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Dallas Nurse is First to Contract Ebola in U.S.; Medical Team in Hazmat Gear Boards Jet in Boston; Family Identifies American Nurse with Ebola; ISIS Just 8 Miles from Baghdad Airport; Blasts Rock Embattled City of Kobani; ISIS Training Video Revealed; Moving into Math; Missing Student's Parents Plead for Information

Aired October 13, 2014 - 17:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news -- Ebola is in the United States. We now know the identity of a Dallas nurse who's the first person to contract the deadly disease in this country, even though she wore protective gear. Now officials are scrambling to find out what happened.

ISIS on the move -- a desperate battle to keep the terrorists from seizing a key Syrian border town, even as they advance within miles of Baghdad's airport.

What's behind their battlefield success?

And parents' plea -- a month after their daughter disappeared, the parents of Virginia student, Hannah Graham, beg for information and an end to the nightmare.

I'm Wolf Blitzer.

You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BLITZER: Let's get right to the breaking news in Dallas. A nurse has become the first person to contract the deadly Ebola virus in the United States. She had what's being described as extensive contact with the Liberian man who died of Ebola last week in Dallas, but she became ill despite the fact that she was wearing protective gear.

There's an urgent effort underway right now to try to find out what happened. President Obama, who's under pressure to name a so-called Ebola czar, has just huddled with top administration officials. And we're monitoring a situation now at Boston's Logan Airport where medical teams in HAZMAT gear have boarded an airliner which arrived from the Middle East.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's point man on infectious diseases, is standing by, along with our correspondents, our analysts and our newsmakers.

Let's begin with CNN's Victor Blackwell.

He's got the latest from Dallas -- Victor. VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, CNN affiliate WFAA identifies this nurse as Nina Pham, 26 years old. And hospital officials say that she followed the protective procedures just the way the CDC lays them out. She wore the gown, the masks, all that's involved.

But obviously, something went wrong. And now CDC detectives are here in Dallas trying to figure out exactly what that is.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL (voice-over): Texas state and federal officials are scrambling to determine how the transmission happened and whether it could have been avoided. The Dallas nurse, Nina Pham, is being treated and in clinically stable condition.

During her care of Duncan, she took all the precautions. She wore a mask, gown, face shield and gloves. Officials are looking at some of the last minute procedures that Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital took in the final days of Duncan's life.

An official tells CNN that there were inconsistencies in the type of personal protective gear she wore and with the process used to put the gear on and remove it.

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: The protocol, if you follow, it's been proven.

BLACKWELL: Officials had described those inconsistencies as a breach of protocol, but today are dialing back.

FAUCI: We've got to really be careful that that word "breach" doesn't imply that the nurses did something wrong. I mean they are amazingly courageous to do what they're doing. So a breach in protocol may be that the protocol is fine, they were not trained properly.

BLACKWELL: State and federal health officials are re-examining those protocols and say they will aim to make care of Ebola patients easier and safer.

DR. TOM FRIEDEN, DIRECTOR, CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION: We have to rethink the way we address Ebola infection control.

BLACKWELL: A far different message nearly two weeks ago, when there was an assurance that everything was under control.

FRIEDEN: We're stopping it in its tracks in this country.

BLACKWELL: Health care workers across the U.S. say that nurses handling Ebola patients need better education.

KATY ROEMER, NATIONAL NURSES UNITED: We have been asking our hospitals throughout the country to provide us with training.

BLACKWELL: More than 4,000 people have died from this Ebola outbreak. And the World Health Organization says at least one in every 20 has been a health care worker.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

BLACKWELL: And today, CDC Director Tom Frieden said that he had to clarify a statement about that breach of protocol, saying that some took that to mean that he was blaming the nurse or the hospital and that was not the impression he wanted to leave.

Shortly after that, Texas Health Resources sent out an e-mail blast highlighting that statement, quoting Dr. Frieden, saying that Ebola is the victim, not a person, not a country, not a hospital, but the virus -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Victor, thanks very much.

Victor Blackwell in Dallas.

President Obama has just wrapped up a meeting with top officials on the Ebola crisis. But the U.S. response to the deadly disease is now the subject of a growing political fight right here in Washington.

Let's bring in our senior White House correspondent, Jim Acosta.

He's got the latest -- Jim.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, White House officials remain confident that the U.S. will not experience an outbreak of Ebola. But that is not stopping the calls that are starting to crop up from both sides of the aisle for the administration to toughen its response.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA (voice-over): Huddling with top advisers on the Ebola scare, President Obama offered no public comments when cameras were allowed into the Oval Office.

FRIEDEN: Stopping Ebola is hard.

ACOSTA: Instead, the White House is letting the CDC do most of the talking to explain how a nurse in Dallas contracted the virus.

FRIEDEN: We're concerned and would, unfortunately, not be surprised if we did see additional cases in the health care workers who also provided care to the index patient.

ACOSTA: Less than two weeks ago, top administration officials insisted the U.S. medical system was unmatched in its ability to keep Ebola contained.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have a public health infrastructure and medical professionals throughout this country who are capable of dealing with cases if they present themselves.

ACOSTA: After dubbing Ebola a national security priority, President Obama tapped counterterrorism adviser, Lisa Monica, to lead the roughly half dozen agencies and departments combating the virus. Some Republicans say that's not good enough.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: There has to be more reassurance given to them. I would say we don't know exactly who's in charge. There has to be some kind of czar.

ACOSTA: The White House pointed out Senator John McCain once slammed the president for having more czars than the Romanovs. Just weeks before the midterms, Ebola has been injected into the political bloodstream.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cut.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Cut.

ACOSTA: One liberal group launched this ad accusing Republicans of slashing public health budgets.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a very bad idea. And I think if we want to continually have problems in this area, in public health, today it's Ebola, tomorrow it will be something else, unless we make the right investments.

ACOSTA: Still, there are questions from both parties. The top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee wants Ebola patients to be transported to the nation's biocontainment centers. In response, a senior administration official tells CNN, "That's a decision we're leaving to the medical professionals. We plan to follow their recommendations. To date, they have not made such a recommendation."

(END VIDEO TAPE)

ACOSTA: As for naming an Ebola czar, the White House is not budging from its position. Two weeks ago, the White House gave us a response as to why they're not naming a czar. It is essentially the same response that they gave us today, Wolf, nearly word for word. And we should point out, in just the last few minutes, the White House did release some read-outs of some phone calls that the president had today with the U.N. secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, also President Francois Hollande of France, both about Ebola. And on the read-out from the president's meeting that he had with his national security team and some top administration officials earlier today, the president saying in that read-out, according to White House officials, that he wants this investigation in Dallas to be wrapped up as quickly as possible -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, thanks very much.

Jim Acosta at the White House.

Let's go in-depth now with Dr. Anthony Fauci.

He's the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Fauci, thanks very much for joining us.

Do you understand yet how this nurse contracted Ebola?

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES AT THE NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH: No, we don't. And that's why the CDC experts are there right now doing a couple of things. First, trying to find out if they can pinpoint exactly happened, but also to examine things like the training, the proactive training of people, because one could follow a protocol, think they're following a protocol and inadvertently or innocently do something that's at odds with that. We don't know that yet. And all of that needs to be investigated.

And there's a very experienced team of CDC people who are now in Dallas looking at that.

BLITZER: Because it's so worrisome that she was wearing all that protective gear...

FAUCI: Right.

BLITZER: -- as far as we know, right?

FAUCI: Yes. Wearing the protective gear, just wearing it, there are -- there are things that can happen, Wolf, that we know from others, for example, taking it off, putting it on, inadvertently doing something where you think you're doing everything correctly and innocently, and accidentally, you don't.

That could happen. I don't know what happened in this case. But all those possibilities are being looked at now by the CDC.

BLITZER: So simply taking it off the wrong way when you've got, you know, bodily fluids or whatever on that protective gear...

FAUCI: Right.

BLITZER: -- that could be the problem?

FAUCI: Of course. A typical example is if you get fluid on, particularly with a very sick patient, where there are splashes of material that got on, when you take it off sometimes, you do it. And your hand might inadvertently hit part of the material. And then people tend to touch their face, their nose. Again, I don't know if that happened, but we know from people in West Africa who are doing this every day that that's one of the ways that you can have an accidental infection when you don't even realize you're doing it.

BLITZER: And we're told that in his final hours of desperate -- the desperate help that was given to Mr. Duncan, there was kidney dialysis, there was some lung kinds of...

FAUCI: Intubation.

BLITZER: Right. And that that, in and of itself, even though it was very unlikely it was going to do much good, that could cause some of that bodily fluid to...

FAUCI: Sure.

BLITZER: -- to get on top of her, if you will?

FAUCI: Sure. When you intubate someone who's very ill and they're coughing up, a lot of material gets splashed around. Having been in that situation myself. I can tell you that that's what happens.

BLITZER: So there she's -- so the patient is coughing...

FAUCI: Right.

BLITZER: -- let's say, but if you're wearing that protective gear, it's supposed to protect you?

FAUCI: Right. It is supposed to protect you, but things can go wrong. And that's what the CDC is trying to find out, what went wrong.

BLITZER: All right, so, Dr. Frieden, the head of the CDC, said he wouldn't be surprised if there are more cases that erupt in the United States in the next few days.

What's the major lesson we have to learn from the case of this nurse?

FAUCI: Well, we have to learn that something went wrong and we need to find out why and what. And if that means more proactive training, more proactive drills, having someone there who actually looks at things and makes sure they're done well, as opposed to the people who are just knee deep working in it, there are a lot of things that are going to be examined. That's what the CDC does well and they're doing that right now.

BLITZER: Would you be surprised if there are more cases in the next few days?

FAUCI: No, I wouldn't. I hope there are not. But I would not be surprised if there were more cases of people who got it from Mr. Duncan taking care of him.

BLITZER: Mr. Duncan, but now this nurse has it too, right?

FAUCI: Right.

BLITZER: And so you've got to be really careful with what's going on with her.

FAUCI: Well, remember, she's being taken care of now and the care of her is going to be very carefully supervised proactively now. So, hopefully, we'll not see another transmission.

BLITZER: I've got a lot of people e-mailing me, Tweeting me, saying to me, you've got to get this lady, this nurse, 26 years old, Nina Pham, out of there. You've got to get her to Emory Hospital in Atlanta, that knows how to deal with this, or the University of Nebraska, that knows how to deal with it. They're arguing, in Dallas, they don't know how to deal with it.

FAUCI: Right.

BLITZER: To which you say?

FAUCI: Well, you know, obviously, everything is -- is considered. They're being discussed right now. I can't lean one way or the other.

What should be done, the people that are there, there's conversations going on now between the health officials at the hospital and the CDC experts to try and determine, A, what's the best way to take care of this person, and, B, what is the best way to protect the health care workers and the American public. That's being discussed very actively.

BLITZER: All right, we're going to have a lot more questions.

FAUCI: OK.

BLITZER: Don't go away, Dr. Fauci. You're one of the world's experts on this issue.

We've got a lot more questions.

Much more right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Look at this. These are live pictures. Emirates Airlines -- that's a flight from Dubai that landed just a little while ago at Boston's Logan International Airport. You see all the officials there in HAZMAT uniforms -- protective gear, I should say. Five passengers on this flight from Dubai to Boston reported with flu-like symptoms. None of the five, according to the Massachusetts Port Authority, came in recent days or weeks from West Africa, but I take it, as an abundance of caution, they're dealing with this issue with all those HAZMAT protective gear operations underway.

Dr. Anthony Fauci is still with us, the director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

What do you make of that?

You see five passengers reporting symptoms, the plane coming in from Dubai, not from Sierra Leone or Guinea or Liberia, but from Dubai, which is pretty far away from West Africa.

FAUCI: Right.

BLITZER: But these people complaining of flu-like symptoms.

FAUCI: Well, I have to say if -- if there was no one on that plane -- if -- and sometimes you get information wrong -- that had any connection with West Africa, the fact that they were nauseated and vomiting on the plane, to me, I would be somewhat puzzled as to why they did this maneuver with HAZMATS. But then again, let's make sure that there was no one on that plane that actually had a connection in Dubai that came from West Africa, which may have triggered that.

If not, then you have to wonder why they did that.

BLITZER: It underscores the fear that is out there right now.

FAUCI: Right.

BLITZER: Local officials...

FAUCI: Right.

BLITZER: -- they want to err on the side...

FAUCI: Right. Right.

BLITZER: -- of caution, right?

FAUCI: Exactly. And that's one of the things we're having now, Wolf, that's unfortunate. It's understandable, but unfortunate, that's an epidemic of fear. I mean you'd be surprised the questions I get asked, I mean, from people you would think would know, saying, you know, I'm taking a trip from San Francisco to Minneapolis, do I have to worry?

I mean worry about what?

I mean it has nothing to do with Ebola.

BLITZER: I've gotten questions from people who are in Europe right now or in the Middle East, far from West Africa...

FAUCI: Right.

BLITZER: -- should I come home right away?

FAUCI: Right.

BLITZER: Will I -- will there be flights in the next few days?

We're deeply worried about all of that.

FAUCI: Right.

BLITZER: People are, to a certain degree, panicking.

FAUCI: Yes, there are, unfortunately. And that's the reason why you have to keep coming out with what the evidence base is about why there will not be an outbreak, what you need to do to isolate and protect when you do have someone, the kinds of things you need to do when you get someone who truly comes from West Africa and who's sick. Those are the kinds of things we have to keep repeating over and over so that the American people have confidence that they will be safe.

BLITZER: Now, let's go back to this nurse, 26-year-old Nina Pham, who has now contracted Ebola in the United States. She got it from Mr. Duncan, the Liberian who died of Ebola over past few days. There is a picture of her and her dog.

A lot of people are asking me this question, patients that she treated in recent days, should they be worried?

FAUCI: If she treated them before she became symptomatic, they have no worry at all. In fact, the story with her, she did it just right. She got a fever on a Friday night. She reported it the next day. She got her test. It was proved to be positive. She went into isolation. So she should be -- she should be looked up to, that she did it correctly.

And she had only one single contact with someone after she became symptomatic. So the risk from her to other people is extraordinarily low. And that's one person who's now being followed. So she did it exactly the way she should have done it.

BLITZER: So when you say that one person, do we know who that person is, without identifying his or her name...

FAUCI: Right.

BLITZER: And when you say followed, what does that mean?

FAUCI: What you do is that you monitor that person for the period of a 21-day period, where it is the outer limit of the incubation period. You monitor the person with temperatures and you monitor them to make sure they don't have symptoms.

BLITZER: Now, this nurse was not among those 40 or 50 people who were being examined, who had had contact with Mr. Duncan...

FAUCI: Right. Right.

BLITZER: -- who passed away from Ebola. She was outside of that limit.

FAUCI: Right.

BLITZER: But as far as we know, none of those 40 or 50 have had any symptoms at all, right?

FAUCI: That is true. That is true.

BLITZER: But they're still not necessarily completely out of danger?

FAUCI: They're not out of the woods. And what this patient did when she was monitoring herself carefully, and as soon as she found she had a temperature and was feeling badly, she immediately reported it. That's very unfortunate, that this brave person is infected, but she certainly did it correctly afterwards.

BLITZER: So this 26-year-old woman, Nina Pham, should she immediately receive some of those experimental medications...

FAUCI: Right.

BLITZER: -- or blood transfusions...

FAUCI: Right.

BLITZER: -- somebody who has recovered from Ebola or should they wait?

FAUCI: This is a decision that's made between the health care providers and the patient themselves. I mean we do that all the time, tell them that these drugs are all not proven. They're experimental. We hope they work. We don't know and they could do some harm.

So when the option is presented to the patient, we can or cannot have access to a certain experimental drug, would you like us to give it to you?

That's how it's going to work. And that's a decision between the primary health care provider and the patient.

BLITZER: We know for sure a blood transfusion with the antibodies or whatever, that somebody who's survived Ebola, that that would make a difference?

FAUCI: We don't know, Wolf. There's anecdotal reports that it helps, but we don't know, because there hasn't been the kind of definitive trial that proves that it actually works. So everything that's interventional with regard to therapy is still to be considered as experimental.

BLITZER: And finally, one last question, a variation of what I asked you before, if this was one of your relatives, a sister of yours, let's say, or a daughter of yours, would you want that person to stay in Dallas or go someplace else?

FAUCI: I don't think I could answer that because I would have to take a look at the Dallas situation myself personally, if it were my family member, and make that decision. And it would not be appropriate for me, from a distance, to make that kind of decision now.

BLITZER: Dr. Fauci, thank you so much for joining us.

Thanks so much for what you're doing. You're giving us valuable information. This story, unfortunately, is continuing.

FAUCI: Good to be with you, Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Dr. Anthony Fauci of NIH.

Coming up, ISIS tightens the noose on a key Syrian border town and moves within only a few miles of Baghdad's International Airport. Can the jihadists be stopped? And a month after their daughter disappeared, the parents of the

Virginia student, Hannah Graham, plead for information and an end to their nightmare. Stay with us. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Rocked by a series of giant explosions sending huge plumes of smoke in the air over Kobani. That's the Kurdish town in Syria right along the border with Turkey. It's on the brink of falling to ISIS forces, we're told. Those ISIS forces have advanced in Syria and in Iraq, and they are seemingly unstoppable right now. They're only within a few miles of the Baghdad International Airport.

Our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr, is working the story for us. Barbara, what are you picking up?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, there are now more than 12 teams of U.S. military advisers on the ground in Iraq, trying to help Iraqi security forces. But it is not enough.

ISIS now controls 80 percent of Anbar province, the western approach to Baghdad. Small numbers of ISIS fighters now just eight miles outside the city, and yet another Iraqi base has fallen to ISIS control. Army chief of staff General Ray Odierno, who once commanded all U.S. operations in Iraq, bluntly suggests the U.S. government hasn't paid enough attention to ISIS.

GEN. RAY ODIERNO, ARMY CHIEF OF STAFF: I will say we were a bit surprised by their capability. And there's no excuse for that.

STARR: The general has a cautious view about whether the Iraqi capital will hold.

ODIERNO: I believe the capability is there to defend Baghdad. So I think with somewhat confidence, we'll have to wait and see what plays out over the coming days.

STARR: The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff in an interview with ABC's "This Week," noting several days ago the U.S. had to send Apache helicopters after ISIS fighters when they almost made it to Baghdad International Airport.

GEN. MARTIN DEMPSEY, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: Had they overrun the Iraqi unit, it was a straight shot to the airport. So we're not going to allow that to happen.

STARR: In an emergency, the airport is the only way to evacuate hundreds of U.S. military and diplomatic personnel. And ISIS knows it. The Pentagon doesn't expect a frontal assault on Shia-dominated Baghdad, a city of 7 million. ISIS instead may try to choke the capital off.

LT. COL. RICK FRANCONA (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: From the positions where they are, just west of Baghdad airport, they have sufficient artillery capability to put rounds anywhere in the city.

STARR: ISIS is maintaining momentum, and as this video claims to show, training significant numbers of new recruits.

For the Iraqis, huge battles lie ahead, especially in trying to retake Mosul, Iraq's second largest city. Dempsey suggesting he could recommend a small number of American ground troops be sent to help spot targets.

GEN. MARTIN DEMPSEY, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: When they are ready to go back on the offensive, my instinct at this point is that that will require a different kind of advising and assisting because of the complexity of that fight.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STARR: Now the U.S. wants Turkey to take on a role in the coalition. Over the weekend, U.S. officials said the Turks had agreed to allow U.S. warplanes to fly out of their bases. But the Turks say that is not yet a done deal -- Wolf.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: And still missing in action, the Iraqi military which was trained, financed, armed by the U.S. for nearly a decade. They've got a couple hundred thousand troops but they're refusing -- at least most of them -- to fight for their own country right now in the Anbar Province.

That's a huge, huge disaster unfolding.

Barbara, thanks very much.

Let's get the latest now on the battle for Kobani. That's along the Syrian-Turkish border. Our senior international correspondent Nick Paton Walsh is joining us just across the border from Syria in Turkey.

You can see what's going on from your vantage point. What does it look like, Nick?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Remarkable number of explosions today. CENTCOM on behalf of the coalition airstrikes saying that since Sunday, seven airstrikes have been taken on around Kobani targeting ISIS buildings, locations, convoys.

It's not quite clear how the fight inside that city is progressing. The Kurds do claim they've pushed ISIS back in some areas. But frankly we know time is against them. They're running out of ammunition supplies. Cut off effectively.

One troubling thing is that it seemed the airstrikes we saw progressively moved west, which would suggest they were targeting ISIS positions that had in fact been advancing towards Kurdish territory. A very negative situation certainly. And in one area where yesterday we saw a Kurdish flag, that was now down and an explosion hit that building.

So certainly I think the Kurds on their back foot in some ways, remarkable, though, to see the volume of explosions we saw, potentially three ISIS car bombs detonated in the battle, it seemed, for a central part of that town and the coalition totally unafraid to dump a lot of ordinates today -- Wolf.

BLITZER: And very quickly, Nick, you see no evidence that Turkish tanks or armored vehicles or troops are about to go in and save those Syrian Kurds who potentially could be massacred?

WALSH: Small numbers in the city of civilians, we understand a number of fighters, of course. But bear in mind, Turkey considers them to be terrorists. So the idea of their military who've been fighting them years ago, to actually intervene to assist, that's a long shot for Ankara. Well, certainly the world's eyes there on the Turkish military, quite what they're going to do in terms of humanitarian assistance in the days ahead -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right. Nick, be careful over there.

Nick Paton Walsh, on the scene for us as he always is.

Other news we're following, including some political news, a high- stakes debate tonight. One of the most closely watched races in the country. The man who could be the next majority leader of the United States Senate, Republican Mitch McConnell, faces off with the Democratic challenger, Alison Lundergan Grimes, in what's expected to be their only face-to-face showdown.

The winner of this race could determine whether Republicans will control the U.S. Senate with McConnell as their leader.

Still ahead, inside ISIS basic training. We have new video that shows how raw terrorists are turned into a ruthless fighting force.

And she disappeared exactly one month ago tonight. Now a desperate new plea by the parents of the missing college student, Hannah Graham.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Deadly terrorist army that caught the world off guard with bloody sweep across broad swaths of Iraq. But how did ISIS become such a formidable force? Now a new video is revealing how the group's fighters are trained.

CNN's Brian Todd has been taking a look at this video.

Brian, what are you finding out?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, the tactics in this video are striking. And the tactics for ISIS now sharply in focus because the group has captured about 80 percent of Iraq's Anbar Province just west of Baghdad. Fierce fighting is under way still for the cities of Ramadi and Haditha. And earlier today, the Iraqi Army abandoned a strategic base near the city of Hit.

Now as for this training video, it shows recruits being kicked, dragged, fired at, an indication of just how brutal ISIS can be even within its own ranks.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) TODD (voice-over): Recruits crawl through simulated barbed wire with trainers firing at them. They line up to have their torsos kicked. The last man gets the honor of a knee to the body. A fighter drags a cloth mat with a rope fasten to it to rescue a wounded comrade. As they're pulled away, they're fired at.

This is the latest ISIS propaganda. A video called "Blood of Jihad" showing fighters in basic training.

(On camera): Is this anything that they would use in Anbar right now? Anywhere on the battlefield?

ANTHONY CORDESMAN, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: Almost never. This type of hand-to-hand fighting with automatic weapons, mortars, artillery, vehicles, almost never really occurs.

Throughout this entire video, what you have is the staged set of exercises. You look at them and this really isn't a training exercise. It's a video exercise.

TODD: It's propaganda?

CORDESMAN: Exactly.

TODD (voice-over): But somehow ISIS has captured most of Anbar Province and come within just a few miles of Baghdad International Airport.

What tactics have they deployed?

Iraq combat veteran Douglas Olivant says on the battlefield, ISIS has previously used what he calls a react-to-contact drill. That means in a firefight they make initial contact against their enemy using the smallest number of fighters possible, maybe three or four.

DOUGLAS OLIVANT, NEW AMERICAN FOUNDATION: And then put down fire so that -- because those three or four guys can then keep 20, 30 of the enemy focused on them.

TODD: Then, Olivant says, a larger group of ISIS fighters comes around, flanking the enemy on one side, finds a weakness, attacks it.

OLIVANT: This is something that the U.S. Army Ranger regiment has really practiced for years. It's been their hallmark.

TODD: But now in Anbar, analysts say, they've shifted tactics recruiting locals to do much of the fighting. ISIS surrounds remote outposts with few Iraqi soldiers in them and launches nonconventional assaults.

CORDESMAN: In almost all of what they've done is a combination of terrorism. It is the use of indirect fire to soften up positions. It's to assault key positions with suicide bombers and then close in using automatic weapons.

(END VIDEOTAPE) TODD: Now analysts say ISIS has been much more flexible on the battlefield in Anbar and elsewhere, adapting its tactics to specific targets while the Iraqi forces have been static, tied to their positions, not resupplied, abandoned. It's allowed ISIS to pick out the weakest links in the Iraqi army and overrun them -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Do the experts you've spoken to, Brian, believe that the Iraqi military can retake Anbar?

TODD: Not anytime soon. They say this is mostly a Shia army in a Sunni dominated province. Until they can get Sunnis reintegrated there, into that army specifically and work with Sunny tribes, it's not going to happen anytime soon. One analyst says you're talking about a year, not just a week or two, before Anbar may be able to be recaptured.

BLITZER: No hope at least for now. Mosul, the second largest city, being retaken either.

TODD: No.

BLITZER: The Iraqi military is abandoning positions, they're losing more and more and more of their country.

TODD: Very alarming.

BLITZER: To ISIS.

Thanks very much, Brian, for that report.

A government report shows women working in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM as it's called, earn on average 33 percent more than others. But only a quarter of STEM workers are women. Efforts are under way to keep girls interested in these so- called STEM fields.

CNN's Michaela Pereira looks at the "Science of Work."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAELA PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR, NEW DAY (voice-over): It may look like they're playing games, but these girls are doing geometry.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Perfect.

PEREIRA: The combination is the brain child of dancer and MIT graduate, Kirin Sinha, who based her after-school program Shine on the theory of kinesthetic learning.

KIRIN SINHA, FOUNDER, "SHINE": Compute that by moving and -- you know, by moving your body and using your brain simultaneously, you're able to better retain information. I couldn't recite the periodic table, but I can still play piano pieces or do dances to moves that I learned years and years ago.

Two units to the positive X direction. PEREIRA: The girls act out math problems using games and dance moves.

SINHA: This one is you're going to reflect over an axis.

PEREIRA: Sinha says the results speak for themselves.

SINHA: We saw almost a 300 percent improvement on their math scores. We saw over 100 percent improvement in confidence. So much of what this program is about is not only getting girls competency up, but a lot of it is about attitudes, how they view themselves, how they view the field.

MOLLY CALKINS, STUDENT: Before we had this, it was more of like the nerds do the math. You can still have fun, like doing the dance. And then you're lessening that stereotype.

PEREIRA: It's that change in attitude that Shine believes may be the key to inspiring girls everywhere to stick with STEM.

SINHA: I do think that this is a kind of programming that can help girls all over the country regardless of where they are. It's a really exciting time of growth and a real chance for us to change an entire generation.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLITZER: CNN's Michaela Pereira reporting.

Still ahead, the identity of the Texas nurse with Ebola has now been revealed. But how did she contract the virus, the disease, despite layers of protective gear?

And up next, the parents of the missing University of Virginia student Hannah Graham. They make a desperate plea, one month to the day after she disappeared.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: The search for a missing University of Virginia student Hannah Graham today reached the one-month mark. The suspect, Jesse Matthew, has been charged with abduction. Police are looking to see if there's a connection with previous unsolved cases. Hannah Graham's parents today issued a news statement pleading for information.

Let's get some more now, joining us, the investigative journalist Coy Barefoot. He's in Charlottesville, Virginia. Also our law enforcement analyst, Tom Fuentes, he's a former assistant director of the FBI.

Coy, I know there have been some new developments that you've been looking into. What are you hearing?

COY BAREFOOT, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: Wolf, the search team has looked at that eight-mile radius around the city of Charlottesville, that really critical zone where the profilers say this is the most likely place where we would find Hannah. They have exhausted that search, the search team is in stand down right now today and tomorrow. And beginning later this week, they will enter a second phase of the search. They will conduct pointed specific areas to go back and look at a little bit more in depth.

I asked Mark Eggeman recently why haven't we seen dive teams. There is a number of large lakes, ponds and rivers throughout this area, and he told me that we had such clear weather in the first few days of the search and the helicopters were above all of those areas of water looking down.

And he said you'd be surprised, you can see the entire bodies of water from above on a clear day with no wind. He said, and we didn't see anything that would merit a dive search. But we don't rule that out in the future.

BLITZER: So it's exactly one month since she disappeared, Hannah Graham. Do authorities there believe they're any closer to finding her now than they were a month ago?

BAREFOOT: I have to believe that from what I have learned with my contacts in law enforcement, they're tired. They are disappointed. But they remain absolutely committed to this effort to keep looking for Hannah. And that will certainly continue -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Tom, there's another young woman who went missing in 2009 in Lynchburg, Virginia, Cassandra Morton. Police are looking into now if there's any connection between the suspect Jesse Matthew and her.

These -- all these additional cases, how do they impact this overall investigation into what he may or may not have done?

TOM FUENTES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, they go back to the beginning of those cases, Wolf, and see whether or not there was forensic evidence that was obtained at the time, but there was no one to compare it to. Now you have the potential suspect to compare it with. And that's why they could reopen many of those cases and try to see what was the evidence at the time, what did they collect. Is there any possibility now that they could compare it to Jesse Matthew.

BLITZER: So all these other cases they're reopening right now, does that help actually in the investigation into whatever happened to Hannah Graham?

FUENTES: Well, you don't know. Potentially it could help obviously. It's going to require many more resources to do it. But, you know, between the Charlottesville, the area police departments, the federal government, as well as the Virginia State Police themselves, they have the resources. They can open up every case of someone that's gone missing in the last 20 years that they have to just to be sure.

BLITZER: And quickly to you, Coy, with the parents now today issuing a very moving statement, appealing for helping in finding Hannah, how is the community there reacting?

BAREFOOT: I can tell you that everybody I talked to, and it's what everyone is talking about. Everyone is such a mix and a slurry of emotions. Most people just can't believe that something like this would be happening in beautiful little Charlottesville.

I do want to tell you, Wolf, I spoke moments ago with a man who knows Jesse Matthew very well, and he shared this news with me, that he worked as a bouncer. The gentleman with whom I spoke worked as a bouncer at a restaurant and bar where Jesse Matthew was a regular this past summer. And he told me, he said Coy, I had to ban him for about two months because I was concerned about the safety of the young women in the bar.

He said, Jesse had a type, blonde, preppy, a university girl, upper middle class, and he would look for the drunkest among them. And I told him, quote, "Dude, you're going to get yourself in a world of trouble. These girls don't know who they're dealing with and they don't know your intentions." And he told him, you're not welcome here. You've made too many of the girls uncomfortable. And I can't let you back in here.

He finally did let him back in towards the end of the summer because he kept -- said he kept pleading with him. But he said even then he would only come about 1:30 at night at last call looking for the drunkest girl in the place. And they had to keep an eye on him. And he told me, quote, "He always came in looking for a victim."

BLITZER: All right, Coy, we'll continue our investigation. Your investigation tomorrow. Thank you very much.

Chilling stuff just reported by Coy. Thanks very, very much.

All week long, CNN is presenting a special series, "ROOTS, OUR JOURNEYS HOME." It's been a year in the making, CNN journalists crossed continents discovering hidden details of our family histories.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NARRATOR: CNN ALL THIS WEEK. They traveled the world to chase the story. But not just anyone's story. Their own.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It's going to be a journey of surprises.

NARRATOR: The story of how they came to be.

ANTHONY BOURDAIN, HOST, "PARTS UNKNOWN": I had a great, great, great grandfather come over to Paraguay around the 1850s.

BLITZER: My grandparents died here.

NARRATOR: The story of their ancestors.

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR, NEW DAY: This is where my great grandmother was given up for adoption.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR, AC 360: My dad's report card going back to 1944.

NARRATOR: Their history. GUPTA: These records go back 40 generations.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR, OUTFRONT: When we found out that there's people here related to us, that's when it felt real to me. `

NARRATOR: And now they share those stories with you.

BURNETT: It's like going back in time.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR, THE LEAD: My colonial ancestors were on the wrong side.

MICHAEL PEREIRA, CNN ANCHOR, NEW DAY: Feels like coming home.

NARRATOR: Join the familiar faces of CNN as they trace their "ROOTS." All this week on CNN.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: And you'll see my journey of discovery tracing my family's roots this Wednesday right here in THE SITUATION ROOM 5:00 p.m. Eastern.

Coming up, a Dallas nurse becomes the first person to contract Ebola in the United States even though she wore protective gear. Officials are now scrambling to find out what happened.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Happening now. Ebola mystery. Despite all the precautions, how did a nurse become infected with the virus and who else could be at risk right now?

U.S. terror targets. A new FBI warning of frightening possibility. ISIS inspired terrorists attacking police and other law enforcement officers or even members of the news media.