[Wolf Blitzer, Cnn:] Happening now, breaking news: a growing U.S. commitment. CNN learns the Obama administration getting ready to send more than 100 military advisers to Iraq to help tens of thousands of refugees fleeing the ISIS onslaught. Deadly trek. Thousands of those refugees have fled on foot, making a grueling and in some cases deadly trek to safety. Shocking details. Police reveal new information about how the comedian Robin Williams took his own life, leaving fans around the world heartbroken. We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer. You're in
[The Situation Room. Announcer:] This is CNN breaking news.
[Blitzer:] We're following two major breaking stories this hour. Police revealing new details of the death of Robin Williams. The suicide that is shocking his fans around the world. Stand by, and we will update you. We're also following breaking news in Iraq. Sources telling CNN more than a hundred U.N. military advisers are being sent to Iraq to help deal with the humanitarian crisis in the northern part of the country. We are covering all of the breaking news this hour with our correspondents, our guests, CNN's global resources. Let's begin with our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr. Barbara, what's the latest you're hearing over there?
[Barbara Starr, Cnn Pentagon Correspondent:] Wolf, we expect a formal announcement from the Pentagon at any moment. More than a hundred U.S. military advisers, additional military advisers being sent to Northern Iraq right now, one of their main jobs will be to see if there is any way to rescue those stranded Iraqis.
[Starr:] The first challenge for any possible rescue operation, figuring out how many people are trapped on Sinjar Mountain. The Pentagon's top operations officer says nobody really knows.
[Lt. Gen. William Mayville, Operations Director, Joint Chiefs Of Staff:] I have seen reports of numbers in the thousands and I have seen reports in the numbers of tens of thousands.
[Starr:] The U.S. is continuing airdrops of food and water and airstrikes against is positions around the mountain, trying to push militants back, a vital military step if a rescue operation is to be launched.
[Barack Obama, President Of The United States:] We're working with international partners to develop options to bring them to safety.
[Starr:] Several defense officials tell CNN if there is any rescue mission, it could be chaos like this. There will have to be ground troops from some country on the mountain to keep an evacuation orderly and secure. U.S. officials tell CNN there are two basic options, a massive airlift, potentially landing helicopters and cargo planes for weeks to move everyone out, or a ground operation, using hundreds of vehicles to transport people to safety. That's already begun on a small scale. A humanitarian corridor opened by Iraqis has helped thousands of Yazidis escape. They have been driven to the border with Syria, now left with nothing, still looking to get back to their homes. But either option will require stepped-up U.S. airstrikes to keep is away. For now, the U.S. says, no American boots on the ground.
[John Kerry, U.s. Secretary Of State:] There will be no reintroduction of American combat forces into Iraq.
[Starr:] Kurdish forces already fighting ISIS may have to step in.
[Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling , Cnn Military Analyst:] They speak the language. They're better able to coordinate. They're better able to cooperate. They're better able to take control.
[Starr:] And if there is a rescue mission, clearly this will draw U.S. forces deeper back into Iraq Wolf.
[Blitzer:] The only problem, Barbara, those Peshmerga forces don't have the armor, they don't have the equipment to fight ISIS. They have Abrams battle tanks, armored personnel carriers. The Peshmerga, they may be great fighters, very courageous, but they basically have some weapons, some ammunition. They can't compete in that area.
[Starr:] Wolf, if it happens, this will all depend on military tactics. One of the things that people here are predicting is you will see stepped-up airstrikes. It will be up to U.S. warplanes to continue to pound those ISIS targets, get them back off the mountain, get them away from any humanitarian corridor, so these people can be safely transported out of there. But make no mistake, it is going to be dangerous for everybody, Wolf.
[Blitzer:] Yes, the U.S. is going to have to step up military supplies, military equipment, major military equipment to the Kurdish forces. Quickly on the hundred additional, hundred-plus additional military advisers now heading to Northern Iraq, that will bring the number closer and closer to 1,000 active duty U.S. military personnel in Iraq right now. Isn't that right?
[Starr:] That is correct, Wolf. We have gotten a better readout from our sources. This will take the number of active-duty personnel in Iraq, U.S. military personnel to well over 900. Now they do everything from working on foreign military sales, still selling weapons to the current Iraqi military, working on security at Baghdad Airport, protecting the embassy, working both in Irbil in Northern Iraq and in Baghdad on trying to assess, and evaluate and help the Iraqi military. But now what we are seeing tonight, Wolf, two new missions, possible rescue mission, possible assistance to the Peshmerga fighters up there.
[Blitzer:] They are all active-duty military personnel. They will be wearing uniforms. They will be wearing their boots. They will be on the ground. There will be boots on the ground, although they are now saying these will not be combat troops. So that is the difference. They're saying they're not combat forces. Is that right?
[Starr:] Wolf, these people, under the war powers notifications the president has made to Congress, these people will not be engaging in offensive combat operations. If they were to come under attack, they have every right to defend themselves. But they are not going out there on combat operations either by themselves or with Iraqi or Peshmerga forces. That right now is not happening Wolf.
[Blitzer:] U.S. fighter jets though they are engaged in combat. Clearly they are actively engaged in combat. All right, we are going to continue this, this hour. Barbara Starr, at the Pentagon, thanks very much. Let's get some more now on those Yazidi refugees fleeing for their lives from these ISIS terrorists. Our senior international correspondent, Ivan Watson, is joining us from Northern Iraq right now, where this humanitarian crisis is unfolding, Ivan, what are you seeing now? Because you have shown our viewers in the United States and around the world some very powerful and dramatic images.
[Ivan Watson, Cnn Senior International Correspondent:] Well, Wolf, we're having a few audio problems. But, yes, we saw the stream of humanity pouring across the border from Syria into Iraqi Kurdistan, across the Peskabor River on a bridge. Now, why where they coming from Syria, these masses of exhausted, desperate, frightened civilians? Because there is an informal humanitarian corridor that has come together to help the people. Many of them those religious minority members the Yazidis come from the Iraqi town of Sinjar and the surrounding areas, that Sinjar Mountain that many have fled to. They are escaping by crossing the border into Syria, a Kurdish-controlled part of Syria, controlled by a group called the Kurdistan Workers Party, who are then helping transport them up the border to the Peskabor River, where they then trudge across the bridge here into Iraqi Kurdistan. And the people told horrifying stories of their Arab neighbors joining the largely foreign force of ISIS militants to attack and threaten their Kurdish Yazidi neighbors. They describe stories of their children dying on the marathon journey through the desert, taking 10, 15 hours on foot to reach safety, and then coming here where these people are once again sleeping out under the stars on roadsides with no tents to speak of. Some of them sleeping on scraps of cardboard tonight after spending more than a week out in the open Wolf.
[Blitzer:] This looks like such a desperate situation. These folks and you have spoken to them and we saw you on that helicopter, rescuing some folks with the Iraqi military, some Peshmerga Kurdish fighters. What is their mood right now? Do they feel they have any hope?
[Watson:] The refrain that I have heard from these Yazidis who are streaming north via Syria is they are just looking to the U.S., to Europe for help. And it's a refrain I heard from some of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christians, another religious minority that have been fleeing on mass since this crisis began. They too would say the same thing. We just need a safe refuge somewhere in the west. They have already given up hope on Iraq, I think largely because they have seen and heard that neighbors from their communities have turned on them, have joined ISIS and taken up arms against them and they feel they cannot go back home to those communities ever again. It is truly ethnic and sectarian cleansing.
[Blitzer:] Ivan, tell us quickly about that Iraqi military helicopter that crashed, if you will, trying to bring some aid to trapped Yazidis on Mount Sinjar earlier today. We know the pilot was killed. What do we know about this incident?
[Watson:] This is one of the Iraqi air force helicopters that have been flying daily missions, dangerous missions over the past several days delivering aid to Mount Sinjar to the perhaps tens of thousands of mostly Yazidis trapped there and then coming back in the chaotic scenes we witnessed yesterday on a similar flight, coming back, carrying more passengers than the helicopters are equipped to carry, bringing them back to safety in these truly chaotic scenes. In this case, one of these flights, one of these choppers went down on Mount Sinjar. The Iraqi air force pilot, he was killed. A number of the other people on that helicopter were injured, including Alissa Rubin, a "New York Times" journalist. There was a photographer, a friend of mine, who was on board as well and has published a photo in "TIME" magazine, Moises Saman. I'm told that he is OK, but in a hospital. And it just underscores how dangerous those missions are, what burdens the helicopters, these aging Russian helicopters are taking when they are overloaded with refugees, bringing them off of that mountain, and also how much the Iraqis and Kurds need help for this dangerous even delicate operation.
[Blitzer:] Very dangerous. We heard from "The New York Times" Alissa Rubin, the experienced war correspondent, had her wrist broken, a concussion. She's now been airlifted out. She's in the hospital together with several of the other people who were on that helicopter. Ivan Watson doing amazing work for all of us. Thank you so much for your reporting. Complicating all of this, a major power struggle in Baghdad where a new prime minister has been designated, but the incumbent, Nouri al- Maliki, is vowing to cling to power and that is raising serious fears of a possible military coup. Let's discuss with the former Iraqi Ambassador to the United States Samir Sumaidaie, who is joining us. Mr. Ambassador, thanks very much for joining us. Will he go quietly away, Nouri al-Maliki, or will he resist?
[Samir Sumaidaie, Former Iraqi Ambassador To The United States:] That's the key question. It is, at this moment, unknown. I listened to his press conference. I listened to his speech today again, saying that he is going to launch a complaint with the judiciary. This doesn't sound good. It doesn't augur well at all. He, by now, should understand that the entire country is against him, his own allies, members of his own party. I mean, the prime minister- designate, Mr. Abadi, is from his own party. He was his deputy. He turned against him. He should understand. But the reason he doesn't-
[Blitzer:] Nouri al-Maliki.
[Sumaidaie:] Nouri al-Maliki doesn't want to go. It seems to me that he is surrounded by a clique of cronies. They are deeply implicated in all kind of corruption, crimes possibly. And they are scared. They are like cornered animals and they don't know where to go.
[Blitzer:] Well, here's the question. Does Nouri al-Maliki have military backers, elements in the Iraqi military who will fight to protect him and cause in effect a civil war?
[Sumaidaie:] Well, Wolf, from the first term, from 2006, he started working on consolidating his grip over the security forces. The Ministry of Interior, he started implanting people in it, the military, the army, and the intelligence. And then the special forces, especially, he made that as an operational force loyal to him. He put all the leadership of these forces, made it very close.
[Blitzer:] What I hear you saying, Mr. Ambassador-
[Sumaidaie:] And just to complete the picture-
[Blitzer:] Yes, go ahead.
[Sumaidaie:] he interpreted this role of commander in chief of the security forces in a very unique way for Iraq. He considered himself operationally responsible for the movements of units. This interpretation is unique to him.
[Blitzer:] So what I hear you saying, correct me if I'm wrong, and I have heard this from others as well, that Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, with his cronies, as you call them, have supposedly millions, if not tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars from the Iraqi people. And they are afraid that if he is no longer prime minister, he could be arrested, he could be sent to jail and that money could be taken from him.
[Sumaidaie:] I think they are terrified. If you go and look at the record of his performance during the last two years, he has driven the country into the ground. Look, he interpreted politics as winner takes all. Now, the corollary of that is if you are a winner in politics, you have a license to loot. And they have been looting the country blind. Now, at the end, this has to stop. We hope that new prime minister will do a U-turn on this and will start using politics for the reconstruction and mending of Iraq.
[Blitzer:] Do you know this Haider al-Abadi, the new prime minister?
[Sumaidaie:] I do. I do.
[Blitzer:] You think he is a decent guy?
[Sumaidaie:] Well, we give him the benefit of the doubt. He's the best hope that we have right at the moment. That's all we have. But what is clear, Wolf, is what policy works and what policy doesn't. What doesn't work is creating enemies, is splitting the country into sectarian factions. What works is bringing the country together. That's what we hope the new prime minister will do.
[Blitzer:] He may not walk away quietly because of the money that he and his cronies have stolen.
[Sumaidaie:] I think, Wolf, what al-Maliki will do in the next few days will be key and also what Iran will do in terms of signaling that they will be dead against his renewal. That would be key.
[Blitzer:] Because Iran has a huge amount of influence in Baghdad right now.
[Sumaidaie:] Absolutely. And I think not all Iranian leaders, but at least some very key leaders in Iran have concluded that Maliki is more of a liability than an asset.
[Blitzer:] Samir Sumaidaie, Mr. Ambassador, thanks very much for coming in.
[Sumaidaie:] Thank you.
[Blitzer:] Still ahead, we will have much more on this story coming up. But, also, police reveal new details of the death of Robin Williams, as a grief-stricken nation mourns his loss.