U.S. Officials Believe Iran Mistakenly Shot Ukrainian Jetliner; Palace Intrigue.
DON LEMON, CNN HOST: This is CNN Tonight. I'm Don Lemon. There is a lot going on. We're going to catch you up on all of today's big headlines. U.S. officials now believe Iran mistakenly shot down that Ukraine jetliners with two missiles after it took off from Tehran's airport two days ago, killing all 176 people on board. Now Iran is asking the U.S. to help in the investigation. State of the race, I'll talk to Democratic presidential candidate, Andrew Yang. He doesn't qualify for next week's debate but new poll numbers have good news for him. We're going to talk about that and lots more. A hint tonight that the standoff over the articles of impeachment maybe coming to an end. The House Speaker Pelosi says she will send them over to the Senate when she is ready and that will likely be soon. Has her strategy worked or is it check mate? We'll take a look at what's next. President Trump holding another political rally tonight, lots of gas lighting and false misleading statements. We'll break them down for you. And reports tonight that Meghan Markle has returned to Canada while her husband, Prince Harry remains in London to deal with the fallout in the royal family of the couple's decision to step back from their royal duties. It turns out Harry defied his grandmother, the queen. More on the palace intrigue coming up. But I want to begin with Iran right now. U.S. officials believe it mistakenly shot down that civilian Ukrainian jetliner. CNN has obtained video that appear to show the strike. I want to bring in now CNN counterterrorism analyst Philip Mudd, and CNN aviation analyst Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general of the Transportation Department. Good evening to both of you. Thank you for joining us. Phil, you're first. We have this video that appears to show a missile striking an object in the sky around the time the plane crashed. The U.S. thinks that this was accidental. But it is a tragedy. Is this what happens in the fog of a military conflict?</s>PHILIP MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: Yes. I mean, you look at this and your first question is the tragedy, the people who were lost, why did the plane actually take off? But you'll remember, the United States did this in 1988. The United States took out from the Persian Gulf, (Inaudible), an Iranian civilian airliner because it was an accidental engagement in the fog of war. You got somebody commanding a missile battery with a couple of missiles who makes mistakes about what they are seeing and all of a sudden within seconds, you got a tragedy. Again, I think one of the questions here just hours after the strikes on U.S. bases in Syria and Iraq, why a civilian airliner is taking off. I'm not sure, Don.</s>LEMON: Right. I asked that to Richard Quest earlier, that is a very good question. But I got to ask you this before I move on to Mary. Is it possible that Iran thought this was a U.S. military plane?</s>MUDD: I think that's possible. I mean, there's two questions here. The first is the question of what exactly happened to the plane. We're already seeing that the speed with what you saw answers from the U.K., from Canada on intel tells me that intel got to be precise and very good, otherwise, you are not going to get answers that fast. But the second question, I think we're going to have a hard time getting this one. The Iranians are going to cooperate on the plane. I want to happen with the battery. Did somebody make a mistake? Was there a poor training? Did they lock on and think it was a U.S. aircraft? I think we'll hear about the plane. I don't know if ye'll hear the Iranian military about what they did.</s>LEMON: You mean U.S. aircraft meaning U.S. military aircraft? Is that what you mean?</s>MUDD: That's correct. Yes.</s>LEMON: So, Mary, 176 people died including dozens of Iranians and Canadians. What will this investigation look like?</s>MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, investigations should look like any other annex 13 investigations by a lead nation conducting an ICAO style investigation, which means it should include not only the plane, the sequence of the shoot down but a lot of other questions. As Phil mentioned, why were civilian aircraft allowed to take off. And by the way, this wasn't the only one. Did they have a window where the military said OK, let's get this civilian aircraft out of here. They can't take off until the missile strike is done. You've got one hour to get them out and this one was a straggler. There were many things they have to look at, not just the plane, the shoot down, the military role but also air traffic control and the role of the airlines. So, an investigation routinely looks at all such things when they're looking at a major international air crash.</s>LEMON: Mary, Iranian authorities have invited the NTSB to participate in this investigation. They've invited Canada, Ukraine, and Boeing as well. But Iran is questioning the allegation that they shot down at this point. What happens when you are dealing with a less than transparent government?</s>SCHIAVO: Well, when you are dealing with less than transparent government, one of the most clever things the government could do would be to turn around and be very transparent in the investigation. And I read the report, it's called a preliminary report, it's really not. It's just a few pages they put out about how they are going to start conducting the investigation. And the report they put out today about conducting the investigation actually comports with annex 13 ICAO guidelines. Now they did not mention the NTSB as being the United States NTSB, but they did give notice to all parties. They invited Ukraine in to participate. And they certainly started the investigation like a responsible aviation nation. That's a pretty clever way to play it given they had so much criticism and people really doubt the ability or their willingness to carry out the investigation. But they started off doing it like you are supposed to do it under annex 13.</s>LEMON: Phil, let's talk about some of the things that we are learning here. Excuse me. One of the U.S. saw Iranian radar signals locked on the jet liner before it was shot down. So, U.S. intel really knew very early on the cause of all this. I mean, look at these specifics coming in from the U.S., the U.K. and others. They knew, right?</s>MUDD: Yes, there is a couple of things to take away from that. Look, if you look at U.S. potential adversaries around the globe, the Russians, the North Koreans and the Iranians, they've all got pretty sophisticated surface-to-air missiles. These are obviously, according to reports, two Russian origin missiles. This is what parts of the U.S. military including the Defense Intelligence Agency do for a living. This is not an art. This is a science. The fact that you had responses as I mentioned earlier from the Americans so quickly, meant that missile analyst, there are some of them down in Huntsville, Alabama, this is all they do for a living, meant that missile analysts had that either lock on or what we call signatures from the actual launch sites when the missiles launched really early on. Before they told us, the White House must have known.</s>LEMON: Isn't it possible that this was a factor in any of the president's decision in the wake of these -- the Iranian strikes, Phil?</s>MUDD: I think it might have been a factor. I mean, if you're looking at this going into Iran again when you are facing a civilian tragedy like this. That would have been a difficult foreign policy question. But if it wasn't a factor early on, it should have been a factor pretty quickly. Because the day they're coming out from the intelligence analysts must have been laser fast.</s>LEMON: Mary and Phil, thank you so much. I appreciate your time. Up next, state of the race, the CNN debate is Tuesday, the Iowa caucuses are just weeks away. Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang is with me and he's next.