the ability of terrorists to use cyber networks to try to bring down our grid. And perhaps we have taken our eye a bit off the ball on less sophisticated attacks that can be equally brutal or even more damaging. These -- a lot of these substations are in remote areas. They have nothing, but a chain link fence and maybe a remote camera. And I think what we can do about it is prioritize those transformers, those substations that would bring the greatest threat to the grid, protect those first. I think it's a limited number, probably less than 100. And then branch out from there. But plainly a lot needs to be done. And some finger pointing already going on between the various agencies as to who's responsible for security here.

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WALLACE: Let me bring in Congressman Schiff. We've got about a minute left, Congressman. There's a growing sense that the Obama administration's international conference in Geneva isn't working, isn't going to solve the problem of Syria. Does the -- do we need a reset in the administration policy, one to oppose the Assad regime, two, to make sure that they live up to their commitments, which they are at this point on turning over chemical weapons and third, to address this growing extremist threat inside Syria, and especially the idea of them coming home for the U.S.

SCHIFF: First of all, that growing extremist threat that you mentioned and Mike was talking about, it's probably going to be the most pernicious threat to the country for the next ten years. So it is a very serious problem. We're already seeing it in Egypt where some of the jihadists trained in Syria are now attacking Egyptian government. And, of course, they are trying to train people to attack us here on our homeland. In terms of the Geneva talks, they haven't been successful. In fact, no one has been successful here. Our policy hasn't. The Russians haven't been successful. The regime hasn't. The opposition hasn't. It's a bloody stalemate with horrific humanitarian proportions, of horrible proportions. Do we need to reset? It's hard to see what the reset will be. I'm not sure that the United States getting deeply military involved is going to contribute to an end in this conflict. I think we have to try to keep the pressure on with both the bottom up strategy like we're seeing in Geneva and more importantly, probably, is what will happen outside of Geneva and that is we need to talk to the nations that are fighting by proxy in Syria to the Iranians, to the Russians, to the Saudis, to the Turks, to the Qataris, and try to reach a resolution here. And I think the resolution is a Syria without Assad. He's not indispensable to any of us. There are goals we all want to see in Syria after the conflict and they're not necessarily the same. But we don't need Assad in power.

WALLACE: Of course, there's no indication that Assad plans to go anywhere. Congressman Schiff, Congressman McCaul, I want to thank you both so much for coming in today.

SCHIFF: Thank you.

MCCAUL: Thank you.

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