[Baldwin:] You're watching CNN. I'm Brooke Baldwin. The FBI is warning the military that ISIS might try to target U.S. troops right here on U.S. soil. Here is part of a joint statement issued overnight by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security. It warns current and former troops about their presence online and recommends they review their social media accounts for postings that might attract ISIS or its supporters. It reads, "use caution when posting." This, by the way, is the government's strongest warning yet about ISIS making plans to strike troops here at home. Jim Sciutto is with me now from Washington. Here he is. He is our chief national security correspondent. And I'm curious, first of all, I mean, what kinds of postings by troops, Jim, might be getting the attention by ISIS. Why this, you know, social media focus?
[Jim Sciutto, Cnn Chief National Security Correspondent:] Well, I'll tell you, it's in two directions. It's a social media of U.S. military personnel, so that they don't make themselves targets in effect. So don't advertise so it makes it easy for ISIS and its supporters to identify you as a potential target. That's part of this bulletin. But I'll tell you, there have been other bulletins from the FBI warning of this kind of attack before. What's particular about this one and new is that they have information they're saying that members of ISIS are, in the words of bulletin, and I've been briefed on it, "spotting and assessing" individuals in the U.S. to find like-minded individuals who might carry out attacks in the U.S., including against U.S. military personnel. So it's going in both directions here. They're seeing they're saying to U.S. military personnel, be careful what you post so you're not easily a target, but they're also observing, and this is new, members of ISIS searching via the Internet for potential recruits to carry out attacks. You know, this is a big deal, Brooke, because when I speak to U.S. intelligence and counter terror officials, they say the most likely kind of attack to happen on U.S. soil are these so-called lone wolf attacks. Someone here radicalized by someone over there who makes a choice to carry out a violent act, like, for instance, we saw with the Ottawa shooter last month.
[Baldwin:] Right.
[Sciutto:] Or in October, I should say. It's a real concern, not just of the U.S. military and law enforcement, but of U.S. counterterror officials.
[Baldwin:] So you have the online postings on the one hand, but the warning also mentions the presence of ISIS supporters here in the U.S. I mean might there be a particular scenario in which that would really worry the FBI? What are they suggesting with that?
[Sciutto:] No question. And they based the most worrisome scenario on attacks that they've already seen across the border in Canada. So think, one, you had the shooter in Ottawa in late October taking a gun, shooting a soldier at a ceremonial posting there in the Canadian capital. But you also had two other attacks, which were a great worry, and those were attacks where attackers used their cars. They just drove their car into Canadian soldiers in uniform. They killed one, they injured another one. And that's of great concern too because the thing about lone wolf attacks is that, you know, one, you don't need any formal connection between you and the U.S. and ISIS back home. You can just read their propaganda and decide to act. Two, you don't need a lot to carry out an attack, right? You could make a bomb on the Internet but you could just use your car or you could use a gun. And it's because of that that these things are so difficult to police.
[Baldwin:] I remember talking to Paul Cruickshank when all that broke, using the cars, and that was precisely what ISIS was calling for online, use those specific kind of attacks.
[Sciutto:] Yes.
[Baldwin:] While I have you, Mr. Sciutto, let's talk today about this story about the Iraqi government paying out thousands of basically for these bogus soldiers salaries. I mean are these soldiers just not showing up or is it more?
[Sciutto:] Or, even worse, not existing.
[Baldwin:] Wow.
[Sciutto:] You know, what they believe is happening here is you have commanders who are basically, you know, puffing up their numbers of soldiers on their payroll, saying that they have 100 when they have 50, say, and pocketing that money from the government, which is remarkable. And that figure, 15,000, think about this, there are 280,000 some odd soldiers in the Iraqi military. So that's more than, you know, one in six that doesn't exist. And you may remember, the U.S. military did an assessment of the Iraqi military earlier this year and found that only about half of Iraqi military, about half the brigades, are up to snuff as a fighting force to fight against ISIS. I mean this is a country that already has and we saw this as ISIS swept across the country and Iraqi soldiers, you know, took their uniforms off, you know, dissolved into the countryside, they already have major problems. The idea that 50,000 of them don't exist and were just, you know, were just kind of made up to pad the pockets of Iraqi commanders is pretty alarming. It just shows how deep a hole, you know, that country is after years of American support.
[Baldwin:] It's incredibly alarming. This is the country we're hoping to lean on to get the help to beat these terrorists, to beat
[Isis. Sciutto:] Yes.
[Baldwin:] It's deeply troubling. Jim Sciutto, thank you.
[Sciutto:] These are the ground force, right?
[Baldwin:] Yes.
[Sciutto:] We talk about no U.S. ground forces.
[Baldwin:] Yes.
[Sciutto:] The Iraqi forces are the ground forces.
[Baldwin:] This is who we're relying on.
[Sciutto:] Yes.
[Baldwin:] My goodness. Jim Sciutto, thank you so much, sir. I appreciate it.
[Sciutto:] Thank you.
[Baldwin:] In Washington, joining me today. Coming up next, this mother spent four years searching for her son, only to find out he had been kidnapped and hidden behind a wall for some of that time. Now they've been reunited. We'll tell you that story. Plus, I'll speak with one entertainer who says, as a black man, he's afraid of police. He has a personal story to explain his own fear. All of this the backdrop today, President Barack Obama meeting about Ferguson, protests erupting, these walkouts across the country in nationwide efforts. Stay with me.