Interview with Rep. Jim Himes
CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Let's bring in Democratic congressman, Jim Himes. He's from Connecticut. He sits on the House Intelligence Committee. And most relevant, congressman, good to have you this morning.</s>REP. JIM HIMES (D), CONNECTICUT: Good morning, Chris.</s>CUOMO: You voted no to arming the Syrian rebels. I think one of the overlooked problems going on here is how Congress is passing the buck to the president on what is certainly a war situation. You voted no. What do you make of Congress not meeting, debating, voting on a war resolution?</s>HIMES: Well, I was very disappointed by the fact that we did not. And, of course, in giving the president the authority to arm the so called moderate Syrian rebels, we have given up the one piece of leverage that we had to force that debate. And, look, this isn't something that necessarily has to do with today's situation with the Syrian rebels. This has to do with 60 years of war making authority gradually migrating from the place that the Constitution put it, that is to say the United States Congress, to the White House, to the point where, you know, one man, it doesn't have to be this president, it can be any president, is gradually getting the authority to make war in contradiction (ph) to the Constitution. So I'm kind of disappointed that we didn't have this debate on what is a very, very complicated topic.</s>CUOMO: And when we're talking about the specific action, which at this point is the bombings, which is easy in terms of allowing it because we have a history there and there are no people in jeopardy, other than those flying the missions. And then you have the piece of, well, who do you give these weapons to? That's a big reason that you voted no. You now have Panetta and others coming forward and saying, yes, we were going to do this a few years ago. That was Obama's mistake. He should have done it then. Was there any confidence then that we knew who we were giving weapons to?</s>HIMES: Well, look, the problems that exist today would have existed back then too, it's just that ISIS would have had less of a platform. Look, when you're creating a proxy army in somebody else's country without an ability to command and control that proxy army, which, of course, is what we've now given the authority to do, the unintended consequences are many. And this is a region of the world where the unintended consequences over many, many decades have often been an awful lot worse than we anticipated rather than better. So I understand that, you know, this was discussed some time ago and, in fact, there have been other countries arming rebels for some period of time. But the question now is, the decision was made by Congress and, of course, the question now is, what kind of international support can we get? So this looks a little bit like George H.W. Bush's to get Iraq out of Kuwait and a little bit less like what was a somewhat less enthusiastic effort in George W. Bush's efforts in Iraq.</s>CUOMO: Let's be honest, congressman, it's not looking good. We keep saying, well, this is their war, this is a regional fight, this is for the sole of Islam, this is about the Middle East and we're just going to help. None of these big guys are putting boots on the ground, will commit troops to action. Do you think something will change at the U.N. this week?</s>HIMES: Well, you know, I think there's a couple of opportunities at the U.N. First is, of course, to actually get something other than U.S. branded proxy armies and U.S. aircraft in the air so that this really doesn't become something that none of us want it to be, which is a U.S. versus ISIS fight. But, you know, I'd suggest there's probably two other really important things that can be accomplished or attempted to be accomplished at the U.N. One is, many of these countries, Chris, as you know, are - you know, while they sort of publicly say that they don't like ISIS, they are allowing certain of their citizens to actually fund ISIS, to recruit to places like Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, Turkey, of course, because they've got some diplomats held by ISIS, is allowing ISIS to run rampant across the border. That must change. The other thing I would say, Chris, is, you know, we have no control over clerics in the region. And this is a moment, finally, a great long last, for clerics in the Islamic religion to stand up and say, these guys have absolutely nothing to do with Islam, so that ISIS' religious legitimacy is taken away from them. That -- we can make progress on that this week I think at the</s>U.N. CUOMO: You raise the Turk situation. People should be paying attention to that. There was the release of the prisoners. What was negotiated to have that happen? We don't really know yet. They're a key party. Not an Arab nation, obviously, but key to this situation. ISIS has them in the cross hairs. A lot of unknowns there. Lastly, this American - apparently American member of ISIS. We keep saying it's a regional conflict, it's about them not us. What's the chance that you have Americans in positions of command and control within ISIS?</s>HIMES: Well, the chances are reasonably good. Look, there are somewhere between several hundred and, you know, some figures go up depending on what country you're talking about, to many thousands of westerners fighting with ISIS. And this is really - it is a frightening thing. But people also need to remember that our intelligence community and our law enforcement people who have received tremendous numbers of new resources since 9/11, their very job is to track these people and to make sure that if and when they come back, they do not pose a threat. So it's not a - not a - not an attractive thing for us to think about, but there are hundreds if not thousands of security people who are - who are working on making sure we know what these people are up to.</s>CUOMO: Congressman Jim Himes, thank you very much for joining us on</s>NEW DAY. HIMES: Thanks, Chris.</s>CUOMO: All right, a town, paralyzed. An armed and dangerous fugitive remains on the run. You're looking at him on your screen. Are police zeroing in on Eric Frein? We're live in Pennsylvania with the latest. Plus, NFL star Adrian Peterson's child abuse case has reignited the debate on spanking. Now, I wonder if that's really even true? Is there really any debate on spanking? It seems everybody think it's OK. But is there a good basis for that? Is there any research? What are we doing to our kids? We're going to discuss it, coming up.