Obama to Outline ISIS Strategy This Week; Hundreds Of Children Sickened By Severe Virus; Prince William And Kate Expecting Baby Number Two
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS: He's on the front page of every newspaper. And just to let you know how unlikely this final match was according to R.J. Bell in Las Vegas. It's over a thousand to one odds that these two would meet in the final game. So it might not be the one everyone was hoping for, but hopefully we get still some good tennis tonight.</s>CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: I hope so. Andy Scholes, thanks so much. The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now. Good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thanks so much for joining me. It's been a weekend of U.S. airstrikes against ISIS targets in Iraq. Now comes the news the world has been waiting for. President Barack Obama gets set to announce his strategy to defeat ISIS. He's already started talking about it. The first phase involves air strikes which, of course, as you know, is well under way. The second phase will involve an intensified effort to train and equip the Iraqi military and Kurdish fighters. The final phase will center on destroying ISIS in Syria, a military campaign that could last 36 months. Our senior White House correspondent, Jim Acosta joins me now with more. Good morning, Jim?</s>JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. That's right. And remember Deputy National Security Advisor Tony Blinken told our Wolf Blitzer last week that this could take some time, going into the next administration so that three-year timetable is something administration officials have been talking about for about a week now. As for conducting air strikes in Syria, senior administration officials say the president has not made a decision on that yet, but at the same time one senior administration officials tells us that the president and his top aides have started working on the speech that will be on Wednesday to lay out this new ISIS strategy to the American people. It is one that the president talked about somewhat yesterday in that interview on "Meet the Press" when he said he's ready to start going on offense. Here's what he had to say.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: What I want people to understand, though, is that over the course of months we are going to be able to not just blunt the momentum of ISIL, we are going to systematically degrade their capabilities. We're going to shrink the territory that they control and ultimately we're going to defeat them.</s>ACOSTA: Now the president said this is not going to be a repeat of the Iraq war, more of a counterterrorism campaign. Speaking of Iraq, the White House did release a letter the president has sent to House Speaker John Boehner and Congress notifying them, really an official notification that ha to take place that the president has expanded the air campaign against ISIS. As you know, Carol, over the weekend, new air strikes were launched on ISIS targets around the Haditha Dam, the first time the U.S. has struck ISIS in Western Iraq. But the big question remains, Carol, whether or not the White House will continue to provide these war powers letters as they expand this operation into Syria? Or will they go to Congress and ask for an authorization of air strikes, talk to senior officials, they said they're not ready to announce that decision just yet if they've even made one at this point -- Carol.</s>COSTELLO: We'll see if he says anything about that Wednesday. Again, President Obama will lay out his strategy to defeat ISIS on Wednesday. Jim Acosta reporting live from the White House this morning. With me now, Peter Beinart, CNN political commentator and contributing editor for "Atlantic Media." Welcome, Peter. It's interesting that the president is going to lay out his strategy to defeat ISIS a day before the anniversary of 9/11. Do you think that's on purpose?</s>PETER BEINART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Not necessarily. I think what you saw last week was that the political pressure was mounting on the president to do something more aggressive. You started hearing criticism from even Democrats in Congress. Republicans are using this on the stump in the congressional election so I think the pressure was there for President Obama to get ahead of this. And now I think it will be harder for people to say he doesn't have a strategy because he's going to lay something out at some length.</s>COSTELLO: All right, we'll see. It seems the State Department has a new strategy, too. It has this video to try to convince Americans thinking of joining ISIS not to. This video, it features crucifixions and beheadings and lots of gruesome stuff. So I'll show a bit of the video that I can to our viewers so watch.</s>COSTELLO: As I said, the State Department flooded social media with this gruesome video to discourage people from joining this terrorist group. Is it effective, Peter?</s>BEINART: Well, we'll have to see. It's clearly aimed at Muslims and one message it's trying to get out which is an important message is that ISIS is killing huge numbers of Muslims. Maybe some of the potential recruits who are going there, who think that they're fighting for Islam don't realize how brutal ISIS towards Shi'a Muslims. And, indeed, even towards Sunni Muslims who don't share their political agenda. Maybe getting out that message may make some of these people think twice.</s>COSTELLO: Maybe, I hope so, anyway. I don't know it just seems like a strange strategy but who knows? It could work. So back to the strategy, the military strategy, to defeat ISIS. The president will lay out this three-pronged plan and parts of the plan has to involve Muslim countries, they must help. Are they any closer to achieving that? Because I know Chuck Hagel is going to go to Turkey, right, and try to get Turkey on board and you wonder why Turkey is not on board because that's where the extremists enter Iraq and Syria from, which would be Turkey.</s>BEINART: Right. Well, there's an interesting history here. Turkey initially a few years ago was quite -- really helped to create the Free Syrian Army and was actually disappointed with the Obama administration that they were not more aggressively supporting it itself. But remember Turkey also has a whole number of their own diplomats who have been captured by ISIS. So Turkey has its own concerns about going after ISIS so aggressively because they have Turkish people whose lives are on the line here. But Turkey is important because of that border has become a major route for people to enter Syria and if you could close it down I think that would be an important blow against</s>ISIS. COSTELLO: OK, let's talk about Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia could help the United States conduct air strikes, right?</s>BEINART: Well, I think financing is really key. The Saudis can be an important source of funds for the moderate Sunni rebels in Syria, also for Jordan, which is on the front lines, which is involve very much in counterintelligence efforts. And also Saudi Arabia and some of the other gulf countries can also work harder to turn off the flow of private donations that are going to ISIS and also to al-Nusra, which is al Qaeda's official affiliate in Syria.</s>COSTELLO: OK. So Chuck Hagel, the defense secretary, is working on Turkey. John Kerry, I would assume is working on the others. So this regional coalition is starting to form. Will this regional coalition be more effective than the coalition of the willing was during the second gulf war?</s>BEINART: Well, I think the question is whether you're talking about Iraq or Syria. I think it's easier in Iraq. First of all, you have the Kurds who are an effective U.S. ally. You also have a government that although pretty dysfunctional wants the U.S. in. Remember, if the U.S. goes and bombs in Syria, we could have potentially our planes shot down by Syrian air defenses. We have no requests from the Assad government to go in so it's a more hospitable environment in Iraq and even the Sunni countries around Iraq, which don't like the Shi'a government of Iraq recognize that ISIS represents a threat. So you can see why Obama wants to start in Iraq because I think we have better prospect there is. Syria is going to be a significantly bigger climb.</s>COSTELLO: Peter Beinart, thanks so much for your insight, appreciate it as always. Hundreds of children have been sickened by a nasty respiratory virus that has sent many to the hospital. Several states have asked the CDC for help, mostly in the Midwest and southeast. Kids are dealing with symptoms that start out like a cold, but quickly get much, much worse. Doctors are scratching their heads as to why this outbreak is occurring. Elizabeth Cohen is here with more. Good morning.</s>ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Carol, you probably had a summer cold at some point in your life. That's an enterovirus. Usually it's not a big deal, but this time this particular type of enterovirus is unusual and it is virulent.</s>COHEN (voice-over): For this teenager, it was a near-death experience.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: White as a ghost, blue lips, he just passed out, had his eyes rolled back in his head and I had to call 911.</s>COHEN: The culprit, Enterovirus D-68. So far, ten states have asked the Centers for Disease Control for help. There are no official numbers nationwide, but one hospital in Metro Denver reported treating about 900 children for severe respiratory illness, 86 of them have been hospitalized. In this hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, more than 400 children have been admitted with signs of the virus. Of those, 60 have been in intensive care. All of this in less than one month. An official at the Centers for Disease Control said these cases might be just the tip of the iceberg. Why has this type of enterovirus, which was first identified in the 1960s, gotten so out of hand this year?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why one virus or another crops up is inexplicable. It's a mystery to me.</s>COHEN: But he does have some good news. Enteroviruses usually aren't deadly.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The fortunate thing is they'll get better.</s>COHEN: The virus can start as just a cold. Some children develop a rash and difficulty breathing.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This can happen fairly rapidly so don't dawdle if you really think your child is sick. It's time to call.</s>COSTELLO: OK, so don't dawdle. But I wonder since so many kids are coming down this virus, is there something about this time of year, Elizabeth?</s>COHEN: There is, indeed, Carol. This is the Enterovirus season, it's late summer to early fall so we're right in the thick of it. Another thing going on is in the Midwest and southeast, schools for the most part started up in mid-August, which is when we started seeing this so kids are infecting each other. So it's a bit of a perfect storm.</s>COSTELLO: All right, Elizabeth Cohen, thanks so much. I appreciate it. Dr. Rick Sacra, the third American infected with Ebola continues his recovery at a Nebraska hospital. Doctors say they're encouraged by his progress so far, but it's too early to say if he's turned a corner toward a full recovery just yet. Sacra is being treated with another experimental drug different than the other one being use that treated the other two.</s>COSTELLO: Buckingham Palace confirms Will and Kate are expecting baby number two and the official announcement came in a tweet. I want to bring in our royal correspondent, Max Foster at Buckingham palace. Max, the Twitter announcement said simply "The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are very pleased to announce the Duchess of Cambridge is expecting their second child." How far along is Kate?</s>MAX FOSTER, CNN ROYAL CORRESPONDENT: I spoke to someone in the palace and they said she's not yet 12 weeks pregnant. They had to announce it early because she's got this acute morning sickness again and has had to cancel various engagements. They said they wanted to be fully open with the public so they wanted to announce this at this point so people weren't questioning why she wasn't turning up to events so she's actually confined to the palace, Kensington Palace. She's got doctors at her side. They're not overly concerned about her, but they need to keep on top of her sort of well-being because they're concerned with morning sickness, particularly as badly as she gets it, she can get dehydrated. So she's being looked after. Prince William carried on with an engagement in Oxford so doesn't seem too worried. So a happy story. A little brother or sister for Prince George.</s>COSTELLO: Was Britain much surprised by the announcement? There have been rumors for weeks, you know.</s>FOSTER: Well, there have been rumors, but I blame some American magazines who do this regular thing saying "Exclusive, we've heard that she's going to be having a baby." And then they say it enough times and it becomes true and we end up having to respond to it. Kate and William themselves only found out very recently. The queen literally the last few days so I don't think there was anything in the rumors but we all knew that she so enjoyed being a mother, she's completely hands on. He's loved being a father and has designed his whole career around being near Prince George. So we knew that inevitably they'd want to have another child. This is when it starts happening. Seven months away we reckon so April next year we'll be back on air delivering the news on whether it's a boy or girl.</s>COSTELLO: That's right. You'll be camped outside of some hospital waiting for her to come out once again.</s>FOSTER: Come over and join me, Carol.</s>COSTELLO: I'm going to this time because I really enjoyed it the last time. Max Foster, thank you so much. Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the controlling owner of the Atlanta Hawks is selling his stake after the discovery of a racially charged e-mail. CNN's Martin Savidge got an exclusive interview with the team's CEO. We'll bring it to you next.