Iraqi Forces Recapture Mosque Compound In Mosul; Trump To Meet With Putin At G20 Summit In Germany; Trump Under Fire For Vicious Attack On News Anchors; Top Vatican Official Charges With Sexual Offenses; Hero Cop Describes Fight With London Attackers
HALA GORANI, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. I'm Hala Gorani. Let's get right to our breaking news. A major defeat for ISIS in Mosul is looming. Iraqi forces have recaptured a mosque compound at the very heart of the terrorist self-declared caliphate. This is leading the prime minister, Haider al-Abadi, to say that we are now seeing the end of the fake ISIS state. However, despite that huge symbolic victory, the battle for Mosul itself is not over. You're seeing CNN video here shot inside Mosul as the battle rage today. In a moment, we'll have full analysis of the military challenges on the ground for anti-ISIS fighters. But we begin with Nick Paton Walsh, who has been covering the fight from the frontlines giving us an incredible firsthand look at the street by street warfare. Nick joins me now from Erbil. Tell us a little bit more because we did hear some conflicting information from Iraqi sources that first that Mosul was just about liberated but then from others that it could still take a few days. What did you see on the ground today?</s>NICK PATON WALSH, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We heard some surprise announcements from Iraqi military officials that the mosque has in fact been taken by their soldiers because we were still witnessing an intense battle for it. Now that was continuing at 3:00 this afternoon when we left and frankly the commanders there said to us they hadn't taken the mosque and they didn't feel necessarily in the hours ahead that was imminent. But still if you were to cast the statements you might say that because the mosque itself has been destroyed and it's impossible for anyone to get inside at that moment because they are worried about booby-traps and technically nobody has it because ISIS has been pushed away from it. So maybe by default it falls into the hands of the Iraqi government. But that's technical frankly apart from those enduring the fighting on the ground. This is a political announcement by Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi that Mosul was technically been liberated and that spells the end of ISIS or Daesh within Iraq. We've heard from the coalition, the Pentagon saying they can confirm the mosque has fallen and that is too confusing to be honest. But also too they still believe there are days more ahead of fighting in Mosul. That is more realistic. There are about 700 or 800 meters from that mosque compound to the river that marks the end of the remaining territory ISIS hold. But we saw it ourselves today, civilians desperately fleeing from the rubble where they were being shelved talking of how they barely survived on water, had no food. Absolute terror in (inaudible) and there could be thousands still stuck in there amongst the bunch of die=hard fighters, some of them who appeared to have blown something in the street today. An incredibly bloody chapter still ahead despite the overall political aura of mission accomplished -- Hala.</s>GORANI: Yes, and also mentioned that these fighters left whether it's a hundred or 200 or however many of them there is left in the old city. They've booby-trapped the alley ways. They have IEDs as well to slow the advance of Iraqi forces and there are civilians there to take into account as well. What did you see on the ground with regards to that?</s>WALSH: What is remarkable how painstakingly slow the advance is with these Special Forces. You know, this morning's operation had frankly been heralded for a couple of days, and you know, given the political stakes really here, it was extraordinary how this one elite unit, valiant as they were, but smaller in number seemed to do a lot of the fighting themselves. But they had a very difficult task going to the fact that pretty much wherever you look, there is the risk potentially of a booby-trap being installed by ISIS, by the human shields too. We saw how they frankly had to use bulldozers to clear vast amounts of rubble out of the way to gain access towards the mosque compound. But the real question of how many civilians are still in that area held by ISIS is sort of the north, east, southeast chunk of the old city. Very dense series of war like streets that lead towards the river itself behind it. The key (inaudible) how many civilians are in there is really hard to find. It's incredibly difficult to know. We know they are being held as human shields to some degree. There are some suggestions some may in fact be closer to ISIS as family members and others simply being held hostage there. We are dealing with a very difficult few days ahead, not simply because the Baghdad government has kind of brushed this under the carpet to some degree by saying victory has been achieved, but because there are so many thousands of innocent lives hanging in the balance -- Hala.</s>GORANI: Right. And we just saw those bulldozers, by the way, in some of that footage there from your report, which we'll see later in the hour from the frontlines there getting rid of some of the rubble in order to make their way toward the mosque and other significant sites. Nick Paton Walsh, our senior international correspondent, on the ground in Erbil. Thanks very much. Let's get more now on the significance of all of this in Mosul. We are joined by retired Lt. General Mark Hertling. He spent 37 years in the U.S. Army serving of that time in Iraq. So I mean, whether it's one day, 10 days, 15 days, I mean, really in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter. Mosul is lost to ISIS. The question is what comes next?</s>LT. GENERAL MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, Hala, that's the key question and great reporting by Nick Paton Walsh. What I would say there are still a lot of fighting that needs to be done in Mosul as Nick said, the (inaudible) have been extremely brave and courageous over these last some nine months that this fight has been ongoing with Iraqi Security Forces around the perimeter of Mosul. I've fought there before. It's a very difficult city and even in saying that, I'm a little hesitant to even say that, Hala, because when I fought there, it was several weeks of fighting. They have been doing this for months. The energy of the ISIS fighters is much greater than al Qaeda. They have provided a much tougher enemy to the Iraqi Security Forces, and the ISF has unfortunately received many casualties during this operation. But the fight isn't over. Mr. Al-Abadi wanted to declare a psychological victory to the people of Iraq that Mosul has been regained. There were still be a lot of soldiers in that city continuing as you said a minute ago, getting rid of IEDs, taking care of sniper positions, finding where the tunnels and the booby-trapped complexes are, those will always be there. But there is also ISIS throughout Iraq remaining that needs to be taken care of. Though it is not wiped out --</s>GORANI: Absolutely. But that was going to be my next point because yes, though, you regained this city. It's in ruins, so much of it, so much of the beautiful parts of old Mosul. Then you hold it as best you can, but these fighters and this presence and this group so long as the fundamental issues of Iraq and Syria aren't resolved will pop up somewhere else. How do you -- how do you confront that? How do you plan for that?</s>HERTLING: Yes, that will Mr. al-Abadi's key action next because while he's continuing a fight ISIS in places like (inaudible) and Kirkuk Province and still in Anbar and (inaudible) out on the Syrian border. He is going to have to get rapidly humanitarian assistance and rebuilding aid to Mosul. I've seen Mosul destroyed in the past, nothing like it is right now -- but it is just wiped out. So it is billions of dollars that he is going to have to supply to that city and he is going to have to make sure it is appropriated correctly and overcome the kind of corruptions we've seen there in the past. At the same time, you had the Kurdish fighters and Mr. Barzani (ph) has been somewhat open recently about talking about perhaps a reform for independence here soon for the Kurdish region. That is going to affect Mosul and the continued fight of the Iraqi central government in Baghdad to pull all of their operations together and continue to do the things that they need to do the things that they need to do as an emerging nation.</s>GORANI: Right. But you have all these issues, of course, Prime Minister al-Abadi. You have the Kurds wanting more autonomy to the point maybe perhaps of asking for independence, complete independence from Baghdad, and then you have the Sunni population there as well. And if they continue to feel disenfranchised that's not solving the fundamental issue.</s>HERTLING: That's correct. And Mr. Abadi has been very good about reaching out to the Sunnis, but they will continue to remain distrustful to a degree. They have to see action from this Shia-led government in Baghdad before they say the fight is over. So his biggest part of the fight is coming up next and that's what he does with the money and the aid and the rebuilding. The fight against ISIS was difficult. This next part will be even harder.</s>GORANI: Mark Hertling, thanks very much for joining us with more of our breaking news and our reporting from the frontlines. Mosul perhaps days away from total liberation, perhaps the fight will be harder with deeply entrenched ISIS combatants inside the old city. Well, ISIS, they certainly going to come up in the meeting between these two men in July. We are now getting word that the American president, Donald Trump, will meet with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, face- to-face, at the G20 Summit next month in Hamburg, Germany. News of the meeting came during a briefing by National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster. McMaster also said the president had directed him to confront what he called Russia's destabilizing behavior and deter Russia from future conflicts with the U.S. The president has another important meeting on the agenda. He'll have dinner with the South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, in about three hours. The problem is North Korea is expected there to dominate the agenda. Mr. Trump seemed to spend, though, a lot of time tweeting about an entirely different subject today that had nothing to do with North Korea and nothing to do with ISIS. Let's bring in CNN political commentator, David Swerdlick, from Washington. Want to get to that tweet, get it out of the way, and then talk about these foreign policy issues because even when you -- I'm sure you watched and listened to White House briefing today. The tweet that Donald Trump posted about Mika Brezinski (ph) at MSNBC morning show "Anchor" saying that she'd come to Mar-a-Lago in January and she was bleeding badly from a face lift, et cetera, et cetera. All the questions -- I mean, it just sucks the oxygen, right, out of the press briefing. Practically all of the first 10 questions were about this tweet, David?</s>DAVID SWERDLICK, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: That's right, Hala. Look, in my view, it's a sexist comment. Totally beneath the dignity of the office of the president and as you say it distracts from the real issues of the day. And then you have the deputy press secretary go out to the press briefing today and complained that the media were not covering more substantive, more important issues yet the president started the news cycle with these tweets toward a host on another network, which were totally irrelevant to anything and just a really cheap shot about someone's looks. All around a poor form and you've had both members of the president's own party and the opposition party and people all over criticizing him and rightly so for it.</s>GORANI: Right. And without sort of going into the tweet itself, we have heard, you know, senior Republicans on the Hill reacting to this saying it's inappropriate. It's beneath the office of the presidency. But I guess the question in terms of what our international viewers I'm sure are asking themselves is will this have an impact or will this be yet another thing that will be forgotten in two days until the next outrage.</s>SWERDLICK: Well, look, I think this is far below a line that's already been set. We've gotten accustomed for better or for worse to President Trump sending out tweets at all hours of day and night that are unlike any other statements that his predecessors have issued. That being said even though we are getting used to them, Hala, this is something -- you know, a public tweet about someone's looks, someone he knows, someone who has interviewed him, it really I think is going to take a few days for the dust to settle on this one. Even though, yes, you are right eventually we will go back to talking whatever the next issue is, the next crisis is, the next outrage is. That's how it goes in this presidency.</s>GORANI: We were showing there a tweet by the Republican senator from Nebraska, Ben Sasse, saying, "just stop it."</s>SWERDLICK: Yes.</s>GORANI: Let's talk a little bit about now this meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, which is scheduled to take place we understand according to H.R. McMaster on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Germany. H.R. McMaster said he's been advised or he's been directed essentially to find a way to stop Russia from being a destabilizing force, but the White House at the same time issued a statement saying they wanted to -- the relationship between Russia and the west to become a better friendlier relationship. So that's kind of a contradiction there. What can we expect?</s>SWERDLICK: Well, look, there's plenty -- as you say, there's plenty for President Trump and President Putin to talk about. You've got an opportunity -- I don't know if he'll take it for President Trump to give a private strong statement to President Putin that the reported and documented by our intelligence services meddling in our electoral process by Russian intelligence should seize. And what if any action the U.S. will take in response to that. There is still the ongoing issue since 2014 of Russian incursion into Crimea and then there is all of the issues around the military involvement of Russia and other countries in Syria. That being said, there is still this weird dynamic where President Trump throughout his campaign made these very friendly overtures, friendlier than he was to many allies of the United States toward Russia and toward President Putin. So we'll just have to see what comes out of that meeting in terms of whether or not President Trump will take the opportunity to press the interest of the United States with the head of Russia.</s>GORANI: I'm sure everybody will be looking at the body language after his very manly handshakes with Emmanuel Macron and others. But yes, you're mentioning the weird dynamic there. It's going to be very interesting to see what comes out of it and whether it will just be a pull aside, which is more informal or whether it will be a formal one-on-one. Anyway, David Swerdlick, we'll talk soon again. We're expecting, by the way, Donald Trump to make some remarks a little bit later this hour. We'll take that and we will speak with you later. Now to this, a chief adviser to Pope Francis and the third highest ranking official inside the Vatican is staring down multiple charges of sexual assault in his native Australia. Cardinal George Pell claims he's innocent, but the claims have been swirling around him for years. We will go live to Australia in a moment, but first Anna Coren with this report.</s>ANNA COREN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For decades, allegations of covering up sexual abuse within the Australian Catholic Church have dogged him. But it never stopped George Pell from rising through the ranks to become one of the Vatican's most powerful. But now the 76-year-old cardinal himself has been charged with multiple sexual assault offenses. The result of a two-year investigation sending shockwaves through the Vatican and around the world. Police offering few details.</s>SHANE PATTON, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER OF POLICE: Today, the Tory Police have charged Cardinal George Pell with historical sexual assault offenses. Cardinal Pell has been charged on summons and he is required to appear at the Melbourne Magistrate Court on the 18th of July. Cardinal Pell is facing multiple charges in respect to a start sexual offenses and there are multiple complaints.</s>COREN: Cardinal Pell is one of Pope Francis' top adviser as the secretary to the economy, he is in charge of the Vatican's finances. He was also handpicked to sit on the pope's eight-member advisory council fit out to address issues including sexual abuse within the church. Reading a statement from the Vatican just hours after the charges were laid, Cardinal Pell says he has endured a relentless character assassination and that he is innocent.</s>CARDINAL GEORGE PELL: I'm looking forward finally to having my day in court. I'm innocent of these charges. They are false. The whole idea of sexual abuse is apparent to me.</s>COREN: Last year, Cardinal Pell refused to return to Australia to testify before a Royal Commission into the church's mishandling of sexual abuse.</s>PELL: I regret that I didn't do more at that stage.</s>COREN: Instead he gave four days of testimony from a hotel in Rome. His doctors claiming he was too ill to fly. Survivors of sexual abuse at the hands of clergy overseen by Pell were angered by his answers that they felt showed a lack of understanding and empathy. This will be a monumental test for Pope Francis, who up until now has stood by the cardinal. There is no extradition treaty between Australia and the Vatican. However, the pope has given Cardinal Pell a leave of absence to return to Australia to defend himself. Anna Coren, CNN, Hongkong.</s>GORANI: Journalist, Sara James, joins me now live from Melbourne and our senior Vatican analyst, John Allen, is also editor of "Crux" is with us via Skype from Denver, Colorado. Sarah, first of all, how do we expect the cardinal to defend himself? Do we have any idea what his plan is? What his strategy is?</s>SARA JAMES, JOURNALIST: We don't his strategy yet, but what we do know is that Cardinal Pell has said consistently and frequently that these charges are false. He's always maintained he's innocent. That goes back a long way. And I think we can expect while not knowing the strategy to expect a similar line of commentary coming from him as this unfolds. Of course, we'll know more on that very first day July 18th that is the day that he is required to appear. We also know I think what's important is and you heard some of that in that report that what is crucial is what -- is that the base of this is this Royal Commission. Now this is the highest level of investigation that is offered here in Australia and this went on for a long time. It was called for in November of 2012 and it started in April of 2013. And day after day of harrowing testimony from victims who were raped by priests, who suffered all sorts of abuse and who were there to talk about what had happened at the hands of pedophiles in the Catholic Church and also in other institutions. Because that was what this Royal Commission had been called for, to look at this institutional abuse. So that's the backdrop but he is saying that he did not do any of this.</s>GORANI: And I'll get to John in just a moment, but speaking of backdrop, we are seeing a beautiful church behind you. How is it connected to George Pell?</s>JAMES: Well, this is St. Patrick's Cathedral here in Melbourne and Cardinal Pell started in a town about an hour from here, a gold rush town called "Ballarat," and that's a country town. And he really had a meteoric rise and during part of that time, he served behind me, at St. Patrick's as the archbishop of the Arch Diocese then went from here to Sydney and from Sydney on to the Vatican. And again, has this illustrious career, but the questions really up until this were really about had he done enough to kind of root out the problem of these pedophile priests, and now the question, was he guilty of these historical sexual assault offenses. And exactly what those are, we don't know. Those were not released by the police.</s>GORANI: All right, and John Allen, is this a big crisis for Pope Francis? I mean, he's the third highest ranking official at the Vatican?</s>JOHN ALLEN, CNN SENIOR VATICAN ANALYST: Well, I think exactly how big a crisis it turns out to be, the pope, Hala, depends upon what happens when George Pell returns to Australia and undergoes this trial. If he's exonerated and if that finding is received and accepted, this might be a sort of blip on the radar screen and George Pell himself as he returned to the Vatican in a strengthened position. If on the other hand, this trial goes forward and he is indeed found guilty and that verdict is seen to be based on reasonable evidence, then sure, this is a major problem for the pope. I mean, there is nothing in recent memory that stands up alongside sexual abuse scandals the Catholic Church is facing. But in terms of what cancer it has been, some people think you have to go back to the process of information to find something else the church to its core quite like this. And if the very first (inaudible) is convicted of sexual abuse and their very senior Vatican official is connected to sexual abuse then obviously that puts a massive exclamation point on just what a nightmare this has been for the Catholic Church. But that of course is getting ahead of ourselves because we always have to say an indictment is not the same thing as a conviction and even the police in the state of Victoria had acknowledged that Cardinal Pell is entitled (inaudible) of innocence until he's found guilty of a crime.</s>GORANI: Right. And Sara, John, was talking about how it could be a crisis if indeed he goes through a trial and is found guilty. How long is this all expected to take?</s>JAMES: No one has given us any estimate of how long it's going to take, but I will say one thing, it has taken a long time so far and the police have proceeded very slowly and painstakingly and were right to mention the fact that they said in that press conference, and it was really quite extraordinary. You know, they've really laid out the point that this is not -- none of these charges have been seen in the courtroom yet, so due process, they also said something else. They said that they treated this situation in exactly the same way that they preceded with any other similar cases that they didn't do anything differently despite the fact that this is such a high ranking person. So again, it's time to get to this stage and the cardinal has said that he is innocent of the charges and everyone will have their day in court.</s>GORANI: Thank you so much, Sara James in Melbourne, John Allen in Denver. We appreciate it. A lot more to come this evening. "I took a deep breath and then charged in," a policeman hailed as a hero describes the moment he confronted three attackers near London Bridge.