Record Rain Kills 3, Sweeps 350 Homes Away; Iraqis Showing No Will to Fight?
CAMEROTA: We're seeing multi-generations come to honor those who have gone.</s>PEREIRA: And we want to invite those of you at home to share your photos, memories and stories of the veterans you've lost. You can go to CNN.com/memorialday. And with that we turn to Carol Costello for "</s>NEWSROOM." CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks so much. NEWSROOM starts now.</s>COSTELLO: Happening now in the</s>NEWSROOM. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my gosh. Stop, stop, stop. He needs to get out.</s>COSTELLO: Record rain sweeps away cars, trees, even homes.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Never did we in our wildest imagination think about the wall of water that would come down and do the destruction.</s>COSTELLO: Lives lost and the relentless downpours and tornadoes. Even a first responder is killed. And it's not over yet. Also --</s>ASH CARTER, DEFENSE SECRETARY: The Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight.</s>COSTELLO: Are Iraqi forces willing to fight ISIS and defend themselves? Defense Secretary Ash Carter has his doubts. As the brutal terror group murders hundreds of women and children. Plus, President Obama enjoying an ice cream cone. LBJ chowing down on Texas barbecue. These pictures from the Democrats' official Twitter feed. But this isn't what Memorial Day is about. Let's talk. Live in the CNN NEWSROOM.</s>COSTELLO: And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. After more than a decade of war and an endless debate mired in politics, a nation pauses to honor the sacrifices of those who have served. Right now in Washington, a day of remembrance and reflection begins to unfold. This is a live picture of observances at the World War II Memorial. President Obama honors the war dead later this morning. Over the next couple of hours we'll check in on Memorial Day events around the country. But first, we have to talk about the weather because, boy, it is brutal. Thousands fleeing for higher ground, as deadly flash flooding ravages parts of Texas and Oklahoma. Three people have died. Several others still missing. And the threat is not over yet. SUVs tumbling like toys in the powerful rapids. This driver escaping to safety just before the plunge. Bridges completely washed out. The current consuming everything in its path. Raging waters knocking this home right off its foundation. Other homes simply swept away. The now saturated ground could see several more inches of rain triggering fears of more dangerous flash flooding. We're awaiting a police press conference that's expected at the top of the next hour. CNN's Alina Machado is in one of the hardest-hit areas, Wimberley, Texas. Good morning, Alina.</s>ALINA MACHADO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Carol. Yes, if you walk through this hard-hit area you get a sense of just how bad the devastation is. Look at this debris field. There is just debris scattered all over this place. There's downed power lines, furniture, and this house, tipped on its side. Knocked over by the force of the floodwaters, all the product of this historic flood.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my god. Oh, my god.</s>MACHADO (voice-over): Ravaging floodwaters and severe weather across central Texas and Oklahoma, forcing more than 1,000 people to stay in shelters this morning.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right now is not the time to try to return to your homes.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my gosh. Stop, stop, stop.</s>MACHADO: Vehicles and hundreds of homes destroyed. Swept away by the deadly deluge.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This flood is the largest I've seen in a 25 years.</s>MACHADO: Waters continuing to rise through Sunday in central Texas. The flood's height swelling one river to a record-breaking 43 feet in San Marcos, according to officials.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At this point it's mainly an operation of rescue.</s>MACHADO: Emergency crews scrambling to pull people from the floodwaters. Bridges washed out, unable to handle the force of the rising tide. Roller coasters at the Six Flags Amusement Park near Dallas, Texas, submerged in water. In Wimberley, many residents returned to homes unsalvageable. (</s>On camera): We've seen houses that have been knocked off their foundations or tipped over just by this one here just by the sheer force of those rising floodwaters.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's no electricity at the complex now.</s>MACHADO (voice-over): In Houston, hundreds are now homeless, after an EF-1 tornado packing winds of 100 miles an hour slammed into their apartment complex. The severe storms turning deadly in Oklahoma. A firefighter swept away from a dramatic rescue just north of Tulsa. Captain Jason Farley, a nearly 20-year veteran, died while trying to rescue 10 residents from the flood. The waters so high the firefighter never saw the storm drain that carried him under.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We suspect that he drowned. Got caught in the storm drain itself. It's something I'll have to live with for the rest of my life.</s>MACHADO: We could see several more inches of rain in this area sometime today. The ground is already saturated so that could spell some big trouble for the people who are trying to recover from this flood -- Carol.</s>COSTELLO: All right, Alina Machado, reporting live for us this morning. To find out how you can help those affected by severe flooding and storm damage in Texas and Oklahoma visit CNN.com/impact. Turning now to the war on ISIS. Syria is striking back. This morning we've learned that it has launched at least 15 airstrikes on the militants who control the city of Palmyra. Now according to a watchdog group of activists some of the bombings have been near those ancient sites we've been talking about. The United Nations is among the groups calling for ISIS to spare the ruins that date back to Roman times. There are also new tales of horror and brutally. ISIS militants are blamed for murdering more than 250 people including at least 13 children. The group has underscored its ruthlessness in newly captured cities by beheading government soldiers and anyone who helped them. The growing reach of ISIS is igniting new frustration and fingerpointing between Washington and Baghdad and now Tehran. In his first comments since ISIS militants captured the Iraqi town of Ramadi Defense Secretary Ash Carter lays the blame on the collapse of Ramadi on Iraqi forces there. Here's part of his exclusive interview with CNN.</s>CARTER: The Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight. They were not outnumbered. In fact, they vastly outnumbered the opposing force. And yet they failed to fight. They withdrew from the site. And that says to me, and I think to most of us, that we have an issue with the will of the Iraqis.</s>COSTELLO: So let's get the view from Baghdad. CNN's Arwa Damon is there. Hi, Arwa.</s>ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi. And those comments are being viewed here largely as being an attempt by the U.S. to perhaps shirk any sort of responsibility it may have for the current failures of the Iraqi army, since it was, after all, America that trained the Iraqi military. And America that trained and declared the Iraqi Security Forces combat ready before they withdrew. We did hear from Iraq's prime minister, an interview to the BBC, reacting to those comments. Here's Haider al-Abadi had to say.</s>HAIDER AL-ABADI, IRAQI PRIME MINISTER: I'm surprised why he said that. I mean, he was very supportive of Iraq. I'm sure he was fed with the wrong information.</s>DAMON: And we have also heard from Iranian general, Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force. He himself has been quite active in the battlefield in Iraq, especially when it came to the battle for Tikrit. He said that it was the U.S. that has no will to fight ISIS, and is, quote, "doing nothing." Going on to state today, nobody is confronting ISIS properly, except Iran. Even the countries that Iran is supporting saying that basically, Iran was confronting ISIS more than even Iraq itself. Interesting in all of this, Carol, was some of the reaction that we heard from Baghdad, residents were out in the street, they said that they were yes, concerned about ISIS advancing towards the capital but they felt that Baghdad would not fall. Why? They said not because they believe that the Iraqi Security Forces would defend the capital, but because they said Iran would not allow it to fall to</s>ISIS. COSTELLO: All right, Arwa Damon reporting live from Baghdad this morning. One expert says defending ISIS after the fall of Ramadi is like a game of whack-a-mole and writes this, quote, "The problem is that the coalition efforts and the Iraqi government's actions are canceling each other out. When the coalition makes military advances, the Iraqi government sabotages them by antagonizing the very people who are needed to help root out ISIS and that would be the Sunni population of Iraq." So let's bring in CNN military analyst, Lt. General Mark Hertling, to parse this out for us. Welcome, sir.</s>LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Good morning. Carol.</s>COSTELLO: Good morning. So let's go back first to what Ash Carter said. Do Iraqi forces have the will to fight?</s>HERTLING: I believe the soldiers certainly do. The challenge is with the government. I think all of these narratives that you're starting to hear, Carol, are talking about exactly that. There are too many factions within Iraq right now to include the supporting Iranian Shia forces to include the U.S. coalition forces with air power. The Iraqi government has to pull it all together and find ways for the parliament of Iraq to really fight this scourge as a single body as opposed to individual actions.</s>COSTELLO: Isn't that what the new Iraqi president was supposed to be doing?</s>HERTLING: Well, yes, but he's got a tough row to hoe truthfully. I mean, he's got several years of distrust between Sunni, Kurds and Shia. He's got to build a government, first of all, and also I mean I hate to say this, but you still have prime -- the former prime minister Maliki within the parliament. So he is -- he is sabotaging in many cases as well as some of the other Shia lawmakers what's going on? You know, when you're talking about a consolidated Iraq, you need the Sunnis, you need the Kurds, and you need the Shias to fight together. And I think that's what we saw when we left there in 2010. It was beginning down that road. And unfortunately, the politicians created a divide truthfully.</s>COSTELLO: OK. So you say Iraqi leadership is needed. There are a few other ideas being tossed around here in the United States by various lawmakers. I'm going to run some of the ideas by you. This is from Congresswoman Tulsa Gabbard, she's a veteran, she's on the House Armed Services Committee. She says you have the solution, arm the Kurds. So why not do that?</s>HERTLING: Well, because you're then going to see another civil war in the north. The Kurds have their -- truthfully have their own agenda. The Kurds are not going to go in to Anbar Province. They are not going to contribute to a unifying element of the entire Iraq because they have not been treated well by the central government, as well. So they have a requirement to defend along what they call their green line. And that's where I think unfortunately I disagree with Congresswoman Gabbard, she doesn't understand the situation in the north. That's where I lived for awhile. The Kurds have a very succinct agenda on their own as to develop an independent Kurdistan. They're not going to fight in other Anbar Province or in many areas of the north. But they will attempt to gain territory for the Kurdish regional government.</s>COSTELLO: OK, this idea from Congresswoman Kinsinger. Of course America is not losing and it's not winning, because America's not really engaged in this fight. So he's saying send his advisory American force to Iraq and they can work things out from there. Is he right?</s>HERTLING: Well, I -- that's an interesting commentary, too. I, while I understand where the congressman is coming from, I also have problems with that as a military guy because there are a lot of people who are suggesting we put forces on the ground with Iraqi units. When you don't have the support for those forces, even though you might have 10,000 alleged special operators, which I'm not sure we have that many in the force truthfully, you're going to dissipate other actions throughout the world. First of all. But secondly you need legal protection for those forces. You also need support, administrative support for those forces. We at one time had over 25,000 advisers in Iraq in 2008, '09, '10. And they were building an Iraqi army. The problem is you can do that and you can potentially defeat ISIS, but then what? What happens next? Even though you kill all the ISIS fighters in there, is there going to be another element that will crop up if the government isn't good enough to take care of the people?</s>COSTELLO: Safe to say this is a complicated issue with no easy answers.</s>HERTLING: Absolutely.</s>COSTELLO: All right. General Hertling, thanks so much for being with me. I appreciate it. As we head to break the national anthem at the World War II Memorial.