CNN "The Lead with Jake Tapper" - Transcript: Syria
Interview
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
TAPPER: Let's bring in Senator Kelly Ayotte, Republican from the Granite State of New Hampshire. She's a member of both the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
Senator, good to see you as always.
House Speaker John Boehner said today that airstrikes alone will not be enough. He said, somebody's got to have -- have to be the boots on the ground. Who should that somebody be? Do you have faith that moderate Syrians, Kurds and the Iraqi military such as it is can handle this?
SEN. KELLY AYOTTE (R), NEW HAMPSHIRE: Well, first of all, Jake, I think we need to understand that, in Syria, the Free Syrian Army, the president is very late to this in terms of the support for the moderate opposition in Syria.
So that's something that he's announced that he's going to do. It's obviously much more challenging that we're late there, but we have got to do it because there has to be a group that we can deal with in Syria. On the Iraq side, the Kurds are probably our most reliable partners.
In terms of the Iraqi security forces, we have already seen that they have been in many instances run over by ISIS. So, their capacity is questionable. So, that's why, if you look at where we are now, the president has put close to 2,000 Americans in Iraq. I believe it's about 1,700.
And he said last night that he was going the use some of those to train the Iraqi forces to have this capacity. But it is a big question mark in terms of the effectiveness of airstrikes without having people on the ground that are actually calling in the locations.
Now, we know that we have had some success with the Kurds. The question is whether some of this moderate opposition in Syria is capable of giving us that type of intelligence. So I think it's too soon to tell whether we're capable of doing this without actually having some of our special forces there to assist.
TAPPER: How important is it to you, how crucial is it for the president to come to Congress for official authorization?
AYOTTE: Well, I think it's important for the American people because as he's described it, this isn't going to be a short conflict where we immediately defeat ISIS.
And so, first of all, he said that this conflict has to go to Syria, expanded airstrikes there, which does make sense. Seems inconsistent that when he was previously going to strike Syria, that he felt he had to come to Congress, but he's not coming now. Bottom line is we're always stronger when people weigh in on a bipartisan basis.
And I do think that he's going to be better off if he gets the buy-in from Congress, not just on the resource issue, but on the authorization for force.
TAPPER: Daniel Benjamin, who you know, he served as a top counterterrorism adviser for the State Department during President Obama's first term. He has been very critical about what national security officials and others have been saying about ISIS. In fact, he called it a farce in "The New York Times."
He said -- quote -- "It's hard to imagine a better indication of the ability of elected officials and TV talking heads to spin the public into a panic with claims that the nation is honeycombed with sleeper cells, that operatives are streaming across the border into Texas, or that the group will soon be spraying Ebola virus on mass transit systems, all on the basis of no corroborated information."
The president also last night said there is not a specific plot against the homeland. Is there a danger that this threat of ISIS is being overhyped?
AYOTTE: I would say this, Jake.
I think, actually, the president understated the threat last night and here's why. I was part of a briefing yesterday in the Homeland Security Committee. We know that the estimates are in that committee that over 100 Americans have either tried to go to Syria, have gone and in some instances have actually become suicide bombers.
But here's the more important number. We don't know that 100 is it. In fact, we can't say that that is it. In fact, there may be more. Then there's also at least a couple thousand Western passport holders. Countries like Great Britain and France, they are part of our visa waiver program. And what we know about Americans, we even know less about tracking all of those Western passport holders.
So it seems to me that we need to have a deep concern about this group and its impact it could have on the homeland. Another important component of they're getting about -- the estimates are about a million dollars a day. Let's put this into perspective; 9/11, the estimates are from the commission, that it took half-million dollars to conduct that strike. So they're well-funded.
They have a sanctuary. They're quite sophisticated. And we know that there are some Western passport holders that have joined this group. So, I don't think we should underestimate the potential of this group.
TAPPER: Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Republican, thank you so much. Appreciate your time.
AYOTTE: Thanks, Jake. Good to be with you.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source