Official: U.S. Considering Airstrikes in Iraq; Crisis in Iraq Escalates
TAPPER: Welcome back to THE LEAD. Coming to you live today from Jerusalem where we're learning that Hamas militants may let the clock run out on the truce that has less than nine hours left before it's supposed to expire. Meanwhile, President Obama is right now meeting with his senior advisors. Could they be discussing air strikes in a different Middle East crisis? One that the U.S. supposedly left behind fewer than three years ago? ISIS, the Islamist terrorist militia and an al Qaeda offshoot which has burned a path through Iraq, has now taken over the largest Christian town in Iraq and chased as many as 40,000 Iraqis, mostly members of religious minorities into the mountains. If they come down, they face ISIS guns. If they stay, they could die of starvation or dehydration, which is why the Pentagon is now considering emergency relief drops to those stranded Iraqis, according to a U.S. defense official. But a U.S. official always tells CNN that what's happening in Iraq right now, quote, "just might meet the threshold", unquote, for air strikes. Now, obviously, that would jump this up to a whole new level. Maybe that's what the had President Obama so worked up when he was talking to his chief of staff, Denis McDonough, earlier today in Virginia. Lots of big arm movements there. Our Jim Acosta today pressed the White House about potential air strikes.</s>JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Are airstrikes on the table?</s>JOSH EARNEST, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Well, Jim, I'm not in a position to rule things on or off the table in this context. It's important for everyone to understand and the president has made this clear, that there are no American military solutions to the problems in Iraq. The president has at the same time demonstrated his clear willingness to take the kind of military action that's required to -- to protect core American interests.</s>TAPPER: OK. Was that clear for you? Remember, it was fewer than three years ago when President Obama declared Iraq, quote, "sovereign, stable and self-reliant", as the last American combat troops pulled out of the country. Our chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto is in Washington. Jim, this is exactly the kind of situation that could quickly turn into genocide. ISIS is giving these people the ultimatum of convert or be killed. Give us an idea where this is taking place and how much of Iraq ISIS now claims as their own. Give us an idea.</s>JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jake, I'll tell you, I'm told now that U.S. officials that the administration is considering airstrikes and that is in response to rapidly moving events on the ground. First, the situation with the Yazidis, they trapped here between Mosul and Erbil, surrounded in effect by ISIS forces and they're starving. They're dying of thirst literally and fearing for their lives because of the threat from these ISIS fighters who will kill them. We've seen what they're capable of. They advertise what that he capable of in previous massacres that they've undertaken in northern Iraq. The other thing that concerns administration officials is this -- the advance of ISIS just in the last month and a half. These are the cities they had presence in or controlled as of June 19th. And this is where they are now. These dots here in purple showing where they've taken over new territory and keep in mind that they also have territory connecting these various cities kind of in a spider web of control. And this is moving very quickly. So, quickly it has alarmed the administration. Now airstrikes, something the president had taken off the table are back on the table.</s>TAPPER: Jim, I mean, I have to say, Israel, Gaza, Iraq, Syria, the border with Mexico, Russia, Ukraine, this is a dizzying amount of foreign policy nightmares. How is the Obama administration dealing with all these multiple fronts of chaos?</s>SCIUTTO: It remains to be seen really. This is the issue. I had a briefing with senior intelligence officials today. You know, a few -- a couple of years ago, we used to talk about the failed state of Somalia, and what a danger that was. You had al Shabaab, an al Qaeda affiliated group there, which has threatened, already carried out attacks in Africa and elsewhere. But in the last couple of years, you now have several failed states in the region. Iraq and Syria, now a home base for ISIS, they declared a caliphate there. Yemen, a home base for al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Libya, increasing a failed state. Al-Murabitun, it's a new offshoot, also al Qaeda-tied group. All of these groups in all of these countries have I'm told by senior intelligence officials have their target set on the U.S. now. They haven't been able to carry out those attacks yet, but they have that aspiration. And this is what the administration is facing now, this is what intelligence officials are facing now. Every morning when they wake up, they're getting briefings on the threat emanating from these countries.</s>TAPPER: Jim Sciutto, thank you so much. Let's get now to our senior international correspondent Ivan Watson. He joins us live from Erbil, where thousands of Iraqis are on the run, looking for shelter from a slaughter. Ivan, where can they go and how safe are they right now?</s>IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, for now, the Kurdistan regional government, it does control, for instance, the city of Erbil, but part of the panic has come as ISIS has advanced really to within 40 miles of Erbil, the biggest of the cities controlled by the Kurds. What that triggered was an exodus of Iraqi civilians towards the Kurdish region even as Kurdish Peshmerga fighters were having to pull back Wednesday night. It triggered an alarm bells here in Erbil. There was a run on the supermarkets here. Some people leaving Erbil and heading for the hills, and prompting the Kurdistan regional government to issue public messages to try to reassure the population to tell them yes, the Kurdish Peshmerga can defend Kurdish territory. What I saw throughout the day here was just a constant stream of Iraqi civilians walking, piling into the back of trucks, piling into taxis, into buses, any kind of transportation possible and showing up at the gates of this Kurdish stronghold and now they're bedding down in parking lots, in unfinished buildings for the night here and there's no real system to provide food or water to these people. I've seen some ad hoc distribution of water. But the United Nations is warning up to 200,000 people have fled towards Kurdistan area within the last 48 hours. The patriarch in the Chaldean Christian community issuing a warning of 100,000 Chaldean Christians on the run with little more than the clothes on their back. It is really a dire situation right now.</s>TAPPER: Ivan Watson in Erbil -- thank you so much. Coming up next, he's made no attempt to hide his desire to punish the United States and Europe, but is Vladimir Putin going too far this time? Plus, it provoked fury in Israeli. The kidnapping and murder of three teenagers weeks ago. How did that event lead to the war in Gaza? Well, today, I went searching for answers. That's ahead.