Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Pakistan Still in Turmoil Over Bhutto Assassination; Iowa Caucus Draws Ever Closer; Garage Sal Karma

Aired December 29, 2007 - 11:00   ET

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

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: -- Also breaking news when John Roberts and I see you Monday. It all begins at 6:00 a.m. eastern.
BETTY NGUYEN, CNN ANCHOR: It is Saturday, December 29th, and you are in the CNN NEWSROOM. Hello everybody, I'm Betty Nguyen.

ROB MARCIANO, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and I'm Rob Marciano. T.J. Holmes has the day off.

NGUYEN: Straight ahead, who killed Benazir Bhutto? We are live from Pakistan with a closer look at that and all of this talk of a cover up in her death.

MARCIANO: Also, its crunch time in Iowa. Just five days to go until the all-important caucuses. We'll be hearing live from presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani and John Edwards this hour.

Plus ...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What goes around comes around. You do the right thing, it balances out.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

NGUYEN: Yes it does. It's better than antiques road show. We have an amazing case of good garage sale karma.

MARCIANO: First up, prayers and protest in Pakistan, still reeling after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. About 40 people have died in the violence and two days after her death, there's more confusion now more than ever on how she died and who's responsible. CNN's Zain Verjee is in Karachi live for us this morning. Zain, what do you know now, it seems to be constantly changing?

ZAIN VERJEE, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: It does. The situation herein Pakistan is highly emotional and highly unpredictable. Pakistan is bracing for potentially more violence. We arrived a few hours ago in the port city of Karachi. Protesters were out on the streets, they were burning tires.

But really relatively speaking things were pretty quiet. The shops have been shut down, really not too many people out on the streets and the streets are empty. In the Rawalpindi the military garrison town Benazir Bhutto supporters were out on the streets, they clashed with police. And in the capital of Pakistan, the city of Lahore, they were also out on the streets blocking the roads and burning tires as well.

The thing is that the gas stations have been shut down so a lot of people are unable to get gas and go from point a to point b if they want to be out on the street or even move around. There is a real sense of anger though, and it's directed against President Musharraf, many people here saying that he did not provide adequate security for Benazir Bhutto.

They're also angry at the government's version of how she died. They say she died from a fractured skull, but there are other reports saying that she died from a bullet wound in her head or another version of shrapnel. Nobody really knows what's going on.

The interior minister came out and said that the Pakistani government would be OK if they exhumed her body and did an autopsy and just put it to rest -- Rob?

MARCIANO: Zain, let's turn our attention to all the controversy now that's going on about how she died. First it was a gunshot wound, an explosion, now they're saying blunt trauma. Now just this morning the interior ministry is coming out and saying, OK, listen, if the party and her family would like to exhume the body, we'll do that. Why was there no autopsy of her in the beginning?

VERJEE: Well, the family was asked whether they would like that or not and the family said no. When you look at Islamic law and the religious context in which this is happening, they basically believe that the body is sacred, that the body is a gift from God and the body has to be respected. So to damage it in any way by doing an autopsy would really be a big no-no.

However, there are a lot of Islamic scholars too that say, hang on, if there is a specific reason and the family really wants this to happen, then that can be accepted in a religious context. But from my understanding, the family has been offered that by the government but they're unlikely perhaps for those reasons in part to agree to do an autopsy.

MARCIANO: For that reason, it may be a loaded question on the government's part. We'll just have to wait and see. Zain Verjee live for us this morning in Karachi. Thanks so much Zain.

NGUYEN: One big question being asked in the wake of Benazir Bhutto's assassination is where was the security?

MARCIANO: CNN's David Mattingly has been looking into that part of the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In her last minutes of life, the images we see are of a classic Benazir Bhutto, standing in an open sunroof, smiling, waving. Her legendary charisma delighting supporters crowding around her car. And then chaos. This video released by the Pakistani interior ministry captures only glimpses of the fatal attack. But CNN security expert Mike Brooks tells me there's a lot here for the trained eye to see.

MIKE BROOKS, CNN SECURITY EXPERT: With all the threats she's had and the attempts against her life, she should not have been out of that vehicle at all.

MATTINGLY: At normal speed, a gun appears above the crowd for less than two seconds. You can hear three shots fired. But when we slow the video down ...

BROOKS: Watch for it. There's the gun right there.

MATTINGLY: We see how unprotected Bhutto truly was.

Watching that, what does that tell you?

BROOKS: I tell you, it's very, very close. Someone should not have even been able to get that close to her theoretically.

MATTINGLY: When the shots were fired, men who appeared to be working for Bhutto were just a few feet from the gunman.

BROOKS: You see the two security guys in the back, when the shots go off, you see them duck down. If they're security guys, they're supposed to be going toward the threat.

MATTINGLY: And watching how the gunman lifted his handgun above the crowd and fired tells us something about him as well.

BROOKS: You know it's hard to say what kind of training this person has had, but they definitely knew where their target was and how to use that weapon.

MATTINGLY: That close to the vehicle, what is the likelihood that he would be hitting his target?

BROOKS: Well from the way the angle of the gun towards where Ms. Bhutto was, it looked like this person knew what they were doing, had a mission, and was carrying out that mission with that handgun.

MATTINGLY: But strangely, Pakistani officials contradicted their own earlier reports that said Bhutto's fatal injury was caused by either bullets or shrapnel from the suicide bomb that followed. Instead, they now say her skull was fractured when it struck a lever for the sunroof as she ducked or fell during the attack.

BRIG. GEN. JAVED IQBAL CHEEMA, PAKISTANI INTERIOR MINISTRY: This is the lever that is open that is bloodstained. So there is every possibility that this is the lever, unfortunately, which caused the fracture in her skull and became the cause of her main death.

MATTINGLY: But when you search for confirmation of a cause of death on the video, there is none to be found. At the critical moment, the photographer seems to reel from the bomb blast and the camera turns away. Bhutto's fate goes unrecorded. BROOKS: There's nothing in this video that would conclusively say she was hit with shrapnel, she was shot in the neck or her death was caused by her head hitting the lever to the sunroof as she either was going back down in or fell against that lever.

MATTINGLY (on camera): There are other theories as well. Some Bhutto supporters say there was a sniper firing from above on a roof top. But it's just one more thing the video cannot confirm. One more question in this tragedy that may go unanswered.

David Mattingly, CNN, Atlanta.

(END OF VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: Pakistan is linking an al Qaeda leader to the Bhutto assassination. It released a transcript of what it called a conversation between Baitullah Mehsud and another Islamic militant. Mehsud is quoted as calling the assassination a spectacular job. A spokesman for Mehsud dismissed that transcript as government propaganda and Bhutto's political party also voiced skepticism. Now party spokesmen accuse the government of trying to frame Mehsud in order to divert attention. So, what do we really know about Baitullah Mehsud?

Let's bring in CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen, he joins us live today. Peter, we've heard this name now. What do you know about him and the ties that Mehsud may have?

PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Well, he's the self- described head of the Pakistani Taliban, one of the largest tribes (INAUDIBLE) from which most of the Taliban and al Qaeda violence emanates. He has reportedly made threats against Benazir Bhutto in the past. That has been denied by some of his people, but the fact is he's quite a (INAUDIBLE) candidate for this attack, he's (INAUDIBLE) the government of course that he is behind this attack, to take some of the (INAUDIBLE) off them.

One thing that's interesting about the transcript that they've released of his description of his delight in the attack is (INAUDIBLE) audiotape of that conversation. But suffice to say it is plausible that he is the sort of person who would be behind this attack. Militants in Pakistan have after all tried to kill General Musharraf in the past, also they tried to kill the interior minister in the past. They've tried to kill Benazir Bhutto back in October and they may well have succeeded this time now unfortunately on December 27th.

NGUYEN: You mentioned the audiotape. How credible is that because Mehsud, at least a spokesperson for Mehsud says you know what, they're just setting me up?

BERGEN: Well, it's hard to judge. Beyond the fact that this is a self-described member of the Pakistani Taliban, which has already attacked Pakistani government officials, Pakistani policemen, members of the Pakistani internal security services, tried to kill senior Pakistani ministers. I think it certainly is a plausible candidate. We obviously don't know for a fact as yet if indeed he really is the person behind this attack. (INAUDIBLE) Pakistani Taliban and al Qaeda, it was after all a suicide attack. Benazir Bhutto is not somebody that they like, a secular woman who leads the largest non- religious party in Pakistan. He is a plausible candidate.

NGUYEN: One senior U.S. official has described Mehsud as a big player, at least one of the big players. How big of a player in your eyes is he? You've been following this?

BERGEN: Well, you know, somebody who describes himself as the head of the Pakistani Taliban is obviously a big player. The Pakistani Taliban coming to the fore in the last couple of years, obviously working closely with their colleagues on the other side of the border, the Afghan Taliban. But this is a group of people that is increasing in terms to trying to get the Pakistani state.

There's been a rash of suicide attacks in Pakistan since the beginning of this year. Suicide attacks in Pakistan were pretty rare until recently. These attacks, many of them are either by Pakistani Taliban or al Qaeda or militant groups that are related to both of those groups here in Pakistan.

NGUYEN: Seems like it's a tangled web. All right, Peter Bergen, joining us live today. Peter, we do appreciate your insight.

MARCIANO: Tonight -- CNN's Nic Robertson goes beyond the headlines of Benazir Bhutto's assassination to find out if Pakistan has become terror central. That airs tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern only on CNN.

NGUYEN: Well Iowa is the place to be this weekend if you're running for the White House.

MARCIANO: You're looking at live pictures from Iowa. Campaign events for Rudy Giuliani and John Edwards. We'll hear from both of them a little bit later.

NGUYEN: And our election express is on the road, too. We have a live report, that's straight ahead.

Plus this ...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I thought they were just old papers to throw away. Then I started seeing all of this fancy scroll work with the orange scroll and one says $50,000, the other one says $15,000. I go, whoa, wait a minute.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARCIANO: Yeah, wait a minute is right. A guy gets more, lots more, than he bargained for at a garage sale. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) NGUYEN: Better mark your calendars. Five days to go. On Thursday, January 3rd, Iowa sets in motion a process that ends November 4th with the election of a new president. Candidates are scrambling to make the most of the last weekend in the snow. Rudy Giuliani is rallying supporters in Clive, Iowa, home base for his Iowa operation. We're going to listen when he speaks.

Now over in Muscatine, Iowa, Democrat John Edwards is sitting down shortly with undecided caucus-goers. Portions of his roundtable discussion will be live soon here on CNN.

Meantime though, no hard-core true blue front-runner for either party. Iowa will make or break some campaigns.

MARCIANO: CNN's Jessica Yellin on the phone with the CNN election express in Iowa, on the phone this hour. We want to talk to you Jessica, you talked to Barack Obama on the bus. Tell us about that chat.

VOICE OF JESSICA YELLIN, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi guys, I sure did. You know, we sat down with Barack Obama yesterday and we are right now headed east to an event that Hillary Clinton will be speaking at. I can tell you all three democratic contenders are in the eastern part of the state as they try to reach out to every possible undecided voter to get their turnout as high as possible. All of these guys as you're saying are in an absolute dead heat. We're seeing the gloves come off in these last few days.

Yesterday when I sat down with Barack Obama, we talked a bit about Benazir Bhutto, we talked about the current events. We also talked about some of these new attacks that have come at him. He's been defending himself from accusations from the Clinton campaign that his aides politicized Benazir Bhutto's death and Barack Obama told us that that's just not true. It's my words, not his, but he seemed to accuse the Clinton folks of actually trying to politicize it themselves by suggesting that while this foreign policy crisis makes Hillary Clinton better fit to be the nominee.

Obama also had strong words for John Edwards who has attacked Obama as the man who's not really going to fight for the little guy. John Edwards says he's the one who has a track record of fighting the little guy and this is what Barack Obama told us.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think you look at the track record, you know. What John is talking about now is not what he was talking about four years ago, it was not what he was talking about eight years ago. You know, on issue after issue, he now says he made a mistake. But when he suggests that somehow he's going to fight more steadfastly on behalf of the American people, then I have to point out that my track record of fighting on behalf of working families in America has been unwavering.

(END VIDEO CLIP) YELLIN: Now, let me put this in a little context. Until recently, we've heard all of these campaigns highlight their overriding positive themes, Barack Obama is going to stand for change, Hillary Clinton's experience, John Edwards is going to fight for the working man. We are now seeing them get rather personal because, really, they are trying to defend themselves and trying to get any voter they can.

As everybody's been making it clear, this race really is a toss- up not because we can't measure what's going on but because when you talk to voters coming out of these events, they're passionate, they're excited, but they just don't know who they want to back yet.

MARCIANO: Jessica, we want to let you go, we know you're on the road with the election express there. Thank you very much, Jessica Yellin for us in Iowa.

We want to take you live now to Clive, Iowa, where presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani is talking to supporters at his campaign headquarters from Iowa. Remember, just five days to go until the Iowa caucuses. Let's listen in.

RUDY GIULIANI, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: -- at least 22 or 23 that I believe I can find in the newspapers. There have been situations that happen like in Pakistan just the other day, terrible, horrible tragic event. But not just an event, the attack in Pakistan, the attack in London a couple of years ago, the attacks in New York, the attacks that have taken place in other parts of the world are not just events.

They come about because there's an effort against us called Islamic terrorism and it's pointed at us. It's pointed at our way of life. It's pointed at what we believe in. In the past, meaning before September 11, maybe because people didn't see the enormity of this, the length and breadth of it. That's easier to say. They reacted to it in a defensive way.

My point in that first commitment to the American people is, we have to react it by being on offense. We need a strong military, we need strong intelligence services, we need to invest in those, we need to rebuild them after the peace dividend of the '90s. We need to anticipate as much as we can what these terrorists might do and stop them before they do it. And we need to have very, very strong -- and this is a separate commitment but it's tied into the whole thing -- we need to have very, very strong homeland security.

MARCIANO: You are listening to Rudy Giuliani live from his campaign headquarters in Iowa. If you'd like to listen more, you can go to cnn.com and watch that all in its entirety live.

NGUYEN: Meanwhile, John McCain has New Hampshire all to himself. He's the only Republican on the trail in the state right now. New Hampshire's first in the nation primary follows Iowa by just five days. McCain has stops in four towns today.

MARCIANO: Great expectations on the campaign trail. Why all the candidates are trying to lower them. CNN's senior political analyst Bill Schneider explains. But first ...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What goes around comes around. You do the right thing, it balances out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NGUYEN: Yes, it does. Call it garage sale karma. A $2 investment yields a six-figure treasure. This guy wants to return it. The story is straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MARCIANO: Party time, 11:00 New Year's eve, join Anderson Cooper and a whole slew of celebrities and personalities for their party for New Year's eve.

Big travel weekend this weekend for sure. If you're traveling by air, the best advice is to call ahead. Heavy snowfall yesterday forced airports across the Midwest to cancel or delay flights. At Chicago's O'Hare, 300 flights were cancelled. Again, if you're flying today, call ahead to confirm and of course keep your eyes peeled on the CNN severe weather center for the most up to date weather information.

(WEATHER REPORT)

NGUYEN: Two bucks. Listen to this. Two bucks for a beat-up filing cabinet. A Massachusetts man got his money's worth at a yard sale last summer and boy did he.

MARCIANO: He did. Just a few weeks ago he took a look inside and he made quite a find. Here's our affiliate reporter of WHDS, Michele Relerford.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: $50,000 at 8 percent interest since 1988.

MICHELE RELERFORD, WHDS (voice-over): The bucks don't stop there. This bunch of stocks and bonds is valued well over $100,000, maybe much more, now in the hands of Fred Pietrowski of Lawrence. He paid $2 for this file cabinet at a yard sale and found a hidden treasure.

FRED PIETROWSKI, FOUND $100,000 IN STOCKS, BONDS: I thought they were just old papers, you know, to throw away. Then I started seeing all of this fancy scrollwork with the orange scroll and one says $50,000, the other one says $15,000. I go, whoa, wait a minute.

RELERFORD: They're stocks and bonds from AT&T, BellSouth and the James River Corporation. Included in this pricey pile, the release papers that would make the finder the pretty wealthy keeper.

PIETROWSKI: Irrevocable stock power transfer. They're all signed by the owners so whoever puts their name on the top, they own them.

RELERFORD: This former Eagle Scout and navy vet says he never thought twice about keeping the money.

PIETROWSKI: We've had Christmases where it's hard to put food on the table. To take money away from somebody, especially if it was their grandparents or something, is just not right.

LINDA PIETROWKSI, WIFE: I think these people would like to get back what belongs to them too. If we can find out who it belongs to.

RELERFORD: So far no one has matched up, but he plans to keep looking believing in a higher reward.

PIETROWSKI: What goes around comes around. You do the right thing, it balances out.

(END OF VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: Yes, it does. That is a great guy right there. All right, so for the folks at home thinking, hey, those may be mine, listen to this, the stocks and bonds bear the surnames McPhee, Raymore, Sullivan and Crowley. Now, if that's your name and you're in the Lawrence, Massachusetts area, you might want to do a little detective work.

MARCIANO: It may be worth your while, that's for sure.

NGUYEN: Six figures worth.

MARCIANO: In a split second, the atmosphere changed from a bustling shopping atmosphere to that of mass panic. That is how one blogger described the scene in Pakistan as news spread of Benazir Bhutto's assassination. We're going to talk with her live.

JOSH LEVS: The different explanations about how she died are triggering a lot of questions and also some conspiracy theories. People around the world are demanding to know what really happened. I'm Josh Levs. Your chance to sound off coming up right here on CNN, the most trusted name in news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MARCIANO: Thirty minutes after the hour at the CNN Center in Atlanta, that would make it 11:30 eastern time. Chaos following Benazir Bhutto's assassination. Protests in Pakistan, many of them violent. Government officials say about 40 people have died in violence since Bhutto was killed.

NGUYEN: But the government insists Bhutto died from a skull fracture caused when she fell or ducked in response to gunfire. Bhutto's aides claim she died from bullet wounds and call the government's account bizarre, dangerous nonsense. The Pakistani government says there were no bullet wounds on Bhutto's body. And says if Bhutto supporters don't believe that, they can exhume her body. MARCIANO: Well, amid such confusion and conflicting information, conspiracy theories are definitely thriving.

NGUYEN: Yes they are. Josh Levs at the dot com desk has been looking into all of that for us. We have a number of theories already from the interior ministry. I can only imagine the other numbers of theories that we'll see with people thinking there's a conspiracy behind this.

LEVS: Yes, like for every person out there there's a new theory. This is something I told you guys earlier. I'm going to emphasize it again now. That any big story gets a lot of responses, right, it always happens? There isn't always news value in it, but today there really is. Because this is the story right now.

I mean, what happened when the Pakistani government, for whatever reason, decided to come forward with three conflicting stories in less than 48 hours about how she had died, they had every reason to know the assassination of an opposition figure, all of these different stories would trigger conspiracy theories all over the world.

So what's happened at CNN, is we've been receiving a lot of them from people who write to us. And I'm just going to share with you now, a handful of some of the responses to this whole story that are on cnn.com.

Here is one from Sijal. "Even to an ordinary man with a minimum of sense it all sounds too mixed up to be true. It's imperative on the government to undertake appropriate measures to investigate this case as we Pakistanis really do not want another political leader's murder case left in mystery."

This one's from Roger now. "The Pakistan government is trying to cover up this assassination. I think the medical report is a huge joke and someone impartial should investigate on the body of Ms. Bhutto and find out the truth!"

Here's another one from Ali, "It is disgusting to see a perfectly logical explanation by the government being dismissed by a third rate political worker." That's in response to someone in her party who said the government is wrong.

Finally this one from Michael. "Obviously there's something fishy going on here. Trying to find a sniper is a lot harder than pinning a bombing on a certain group, it makes for an easier scapegoat to point fingers at."

OK, so here's what we're seeing. All of these people weighing in because we've had all of these different theories coming from the government. We've talked about this earlier. At first they were saying that it was a bullet wound, then they were saying it was shrapnel, then they were saying it was neither, it was actually that she hit her head on the car. So when people start to hear all this, they want to know exactly what happened to this huge opposition figure. Some people writing us, afraid they'll never know. NGUYEN: Even the government today put out x-rays of what they say were Bhutto's head where it doesn't show a bullet wound at all. Of course, conspiracy theorists are going to say, is that indeed an x- ray of Bhutto?

LEVS: You had the witness earlier whose insisting that there were bullets.

NGUYEN: She said she was there to prepare the body for burial and she said she indeed saw bullet wounds. So who knows at this point?

LEVS: We have no idea. It's just a matter of who you trust right now.

MARCIANO: The government has offered, say hey, we'll exhume the body if it's OK with the family and the party. They may know the answer to that might be no and then the government may be off the hook.

NGUYEN: The family didn't even want an autopsy to begin with.

LEVS: Which is another reason that the theories go in all directions, not just anti-government but some people are saying maybe the government is telling the truth, the other people are trying to create theories. We're CNN, we want to give you the facts and we wish we could do that more clearly.

NGUYEN: These are the facts that we know we'll see how it shakes out in the end.

LEVS: It reminds me of another assassination theory.

NGUYEN: The grassy knoll perhaps?

MARCIANO: Americans of a certain age will also remember where they were and when they heard that President Kennedy had been assassinated.

Well, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto is having a similar impact on many Pakistanis. Sasha Kahn is Pakistani-American. She was visiting Pakistan with other family members when she heard the news. She joins us live.

I know it's been a trying couple of days for you, Sasha. But your blog got our attention. I'll start by how you start your blog. You say, I was shopping with my mom, my two brothers and sister in law when I received a text. Why don't you take it from there and tell us what happened briefly from your experience.

SASHA KAHN: Well, OK, we were out shopping and I received a text from my father who was having dinner at my great-aunt's house. At first he asked us, when are you coming back? I replied saying we'll be back soon. Then right away I got another text from him that said, come back to the hotel. Bhutto's been shot. I just ran in the shop and I told my mother this, and we all knew the magnitude of the situation.

By the time we ran out of the shop, it was inside a building and during that whole time people were running around everywhere, shops were being closed. They were sealing the building. We didn't know where to go and basically it felt like we were standing still in the middle of a chaos.

MARCIANO: How close or how far were you physically from where the explosion took place?

KAHN: Oh, no, no. I was in Karachi. I was not near Bhutto's caravan at all. I was in Karachi, we were just shopping. After I think this all happened 45 minutes after the news spread that she was shot.

MARCIANO: OK, because I'm reading your blog here, and it says the atmosphere changed. So people were reacting on the news of this and there was chaos from your point of view from just the news.

KAHN: Yes.

MARCIANO: You also say on your blog, towards the end ...

KAHN: Just the news.

MARCIANO: Just the news. No doubt emotional for you and other Pakistanis there. You say so at the end of your blog, you say my legs and arms have stopped shaking. My heart is still beating. My chest feels tight. I'll cry later. Have you cried?

KAHN: Yeah.

MARCIANO: And what ...

KAHN: I did.

MARCIANO: Why have you cried? The whole experience?

KAHN: I wrote that -- it was actually a part of an e-mail that I sent out to my friends describing the whole scene, the whole situation, how we basically were told to go up to the fourth floor by somebody who saw my mother panicking. We were locked in a room. He told us not to go outside because there were shots being fired outside. And my sister in law's cousin Faizon Kahn came and rescued us. If it wasn't for him and a gentleman who took us upstairs to hide us when the news spread and when everybody was panicking in the streets, we would not have known -- we wouldn't know what to do. We didn't know where to go.

That's why I said, I'll cry later, because at that moment when we got back it was just letting everybody know we were OK and it was just this tight feeling where I wanted to cry but I couldn't because our only -- priority one at that moment was to get in touch with my father and let him know we're OK. Because if Faizon hadn't come to get us, nobody would have known where we were.

MARCIANO: Did you cry because of your personal ordeal or did you cry to mourn the former prime minister?

KAHN: No. It was more of a what if, honestly. It was more of a what if my youngest brother Sean was with us. It was his first time in Karachi since he was 3 years old. So my heart went out to him and I was very, very worried for my family, my mother, my sister-in-law was with us, my brother Desean was with us and we just did not know where to go, what to do. My mother was panicking because she said her priority was our safety.

I was trying very hard to stay calm and just figure out where to go and take care of my family and my brothers were being the protective brothers that they are, trying to protect us so everybody was looking out for each other. Then we ran upstairs and we were trying to call the hotel.

MARCIANO: How do you feel now, do you feel safe?

KAHN: Relieved because my grandmother and my dad came back to the hotel. We were separated for three days. Actually at lunch today I brought that up. My feeling that weariness in my heart is gone. I feel relieved that grandma and father are back with us.

MARCIANO: We are certainly happy that your story ended well even in the midst of this assassination and tragedy over there in Pakistan. Sasha Kahn, a Pakistani American, thank you for telling your story.

NGUYEN: Tonight CNN's Nic Robertson goes beyond the headlines of Benazir Bhutto's assassination to find out if Pakistan has become terror central. That airs tonight at 8:00 eastern only on CNN.

MARCIANO: The politics of lowering expectations. Not a bad idea sometimes if you don't want to be disappointed. Why the candidates are trying to do it. CNN's Bill Schneider explains.

And this ...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you do this? Did you do that? What happened? I'm hearing all of this stuff on the media. I mean, I want to know the facts. I simply want to know what's going on.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

NGUYEN: Yes, he does. A father still looking for answers after his son was killed by a tiger. As the San Francisco Zoo remains closed today.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MARCIANO: Five days to go on Thursday, January 3rd, Iowa sets in motion a process that ends November 4th with the election of a new president. Candidates are scrambling to make the most of this last weekend in the snow. Rudy Giuliani just wrapped up a rally in Clive, Iowa, where his headquarters are. Home base for that state operation. Where he commented on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the war on terror.

Over in Muscatine, Iowa, Democrat John Edwards is sitting down shortly with undecided caucus-goers. We'll listen in when he begins to speak. Also tape coming in right now of Mitt Romney campaigning in Altoona, Iowa, just a short time ago.

NGUYEN: On Friday morning, Iowa's winners will claim victory.

MARCIANO: The losers will spin one no doubt about that. Here's CNN's senior political analyst Bill Schneider, part of the best political team on television.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILLIAM SCHNEIDER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST (voice-over): Every candidate is competing against the candidate named "expected." They're trying to do better than expected. The polls help set expectations. The latest Iowa Republican polls show Mike Huckabee on top, followed by Mitt Romney. So Huckabee's expected to win, right? Not if you listen to him.

MIKE HUCKABEE, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Considering the resources that we're up against, I mean, it really would be a miracle to win here.

SCHNEIDER: He's lowering expectations. They all do it for themselves. Huckabee's also expected to win Iowa because it has a strong evangelical Christian vote. That's his base. If Romney beats back Huckabee in Iowa, it will be an even bigger victory because he will also have done better than expected. Polls show a close race between three democrats in Iowa, a clear cut victory by any of them means they will have done better than expected.

JOHN EDWARDS, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: What that means in practical terms is that somebody is going to come out of here with momentum.

SCHNEIDER: Edwards is trying to lower expectations that he has to win Iowa because he's invested so much time there.

EDWARDS: I don't think you can say for any of the three of us that you have to win.

SCHNEIDER: His campaign is telling reporters that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have more staff members in Iowa, you should expect them to win. But the tight polls mean that if her competitors expect to stop Clinton, they may have to do it in Iowa. That's where she's weakest. And other democrats? They just want to do better than expected.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ladies and gentlemen, if you get me out of here in one, two, or three, I warn you I'm your next president.

(END OF VIDEOTAPE)

SCHNEIDER: Bill Clinton lost the New Hampshire primary in 1992 but because he did better than expected by coming in second, he labeled himself the comeback kid. Lyndon Johnson won the New Hampshire primary in 1968, but because as an incumbent at the peak of the Vietnam War he did worse than expected, he soon got out of the race -- Rob?

MARCIANO: Though expectations for John McCain, what are they? Is it a smart move for him to go right to New Hampshire ahead of everybody else?

SCHNEIDER: Well, he has been campaigning hard in New Hampshire. That's the state he really needs to win because he won it in 2000. He's expected to win New Hampshire. So is Mitt Romney because he was the governor of a neighboring state. Only one of them is going to be able to do that and possibly neither of them. Whichever of those candidates loses the Republican primary in New Hampshire, Romney or McCain, is going to find it tough to continue.

MARCIANO: Bill Schneider, our chief political analyst, thank you very much for your insight Bill.

NGUYEN: And after the last-minute campaigning, it will be the people's turn. CNN's special coverage of the Iowa caucuses begins at 8:00 eastern on Thursday night. It's an unpredictable election year so you don't want to miss a minute of coverage from the CNN election center. The Iowa caucuses Thursday night beginning at 8:00 eastern and we have been following John Edwards as well today. He is in Muscatine, Iowa, meeting with undecided caucus-goers. I believe he is speaking at this hour. If we have that live picture, we can take it. Let's listen in.

JOHN EDWARDS, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: -- which is very encouraging to me and encouraging, more importantly, to what we want to do for the country. But there are choices. There are. There are very good democratic presidential candidates. There's No question about that. But there are very clear choices in the approach we have to bring about what this country needs.

Now, I'm proud of the fact that I have never taken money from a Washington lobbyist or a special interest pack the entire time I've been in public life. Because I do not believe you can take these people's money, sit at a table and make a deal with them. It doesn't work. If that worked, we'd have universal health care today, but we don't. I also don't believe you can sit at a table with them, oil companies, drug companies, insurance companies, and just negotiate and somehow they'll voluntarily give their power away.

Right. I think it is a complete fantasy. It will never happen. I think the truth is we have an epic fight in front of us. These entrenched special interests have infiltrated every part of our ...

NGUYEN: You've been listening to presidential candidate John Edwards speaking there to undecided caucus-goers in Muscatine, Iowa. Of course, we're following all of this and a little bit later today, next hour, in fact, you'll be hearing from Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney both at live events there in Iowa that will be on CNN. If you want to follow Edwards' speech right now live in its entirety, you can go to cnn.com.

MARCIANO: We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: NEWSROOM continues at the top of the hour. Isha Sesay is sitting in for Fredricka Whitfield today.

MARCIANO: Hello Isha, what do you have for us?

ISHA SESAY, CNN ANCHOR: Hey guys. We have a very busy 12:00 coming up. Just ahead we'll be taking our viewers live to Pakistan, really taking a closer look at that video showing the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. The questions everyone have on their minds are, who is to blame? Was it al Qaeda, was it the Taliban? And then, guys, there's all this talk of the conspiracy. We'll get into all of that.

Bringing things back home here in the U.S., it's crunch time on the campaign trail. The presidential hopefuls are making their last- minute pitch to those undecided caucus voters. We'll be hearing from Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney. John Edwards is speaking right now. You see him at the bottom of your screen. We're live in Iowa and New Hampshire with the best political team on television.

NGUYEN: Lots coming up.

MARCIANO: That sounds like she had more than we did. You've been working harder?

SESAY: Don't be like that.

NGUYEN: She's been here since 7:00 a.m.

MARCIANO: That's true. You have been here long. All right, we look forward to that at noon.

NGUYEN: Thank you Isha.

MARCIANO: Some quick news from around the country. Investigators are looking into this fiery train wreck in western Pennsylvania. Firefighters were called in when two of the cars filled with ethanol caught fire. Nine cars in total derailed, but no one was injured.

NGUYEN: In Boston, a teenager is in jail after allegedly trying to steal a gun from a transit revenue agent. It was all caught on surveillance tape, you're taking a look at it right now. Police say the teen claimed he was robbed and may have been grabbing the gun to chase down whoever took his leather jacket.

MARICANO: And a deal now between David Letterman and the striking writers. The writers union has negotiated a separate deal with Letterman's production company. "The Late Show" host will have his own writers back when he comes back on the air next week. We're happy about that.

NGUYEN: Rob is doing a happy dance over that. He can't wait.

2007 goes down as the year of the i-Reporter.

MARCIANO: Coming up in just a few minutes, the i-Reports that made us laugh, made us go huh? And showed personal American moments, up close.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

NGUYEN: On New Year's day, catch the game that really matters -- the battle of the presidential candidates.

MARCIANO: Exactly. It's all the contenders talking about the most important issues, the economy, the war, immigration. We call it the ballot bowl. Whether you're a republican, a democrat or an independent, if you're just an American, it's a game you definitely want to tune in for.

NGUYEN: Yep, CNN's ballot bowl, beginning 9:00 a.m. eastern New Year's day. Don't miss it.

So, as 2007 closes out as the year of the i-Reporter, we want to say thanks to so many of you who made CNN's i-Report so successful.

MARCIANO: From breaking news reports to small moments of life, our i-Reporters helped make the difference. CNN's Rick Sanchez looks at some of the best i-Reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Richmond, Texas, a truck stops at a red light, positioned across a railroad track.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I didn't think anything of it.

SANCHEZ: Until -- from roadway perils to off road driving in the annual Ontario rock crawling competition.

DAVID PETHERICK, CNN I-REPORTER: When he was trying to climb the rock base, his throttle cable snapped and all of a sudden he lost engine power and he just went backwards and did a perfect back flip.

SANCHEZ: Now check out this ampha car swim in Michigan.

GLEN HOUTING, CNN I-REPORTER: The ampha cars are very unique because they drive right down the ramp and into the lake.

SANCHEZ: Kooky, like this.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ow!

SANCHEZ: We've heard of parents who tie one end of a string to their child's tooth and the other end to a doorknob. How about substituting the doorknob, with an archery bow. That's just what this father did to his little girl. ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: You know what's great about these i-Reports is it doesn't have to be a serious news event. It can be something silly, it can be something in that person's life. There's a commonality. People understand. People make a connection one to another through these images.

Time for the shot of the day, we pick the challenge as an animal battle a tortoise versus a cat. That's right, the tortoise is defending it's turf in (INAUDIBLE) South Africa. The cat, much bigger, doesn't scare the tortoise, the tortoise takes on the cat.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Happening now, breaking news out of the UK ...

SANCHEZ: And sometimes imitation is the greatest form of flattery.

MARCUS HARUN, CNN I-REPORTER: I decided to make a video in which I pretended to be Wolf Blitzer in "THE SITUATION ROOM." I made the graphics all myself to look exactly like CNN.

BLITZER: Look at this.

HARUN: ...during the war when their plane crashed. Why did no one find them sooner? Now there's some boys that were confirmed dead. Find out how they were rescued and how they survived. I'm Marcus Harun and you're in "THE SITUATION ROOM."

JACK CAFFERTY: I think he's got it down, Wolf.

WOLF BLITZER: He did a great job. He had me nailed down. He had the whole set nailed down.

CAFFERTY: He's just not old enough to grow your beard yet.

BLITZER: Not yet, but he looks like he's got a future in this business.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

NGUYEN: If only he had the beard.

MARCIANO: We have a ton of great i-Reports from the past year. See them all on our i-Report special "Caught on Camera," watch it again New Year's Eve at 8:00 eastern.

NGUYEN: It's not too late to vote on your favorite i-Reports of 2007. Just logon to our Web site, cnn.com/yearinreview.

MARCIANO: CNN NEWSROOM continues with Isha Sesay. Isha?

NGUYEN: Yeah, she joins us now.

SESAY: Thanks Betty.

Well hello everyone, I'm Isha Sesay, in this weekend for Fredricka Whitfield.

Now, anger, denial and bitter accusations erupt on this third day of mourning for former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. The streets of Karachi are cooling down after rioting left at least 38 people dead. But the political arena is certainly heating right up. There are conflicting reports about how Bhutto died and who's behind the assassination. Bhutto's former aide tells CNN it's beginning to look like a government cover up.

Well the big question of course, who's behind Bhutto's assassination. Here's CNN's homeland security correspondent Jeanne Meserve.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Look at the right-hand side of the screen and you will see it, a gun raised and firing at Benazir Bhutto. Pakistani authorities are already saying who they believe orchestrated the killing.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.voxant.com