Secretary Kerry, Foreign Minister Lavrov Negotiate in Geneva; U.N. to Report on Syrian Chemical Weapons Monday; United Will Honor $5 To $10 Tickets
COOPER: Welcome back. There is breaking news on Syria. Sources telling us that U.N. secretary general Ban Ki-moon is expected Monday to present the weapons inspectors' report to Security Council. Also word late today that days of high level talks over how to dismantle Syria's warfare capability have gone into overtime and could be bearing come fruits. Secretary of state Kerry and his Russian counterpart will be spending at least another day at a negotiating table in Geneva. Jim Sciutto is in Geneva following a late development and he joins us now. So, what are we hearing about these talks? There is some word about possible progress?</s>JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Anderson, you talk about over time until a few minutes ago, they were meeting and it's past 2:00 in the morning here in Geneva. In fact, I saw Secretary Kerry walking back in to the building about 20 minutes ago out taking a walk to get fresh air because they have been talking so much. And that's a good sign as a U.S. official here told me they wouldn't be meeting if they didn't have something to talk about. We did hear earlier today that they have their first sign of hard progress which is the U.S. and Russia coming to an agreement on the scale, the scope of Syria's chemical weapons stockpiles. That sounds modest, but is important because U.S. officials have been telling me that is the first test of how the Syrians and Russians are about moving forward in that how forthcoming they are about giving all the details about how many chemical weapons they have and what quantities and where they are all hidden.</s>COOPER: And obviously, one of the things that's been discussed is whether or not the U.S. would continue to insist on a threat of force in a Security Council resolution. Do we know details on that?</s>SCIUTTO: Well, we are hearing out of Washington that the U.S. may be backing off or at least realizing that they won't be able to get a resolution through the Security Council because of Russia's veto, they would include a trigger for the use of force. That's important here because that's the main sticking point between Kerry and Lavrov, this over hanging threat of force. Kerry saying that the Syrians wouldn't even be here talking about this, the Russians if the U.S. hadn't threatened force. The Russians saying we can't move forward until the U.S. takes it off the table. So, you know, it's important here in those talks. That is going into this, no one really thought you would get a Security Council resolution that had an absolute forced trigger. And even if the resolution doesn't have that trigger, the U.S. can still reserve its right to act to use military force if it says that it's necessary and that's the direction we are being pushed by U.S. officials now.</s>COOPER: So, I mean, are they talking again tomorrow? What is next for Kerry in all this?</s>SCIUTTO: It goes into tomorrow, another day and then that's -- like I said, a good sign because they said they wouldn't be talking if they didn't have something to talk about and weren't making progress. From here, Kerry is going to Jerusalem. He is going to meet with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, both to talk Mideast peace but also to give an update on these talks. Then Kerry, ever the world traveler is going to go on to Paris and meet with the French and the British foreign ministers to give them an update on these talks and build some support. He is clearly going around updating, but also making sure that everybody is on board with what they hope will be at least the outlines of an agreement.</s>COOPER: Jim Sciutto, appreciate the update and late-night reporting. Thank you. I want to bring in the former defense secretary William Cohen now who is well acquainted with the reigning in WMD and with Sergey Lavrov's skill as a negotiator. Secretary Cohen, thanks for being with us. You dealt with Mr. Lavrov in the past. You called him a very skilled tough negotiator. These discussions now going to a third day tomorrow, can you give insight how this happens? What is going on behind closed doors? How does it actually work?</s>WILLIAM COHEN, FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY: Well, Secretary Kerry is not dealing with a strong hand, frankly. And I think the Russians are prepared to explode that. He is -- Secretary Kerry is insisting that we reserve the right to use military force against the Syrian forces, and Mr. Lavrov is going to say that has got a precondition has to go. So, it look as if we are going to yield on that particular point if there is a hope for getting a U.N. Security Council resolution. The French and the British and the U.S. have insisted on having some kind of a trigger namely if they don't compile with the dismantling of their weapons that we can take military action. But I think that's unlikely. I'm hopeful that something goodwill come out of this. But frankly, unless you have an overall peace settlement, the notion you are going to have in dismantling of chemical weapons during a civil war, I think, is unrealistic. So, it looks as if this is a long struggle to gain control of them, identify them while they are moving him around et cetera. So, I don't know that the United States has a very strong hand at this point. I hope that secretary Kerry can play it for what it is.</s>COOPER: So, you don't believe that it's really possible for Syria to give up their chemical weapons for international inspectors to be on the ground, to secure sites and ultimately destroy these weapons in the midst of a civil war? I know,</s>COHEN: I think it's very unlikely, highly unlikely it can be done. One hopes</s>COOPER: Because of the danger on the ground?</s>COHEN: The danger on the ground, you got rebels who are going to resist any kind of a settlement at this point. They are disheartened by the fact that the United States has backed away from using force. The president has threatened the use of force but it has to be a credible military threat. The fact is there is under whelming support from the Congress in the country for the use of force. I think the Russians are exploiting this. President Putin has gone from being the prince of darkness to the piper of peace. That may last for awhile. He can enjoy that particular bump in popularity domestically, perhaps internationally. But I doubt very much whether the Russians are ever going to agree to a situation where the United States can use force, you know, with the support of the U.N. against Syria, simply because of non-compliance. I think that is not going to happen. I think with the Russians will do -- will say, drop your preconditions of threatening force against Syria, drop your support for the rebels, and then we can talk about an overall peace settlement. And maybe that will involve secretary general has indicated that Assad may be guilty of crimes against humanity, perhaps part of the deal be giving Assad and his family asylum in Russia with Mr. Snowden.</s>COOPER: Do you think the United States actually would give up its support of the rebels? I mean, the rebels have been saying all along you haven't been arming us the way we would like. There was a report from CNN and "the Washington Post" two days ago that the CIA has begun to supply weapons to various rebel groups. But do you think that is actually on the negotiating table?</s>COHEN: I think our support for the rebels has been very minimal to be sure. On one hand, we had almost a Churchillian call to war by Secretary Kerry and then we had a stand out. So, a call to war, a call to action and then go to parade rest. Another call to action going to parade rest. So, I think the uncertain trumpet we have been blowing has really undermined the rebels in their effort. And we have not really given them very much in the way to wage this war against a President Assad who we said had to go, and we have done very little to make him go. And so, I think our position has been quite weak and the threat of using military force against Assad with resistance coming, strong resistance from the big core of this country and from Congress makes it difficult for the president. He could launch an attack against certain assets of Assad, but he would do so after having asked Congress for authority and then not getting it. It would be difficult for him politically.</s>COOPER: We will continue to watch what happens tomorrow. Secretary Cohen, appreciate your expertise. Thank you.</s>COHEN: Good to be with you.</s>COOPER: Good to have you on the program as always. As Secretary Cohen mentioned, Syria may already be moving its weapons around. There is disagreement right now within the intelligence community about where some of that enormous arsenal is located. Chris Lawrence is following that side of the story tonight from the Pentagon. How big is this disagreement, Chris, among the intelligence officials and what does it mean for any action the U.S. might have to take against Syria?</s>CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: It gets pretty wide, Anderson. I mean, on one end of the spectrum, some analyst have looked at the intelligence and say they know where most of the chemical weapons are. On the other hand, other analysts looked at it and said the United States may not be able to verify the location of up to half of Syria's chemical weapons. So we are talking about a thousand tons. This is a lot of chemical weapons. What they all agree on is that there was significant movement of these chemical materials in that time frame when the president seem to be ramping up the United States foreign air strike. In fact, "the Wall Street Journal" is reporting that an elite unit of the Syrian army moved some of these chemical stockpiles to up to 50 sites. And it's important no matter how this shakes out, if this all works out with the U.N. and Russia, how are you going to have accountability for the international community to sort of take control if you don't know where all of the stockpiles are, and if it comes down to a U.S. air strike, they have to be assured that they aren't going to hit an actual chemical stockpile and release deadly gas into the air.</s>COOPER: If there is a wildly disagreement in the intelligence community, how normal is that on something as important as this?</s>LAWRENCE: Believe it or not, it actually fairly normal. It doesn't come to a surprise to some of the intelligence officials who have been speaking with CNN. They point to Osama bin Laden operation where there was no uniformity on whether bin Laden was actually at that compound. They say different agencies are looking at different pieces. The NSA is looking at the intercepted communications, the CIA may look at the ground intelligence, military officials -- intelligence officials here may be look at satellite imagery. So ultimately, the director of National Intelligence has the final say. It's his job, James Clapper's job, to look at this and bring it together and ultimately it's his assessment that will be presented to President Obama.</s>COOPER: Yes. Interesting. Chris Lawrence, appreciate the reporting. Coming up, back here at home. The woman accused of murdering her husband by pushing him off a cliff just eight days after the wedding. Well for the first time, we hear her first side in court, plus a song from their wedding takes on a new meaning one in that words of the songwriter is kind of creepy. Later, we could be on the track to see the most measles cases in the United States in 17 years. What is behind this uptick? We will tell you when we continue.