Obama Statement at 12:30 P.M.; Pentagon Proposes 100 Special Forces to Iraq; Jozy Altidore Will Not Play for U.S.
MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN CO-ANCHOR: Hi there, I'm Michaela Pereira.</s>JOHN BERMAN, CNN CO-ANCHOR: And I'm John Berman. It's 11:00 a.m. in the East. It is 8:00 a.m. out West. And we do have some news we just got in here to CNN. The president of the United States will be making a statement at 12:30 p.m. at the White House on the issue of Iraq. Let's go straight away to Michelle Kosinski at the White House. Michelle, what can you tell us about what the president plans to say?</s>MICHELLE KOSINSKI, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Right now he's going to be meeting with top members of his national security team. We saw Defense Secretary Hagel arrive. We know that Chief National Security Adviser Susan Rice will be there. After that meeting, he will then address the public in the Briefing Room here about the situation in Iraq. And, you know, for days now, we've been hearing one thing from this administration, that options are being discussed. We know last night the president met with top congressional leaders to discuss that. What they said came out of that meeting was basically an assessment. It wasn't, as some speculated, an opportunity for the president to lay all of those options out on the table, to pick apart each one, and then make a decision. It was merely an update and agreement to work with Congress throughout the process. So now it seems like we're about to get an announcement of something changing, something happening, possibly a decision made that would come quickly, given some of the guidance we were hearing yesterday. But for some, of course, many critics out there, this is not coming quickly at all. In fact, some have been waiting for this for weeks.</s>BERMAN: All right, Michele Kosinski at the White House, thank you so much. As you say, perhaps a development here because from our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr, we are now hearing the Pentagon has made a proposal to send as many as 100 special forces to serve as advisers to the Iraqi military inside Iraq.</s>PEREIRA: Let's bring in our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr. So give us an idea, Barbara, the president, has he signed off on this plan? We understand he's been made aware of it.</s>BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John and Michaela. What we are hearing from our sources is the Pentagon is prepared now to very quickly send 100 or so military advisers to Iraq, to the ground in Iraq, as soon and if the president signs off on this option. We have every reason to believe that is what is being discussed this afternoon, and that is what the Pentagon at least believes is in front of him, and they are prepared to execute that option very quickly. So what are we talking about? We're talking about a hundred special forces, Green Berets, Army Rangers, Navy SEALs, going to Iraq and basically going to locations around the country, Iraqi brigade headquarters, and advising the Iraqi troops, but also very much collecting intelligence, we are told, about ISIS, about these Sunni militant fighters, where they are, who they are, where they're located, where their weapons are, how they're moving around. One of the reasons we're not seeing the air strikes is because the U.S. still lacks real clarity on the intelligence picture for the ISIS fighters. It's been very difficult to track them. They move around a lot. You know, the videos show it's guys on the ground with, you know, pick-up trucks and AK-47s and machine guns. This is a very difficult thing to target, so the U.S. wants to get more intelligence. These military advisors will do some of that we are told. Already, U.S. military aircraft are flying over Iraq, manned aircraft, off the deck of the carrier George H.W. Bush They are collecting intelligence, purely a reconnaissance mission. But I think the big question is going to be, if this is what the president is about to announce, it puts troops back on the ground in Iraq, perhaps not in combat directly, but as one army official said to me a short time ago, if somebody is shooting at you, it's combat.</s>PEREIRA: Very good point, Barbara. We appreciate that. We want to turn to our military analyst, retired Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona, former military liaison officer to the U.S. embassy in Baghdad. So, we heard you actually mouth and say the words out loud, "If they shoot at you you're in combat." Sounds like boots on the ground to many people. Do you agree or not?</s>RICK FRANCONA, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: It is boots on the ground. I think they're parsing the words. They're not combat forces; they're advisers. It's a meaningless --</s>PEREIRA: It's not a combat mission.</s>FRANCONA: -- meaningless designation. These are Army -- most of them are going to be Army special forces who trained for this mission. They're going to go out and advise Iraqi units. Unfortunately this is the first step, and this is how you get drawn into these situations, so they have to make it clear what the mission actually is. They'll also be in a great position if they're going to be out with the Iraqi units to call in any air strikes that are there. As we talked the other day, it's always best to have a U.S. person with -- American eyeballs on the ground to see what we're actually trying to shoot at.</s>PEREIRA: (Inaudible) but won't that sort of become apparent to you once you're there and do have eyes on the ground?</s>FRANCONA: Right, yeah, and what we have to guard against is what we call mission creep. OK, we're going to start advising, ten we're going to start calling in air strikes, and then, when the air strikes aren't enough, are we going to bring in additional U.S. support. So this is a very tricky situation that we're getting into right now.</s>BERMAN: Look, there's a military issue as you say, what will they be doing and where will they be doing it. There's a political issue as well, because the president has said, all options are on the table, except boots on the ground. And in 90 minutes at the White House he could be announcing that there will be boots on the ground.</s>FRANCONA: Right. And once the air strikes start, then we get into what is the unintended consequences of that. Because now we're going to start bombing the ISIS people, but no doubt, we'll be taking on some of these Sunni tribes that have allied with ISIS. Now we're going to be killing Iraqi Sunnis.</s>BERMAN: Just to be clear from a military tactical standpoint, why would you do this before any air strikes? There is some use to this.</s>FRANCONA: Oh, if they can get out there and get the Iraqi forces to stand up and fight, we may not need the air strikes. I suspect we will. But the Iraqis need to stand up and fight, and right now they are just having an abysmal time out there in the field.</s>PEREIRA: Another portion of this is the leadership in Iraq, and we've talked about this. We know that many voices in Washington are saying Maliki has got to go. In fact, we just heard from Secretary of State John Kerry, address the question. Let's listen to the sound and then I want you to give us your reaction.</s>JOHN KERRY, SECRETARY OF STATE: Nothing that the president decides to do is going to be focused specifically on Prime Minister Maliki. It is focused on the people of Iraq --</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But it may benefit Maliki.</s>KERRY: -- Shia, Sunni, Kurd -- well that's up to the people of Iraq to decide, but the United States is deeply concerned about the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, ISIL, as we know it, that has moved in. They represent a threat to every country in the region, they're more extreme even than al-Qaeda, and they are threatening the United States and Western interests.</s>PEREIRA: So is Secretary Kerry correct there in saying that the U.S. can't force a regime change, that it has to come from within.</s>FRANCONA: Of course it has to come from within, and of course other people have called for Maliki to step aside, just in the best interests of Iraq. We've got -- this is a two-layered problem. First of all, we've got to stop ISIS. We've got to fix the tactical situation on the ground. This is the imminent problem. And removing Maliki is not going to fix that. Removing Maliki, that's something we need to look at down the road to get Iraq back and get Iraq's house back in order. But right now we've got to address the initial threat to Baghdad, the initial threat to that regime, and we've got to contain</s>ISIS. BERMAN: And if that's what the president is going to announce, that the U.S. is sending a hundred-odd special forces to Iraq, it does seem like he will not wait for regime change or Maliki to step aside before the U.S. does take some action. Let me ask you, Colonel, have you ever served as a military adviser to troops overseas, other troops in other countries.</s>FRANCONA: I have, in Jordan.</s>BERMAN: And how close are you to potential danger then?</s>FRANCONA: Well, it depends on what you're doing, but these guys are going to be in danger. They're going to be out there in the field, advising these guys. And that's what you want, because there's nothing better than a U.S. Army officer telling these guys what to do.</s>BERMAN: All right, Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona, thanks so much for being with us. Stick around because we have some more questions for you on different issues. Just a reminder again, the president will be making a statement at 12:30 p.m. We will cover that for you live. It's very important. Obviously going to be some kind of policy pronouncement on what the U.S. intends to do about Iraq.</s>PEREIRA: Take a short break here. Ahead @THISHOUR, terrorists among us. Two alleged, would-be jihadists arrested in Texas in two separate cases, we'll take a look.</s>BERMAN: Plus, crisis at the border, Texas saying it cannot afford to wait for Washington, taking its border security into its own hands.