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CNN Newsnight Aaron Brown
Reporter Daniel Pearl: Still Alive or Not?
Aired February 01, 2002 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JUDY WOODRUFF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, I'm Judy Woodruff in tonight for Aaron Brown. They tell me that nearly every week, a loyal NEWSNIGHT viewer writes in hoping for a fun Friday night broadcast.
Well we will have some lighter things tonight, but it is hard even to think about that when we look back on today and the case of Daniel Pearl. We saw in the hours after September the 11th the agony of the families not knowing whether their loved one was alive or dead, and then in the weeks and now months after, they agony for thousands still with no body to lay to rest.
Well tonight, the not knowing lies squarely with the family and friends, and especially the pregnant wife of Danny Pearl, the journalist held hostage in Pakistan. The reports are all over the map. No one can be sure whether he is a live or dead. Agony for his family first, but also a struggle, a race for the United States to figure out what happened.
And that is where we begin our ship around the world with Andrea Koppel at the State Department. Andrea, the headline.
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Judy, the fate of "Wall Street Journal" reporter Daniel Pearl is still a mystery tonight. Today there were two conflicting reports, one e-mail claiming Pearl was dead, another mysterious phone call claiming that the kidnappers wanted a $2 million reward for his release.
WOODRUFF: And now to Barbara Starr at the Pentagon, an investigation into a deadly incident in Afghanistan -- Barbara.
BARBARA STARR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Judy, the sound at the Pentagon is drip, drip, drip, a little piece of information, of new information coming out every day this week. Now the Pentagon thinks it might have a problem.
WOODRUFF: And now to the White House, the latest on Enron and Kelly Wallace is on that.
KELLY WALLACE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Judy, late tonight the Justice Department stepped up its criminal probe of the collapse of Enron, sending a letter to the White House calling on the White House to retain all documents, notes and e-mails related to Enron going back to January, 1999. Aides say that staffers were alerted immediately to comply with the request, and Bush advisers continue to say no on in the Bush White House engaged in any wrongdoing. Judy.
WOODRUFF: Well, we'll be back with all of you in a just a moment. Coming up, my interview with King Abdullah of Jordan, who met with President Bush today. We'll also look at the debate over mammograms, a troubling one for women worried about breast cancer. And then, the lighter stories, we'll look at Super Bowl ads after 9/11. Like so many things, they changes, and then again, they haven't.
And what would Roy have thought of 9/11? Rule #10 of the Roy Rogers Rider's Club, always respect our flag and our country. We'll remember Roy, as his son struggles to keep his dad's museum afloat.
All that to come, but we begin with Daniel Pearl and the conflicting reports of whether he is a live or not. Earlier tonight, an expert pointed out just how easy it is for anyone to send an e-mail like the one received today.
So in addition to the terror of knowing what may have happened to Daniel Pearl, there is also the frustration of not really knowing for sure. It's not an uplifting way to start a newscast, but it's the only way we've got tonight. So let's go back to CNN's Andrea Koppel at the State Department. Andrea.
KOPPEL: Judy, good evening. Well, State Department officials tell me that the investigation continues. Officials are not discounting anything. Obviously the import of this latest e-mail claiming to come from the kidnappers of Danny Pearl, claiming that he is dead, that they have made good on their threat to kill him in 24 hours is weighing on their minds.
They're very sensitive to the fact that family and friends and colleagues of Daniel Pearl are hanging on every word, and they don't want to put them through an emotional roller coaster. So for that reason, investigators, officials are keeping tight-lipped this evening. They say that they are pursuing every lead.
They're working, not only to examine the text of this e-mail, which did not come with a photograph of Danny Pearl, but they're also working furiously on the ground in Pakistan with investigators there, hoping that they will be able to track down Daniel Pearl as quickly as possible.
Earlier today, President Bush made very clear that his investigation, as far as he is concerned, this investigation is something that the U.S. takes very seriously.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We are working with the Pakistani Government to chase down any leads possible. For example, we're trying to follow the trail of the e-mails that have been sent, with the sole purpose of saving this man or finding him and rescuing him. We've been in touch with the Wall Street Journal, and obviously we're deeply concerned and as is the Pakistani Government, and we'll continue to do everything we can to rescue him.
KOPPEL: Among the complications trying to decipher exactly who this e-mail came from, Judy, the last three previous e-mails that they've received, that western news organizations have received, have all come from different senders. They've gone to different recipients. The text of the messages changes all the time.
Why is that important? Well, if you are someone who is computer literate, if you're someone who is very sophisticated in the ways of electronic mail, then you're able to disguise your tracks, and that is something that U.S. officials are having to deal with tonight, as they try desperately to race against the clock, hoping that they're not too late. Judy.
WOODRUFF: Andrea, are they saying whether they have any leads at all? I mean, you know, yes they may be trying to disguise their tracks, but presumably they're finding something about where these are coming from.
KOPPEL: Well if they are, they're not telling us, and they're being very careful about that. Not only, as I mentioned, because of the sensitivities of Daniel Pearl's family and friends, but also because they don't want to tip off the kidnappers who are holding Daniel Pearl right now.
And so what they're doing, I mean they are able to obviously pick out some clues. President Bush himself indicated that, and they're trying to follow those leads. They know that there is a group claiming to be the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty. They know that there are some individuals, some Muslim clerics that are out there, that they are questioning. But so far, Judy, they say they do not know where Daniel Pearl is.
WOODRUFF: All right, Andrew Koppel at the State Department, thank you. Well Karachi, where the search for Danny Pearl's body is happening, Danny Pearl alive as well, Karachi is a tough place to find anything. For one thing, it's bigger than New York. Karachi is also Pakistan's capitol of fundamentalism.
In asking sympathy for a western reporter, you can imagine that's a scarce commodity. CNN's Ben Wedeman is following developments from Karachi, where it is now Saturday morning. Hello, Ben.
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Judy. It's been a long agonizing and largely sleepless night for many of us here in Karachi, waiting for some kind of news regarding the fate of Mr. Pearl.
We know that throughout the night, the Pakistani police have been working feverishly to try, either to find the body of Mr. Pearl, or to find the kidnappers to ascertain his fate, his whereabouts, and really it appears at the moment that they're stumped.
We saw yesterday, in fact, by the end of the day, the end of Friday here, that the investigation seemed to be in some disarray with various suspects being declared more or less innocent in the case, and in fact it appears that the police were engaging themselves in a certain amount of disinformation to try to confuse those kidnappers.
Now, I have a copy of the e-mail that was sent regarding the alleged claim of the execution of Mr. Pearl. It's a bone-chilling e- mail to tell you the truth. We read that, according to the author of this e-mail, that we are thirsty for the blood of another American. Security is seriously heightened in this area. We are taking many extra precautions, and we're all taking this threat very seriously. Judy.
WOODRUFF: Ben, are you getting any more information there, in terms of potential sources, than we are here in the U.S.?
WEDEMAN: In fact, the police are stumped frankly. This group that claims to be holding Mr. Pearl, the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty, is - no one has ever heard of it before. It seems to have just been made up for the purpose of this kidnapping. And as you mentioned, this is a city.
Not only is it a capitol of fundamentalism, it's a capitol of kidnapping. It's a capitol to a large extent of lawlessness. There are problems of kidnappings, car jackings, all sorts of that activity that really makes this place a very difficult place or theater to operate, not only for journalists, for the police as well, who for many years have been struggling with this lawlessness. Judy.
WOODRUFF: All right, Ben Wedeman in Karachi, Capitol of Kidnapping. What a chilling name for that city.
Well now, we go to the Pentagon, to the Central Command and then new questions about a recent commando raid north of Kandahar. Once again, here's CNN's Barbara Starr.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STARR (voice over): The Pentagon is slowly revealing just how concerned it is that its commandos made a deadly mistake, when Special Forces raided a compound in Afghanistan more than a week ago.
For the first time, officials acknowledge that a high-level investigation of the raid is underway. General Tommy Franks, head of Central Command, the man running the war is asking: "Did this all go the way we intended?"
A senior military official said Franks ordered the investigation in part, based on after-action reports from the commando team that conducted the mission. Franks has personally told Afghan Leader Hamid Karzai that he wants to find out what happened.
On January 24th, U.S. Commandos staged a pre-dawn raid north of Kandahar against what they believed was an al Qaeda hideout. Instead, they found what they then thought were Taliban troops. Fifteen were killed, 27 captured. AC-130 gun ships were called in, destroying the compound and a huge ammunitions stockpile. Locals soon claimed that U.S. forces had killed some Karzai supporters. They said the U.S. was misled into launching an attack by rival warlords. On Monday, the Pentagon denied it made a mistake.
REAR ADMIRAL JOHN STUFFLEBEEM, PENTAGON SPOKESMAN: This had the clear indications of being a legitimate military target, based on the indicators that we had been observing over time.
STARR: By Wednesday, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was telling the news media that the Pentagon was indeed looking into the matter.
GENERAL RICHARD MYERS, JOINT CHIEFS CHAIRMAN: I don't think it was any sense on our fault, or on our part, that we had done something wrong. It was that when there are allegations, you got to go run them to ground so that's what we're doing.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
STARR (on camera): Judy, the Pentagon - the 27 people captured in Afghanistan are still being questioned by U.S. military forces, but more than a week after the raid, it's clear the Pentagon is now not sure what really happened.
WOODRUFF: Barbara, normally what are they saying at the Pentagon about what kind of information they normally would need to have before they would go forward with a raid like this one?
STARR: Well what they have told us is that U.S. Commandos had this facility under surveillance for some time, that they had seen stolen U.N. vehicles moving in and out, that they had seen convoys of vehicles late at night, and that they had never seen women and children in the compound, which was unusual.
That led them to think that this was an al Qaeda facility. And now, they're just not sure. And what's not clear is whether or not there was intelligence or information given to them by some local Afghan warlords, and whether that information had misled U.S. Commandos.
WOODRUFF: All right, Barbara Starr. Well, Barbara's piece echoes what Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said a few weeks ago. He warned that this could be the toughest part of the war, the mopping up things. He said, this can get confusing from here on out.
Well it's a challenge we don't often think of when we think about fighting a war, and joining us now to talk about it, CNN Consultant and retired Major General Don Shepperd. General Shepperd, welcome back.
MAJOR GENERAL DON SHEPPERD, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Judy.
WOODRUFF: Barbara called this a high-level investigation. What's involved in something like this?
SHEPPERD: Well, she's absolutely right. First of all, this is not a cover-up. General Franks wants to know what happened and why did it happen. The initial indications were, this is a target that we were after, after careful examination, in accordance with the rules that you set down, the rules of engagement, and then of course approval was given for the raid, based upon the indicators we were watching for.
Out away from everything, no women and children, stolen vehicles moving in and out late at night, all the things that you'd be looking for if you were looking for Omar, or anyone that was an al Qaeda or Taliban. After a long period of investigation, or observation, they decided to do it, and now all these reports come back, wrong guys. He wants to know the answer to this.
WOODRUFF: All right. In this kind of an investigation, what do you do? You talk to whom? I mean a lot of people were killed. There was a lot of damage done.
SHEPPERD: Right.
WOODRUFF: How do you conduct this investigation?
SHEPPERD: First of all, you put a general officer or a flag officer in charge. Reportedly there's a one-star flag officer. It could be a general, could be an admiral. They haven't named him yet.
And basically, you conduct it just like an accident investigation. You take the people that went on the raid. You question them. You look at the intelligence that they went on, that they decided upon before they went on this raid. You talk to the detainees that we have now. You talk to the local people in charge of Kandahar to say, you know, you gave us this information and let's go back over this piece by piece, just like an accident investigation.
WOODRUFF: But you know, we are told over and over again General Shepperd, what you've got in Afghanistan now are all these rival factions. How does the United States know who to believe over there?
SHEPPERD: Very carefully, but in the end, it's always based upon human judgment. So you do the best you can. You find out who you can trust. You take little steps and then you take bigger and bigger steps until you say 'yes, I can rust this persona and the information and where the information comes from.
But it's very, very difficult and the chances of making a mistake are there all the time.
WOODRUFF: But you've got people on all sides who have their own agenda.
SHEPPERD: Right.
WOODRUFF: Which may not necessarily coincide with the agenda of the U.S.
SHEPPERD: Right, exactly. And again, you're relying in this case on the special forces that live with these people on the ground, that know who to trust and, again, over time, you test them from time to time to try to find out.
But it's always getting down to a value judgment of, do I trust this or do I not? Am I sure enough to go shoot in this particular area? In this case, it looks like they were.
WOODRUFF: Yes, you say they've been living with them, but it's only been for four or five months.
SHEPPERD: Right.
WOODRUFF: I mean these rivalries in Afghanistan go back hundreds of years.
SHEPPERD: Yes, they do and it's not easy. And again, we try to be very, very careful to avoid the type of thing that's being alleged here. On the other hand again, somebody at some point has to say, I believe this. Go do it, and that person can be wrong.
WOODRUFF: Do you think they'll get to the bottom of it?
SHEPPERD: I absolutely do. I think General Franks is bound and determined to get to the bottom of this, because his credibility with the Kandahar commander and with the Hamid Karzai regime, depends on getting to the bottom and telling the truth at all times, and I absolutely think he will.
WOODRUFF: All right, retired Air Force General Don Shepperd, CNN Consultant, thank you very much.
SHEPPERD: Certainly.
WOODRUFF: We appreciate it. We want to change the subject now just a little bit and talk about intelligence gathering at home. The USA Patriot Act, passed in October, makes it much easier to do and while most Americans say that's just fine with them, some aren't so sure about what could be coming next. Here now, CNN's David Ensor.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Not since the 1970s, when U.S. intelligence was discovered to have been bugging anti-Vietnam activists like Jane Fonda and Dr. Benjamin Spock, have Americans needed to worry that their government might be spying on them.
It was outlawed in 1978, by a law that also set up a firewall, separating domestic law enforcement information from the CIA. But since September 11th, civil liberties advocates charge, the government has knocked some big holes in that firewall.
MORT HALPERIN, FORMER STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: The FBI and the CIA now can exchange information, not simply on this international terrorist threat, but on anything that's of interest to the CIA and I think that's very dangerous.
ENSOR: Under the USA Patriot Act, signed into law in October, law enforcement can get permission to wiretap a telephone, computer, or fax if suspicion the person might be working for a foreign government or terrorist group is not the reason but only one of the reasons he's being watched, and the new law says intelligence agencies can have access to those wiretaps and to secret Grand Jury testimony as well.
JEFFREY SMITH, FORMER CIA GENERAL COUNSEL: We have expanded it, but in my judgment the courts will watch this. It will not be abused.
ENSOR: Former CIA General Counsel Smith says if the new law had been in place before September 11th, then the FBI and the CIA might have been able to search the laptop of the suspected would-be 20th hijacker, Zacarius Moussaoui immediately after he was questioned, for wanting to learn to fly but not to land.
SMITH: We might have found things that would have - that clearly were linkages to the other terrorists. Something might have occurred. In my judgment, that's a mistake. Why should the United States laws protect a foreign national who's coming here to kill Americans?
ENSOR: But letting the CIA get Grand Jury information, some of which later turns out to be wrong, could end up, critics say, hurting innocent ordinary Americans.
HALPERIN: And information that's gathered by a Grand Jury, which can compel testimony about lawful political activity in the United States can be shared with the CIA which, in turn, will share it with foreign intelligence services, and we have examples of people who were arrested and tortured, countries like Chile and other places.
ENSOR (on camera): Law enforcement and intelligence officials are now asking Congress for some additional tools, including changes to make it easier to get into the e-mails of suspected terrorists and those they communicate with, and they're also suggesting a new law to require Internet service providers to allow investigators into their files on their clients without a warrant from a judge. Civil liberties advocates are fighting those ideas too. David Ensor, CNN, Washington.
WOODRUFF: Well, in a moment, the crisis in the Middle East as seen from a country caught in the middle. My discussion with Jordan's King Abdullah, when NEWSNIGHT continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WOODRUFF: A late development to tell you about on Enron, the White House and documents that may connect the two. The Justice Department is asking the White House to retain all Enron related papers, going back to January, 1999. So this covers the Bush and Clinton Administrations. CNN's Kelly Wallace has been working the story and once again, we turn to her. Kelly, hello again.
WALLACE: Hello again, Judy. Well the significance here, the Justice Department widening its criminal probe of the collapse of Enron. Late this evening sending a letter to White House Counsel Alberto Gonzalez, calling on the White House to hold onto all documents, e-mails and notes related to Enron, going back to, as you noted, January, 1999 saying the information could be relevant to the Justice Department's criminal investigation.
Now administration officials tell us that immediately after Judge Gonzalez received that letter, he sent out an alert to all White House staffers, urging them and ordering them to comply with the request.
We also understand the Justice Department sent a letter to other Federal agencies, but the Justice Department is not commenting. Now, Judy, as you know Enron and its executives were among the largest contributors, campaign contributors to Mr. Bush's political campaigns, and some Democrats have been questioning whether Enron had any undue influence in this White House.
Bush advisers continue to say that Enron executives contacted two Bush cabinet secretaries and another top official in the fall, asking in some cases for help, but that these officials did not do anything to prevent the company's collapse. In fact, earlier this week, the President said, "if they came to this administration looking for help, they didn't find any."
Still, just as this White House is trying to distance itself from the Enron debacle, the news tonight, the Justice Department telling the White House to make sure all Enron-related documents are held onto and not destroyed. Judy.
WOODRUFF: Kelly, do we know if the White House was not retaining any documents that it had before this warning came down from Justice?
WALLACE: That's a very good question. We don't know. We believe again, as you noted too, some of these documents go back to the Clinton Administration, so there's no sense that any document destroying was going on. And again, right now the Justice Department is saying simply to hold on to these documents, just to make sure they're kept and they're held in case the Justice Department needs them for its investigation. Judy.
WOODRUFF: And just quickly, Kelly, also in connection with Enron, the President made an announcement today about 401 (k) reform.
WALLACE: Exactly. He went out to West Virginia, a Republican retreat, his ideas to give workers more control over their retirement savings. His ideas include allowing workers to sell their company stock and diversify their portfolios after three years. Also making sure that executives do not, are not allowed to sell company stock during periods when employees are barred from doing so. So again, lawmakers have some different ideas, but likely to be a big debate on Capitol Hill about these. Judy.
WOODRUFF: All right, news from the White House late this evening. Kelly Wallace, thanks.
Well, one of the other things President Bush did today was to sit down with the King of Jordan, his majesty King Abdullah, who turned 40 on Wednesday has, like his father the late King Hussein, tried to be a force for moderation in the Middle East, and that has probably never been harder than lately, with almost unceasing Israeli-Palestinian violence.
When I met with the king, we spoke about that, but I began by asking him about President Bush's new campaign to put Iraq, as well as Iran and North Korea, on notice. Iraq is Jordan's neighbor, and the king made it clear, while he wants to support Mr. Bush, he has to be more concerned about his own backyard.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KING ABDULLAH, JORDAN: At the moment, there is so much frustration, desperation in the Middle East, that the core issue of the original conflict has not been resolved, and that is the Israeli- Palestinian one. So that for the Arab street, for the Palestinian street to have armed conflict that is ongoing with the Palestinians, and at the same time see the Iraqi people suffer because of any potential violence, I don't think that the Arab street will be able to handle that.
WOODRUFF: Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia made news with the statement that he found it hard to defend America in the current environment, he said very hard to defend America, how do you do that? Do you find it hard, difficult?
ABDULLAH: Well the thing is, ma'am, when we watch television in the Middle East, you know, you see the sufferings of the Palestinian people, and again I think there's a social economic devastation that's happening to the Palestinians that is not really viewed worldwide.
We have a field hospital in Ramallah. We've had it since the start of the Intifada. We've already done 500 major operations related to interfata injuries. We have treated over 60,000 Palestinians. This is just in one year of one field hospital that we have in the West Bank.
So those of us that are living in the area see the excruciating difficulty that the Palestinian people are going through, and this really does affect, and as this continues, sometimes it's very difficult for people in the Arab world to say that there is a two- sided approach.
WOODRUFF: But the suicide attacks, the terror attacks keep coming.
ABDULLAH: They keep coming, ma'am, and I'm very concerned that we are coming to a new level of violence. A young lady to be a suicide bomber has never happened before in the Arab or Muslim world, and I think again that points to the level of frustration and complete desperation that the Palestinians are facing.
WOODRUFF: But you have now the Prime Minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon, saying to day he's coming to the United States next week and he's going to urge President Bush to continue to isolate Yasser Arafat. He's going to say boycott him, have nothing to do with him. Would that be the right approach?
ABDULLAH: Well, the problem with that is, you push Arafat into the camp of the extremists. You push Palestinians, normal Palestinians, and I've got to again reiterate that the majority of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, the majority of Israel want out of this. They are sick and fed up of the violence.
If you isolate the leadership of the PNA, then what you're doing is taking the moderate Palestinians living in the West Bank and just pushing them over the edge. So we have to be very careful how we pursue that policy.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WOODRUFF: When I asked his majesty about Israeli Prime Minister Sharon's comment this week that he wished Arafat had been killed years ago, the King said that national leaders need to remember that no matter what their personal feelings, their actions affect ordinary people and right now, he said people on both sides in this conflict are in a state of desperation.
Up next, who to believe in a crucial debate over mammograms. This is NEWSNIGHT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WOODRUFF: We're going to switch gears now to talk about a very different subject, one that has caused a lot of confusion and anxiety, especially for millions of women.
It's about breast cancer and mammograms, and how effective mammograms are, really, in saving lives.
There's been a maze of conflicting scientific reports in recent weeks about mammograms, and we thought it would be good to try to sort it all out with an authority on breast cancer, Dr. Susan Love of the Breast Cancer Foundation, and he joins us this evening from Los Angeles
Dr. Love, how does one know which of these studies to take more seriously?
DR. SUSAN LOVE, BREAST CANCER FOUNDATION: Well, I think it's important to realize that there actually are no new studies. There are several, about three or four, randomized controlled studies that looked at mammography in the past and the recent reports are reanalyzing the old data that we already had.
And depending on your point of view, depending on whether you decide to include this study or that study, depends on how the results turnout.
So, the people who are really in favor of mammograph look at it one way, and they get good results and the people who are no so in favor look at it another way and they get not so good results.
WOODRUFF: Well, what causes the researchers or the scientist to do the this? Why can't they just let good enough alone? Why go they have to keep going back over these numbers and these surveys? LOVE: Well, science is an attempt to get at the truth. And they think by looking at the studies very carefully, they think they can -- and they can -- get closer to truth. Medicine is a really a work in progress. It's not the truth. We're trying to figure out the truth at all times.
And sometimes with new research, we get a different angle on the truth.
WOODRUFF: What should women do? I mean, women who are following these news reports, and they read about one study that came out some weeks ago, months ago, last October, that raised questions -- more recently, studies that say no, mammograms are a good idea. How should women approach this and what do you think they should do?
LOVE: Well, I think it's very clear that in women over 50, mammography seems to have an advantage. If there's any advantage, it's in women over 50, and the risk is not very high in that group.
So I think all women over 50 should be getting yearly mammograms.
WOODRUFF: What do you mean the risk?
LOVE: Well, the risk, if you start mammography very young, and get them every year, say at 20, then the risk of the radiation outweighs the benefits.
If you start them at 50, you don't have that problem.
You also start finding, in premenopausal women, a lot of benign things that really aren't cancer, so you get a lot of extra biopsies that you don't need. But after 50 it's pretty clear.
WOODRUFF: But aren't women told -- I was just going to ask you because women -- I'm pretty sure -- because I know I've been told this, that the radiation from a mammography is very low.
LOVE: No. The radiation from mammography is very low, but if you started getting it every year starting at age 20, it would add up.
If you start at age 50, when breast cancer starts becoming more common, and mammography therefore more useful, the cumulative radiation is not going to be as much and it really is not going to be significant.
WOODRUFF: All right. So I interrupted. You were saying, for women over 50, in your view, the benefits of mammography far outweigh the risk and then I didn't let you finish your thought.
LOVE: Absolutely. I think in the younger women, it's not quite as clear weather the benefits outweigh the risk, because it's not quite as clear that mammography is a good tool.
And the main reason is, young women have dense breasts, and mammography is looking at shadows. So, cancer is white. Breast tissue is white. It's like looking for a polar bear in the snow. You just can't distinguish it as well in a younger woman.
Whereas once you go through menopause and your breast tissue gets a little more fatty, cancer shows up against fat very well.
So it's a better tool in older women. Breast cancer is also more common in older women, so that's a good thing. Both work together.
WOODRUFF: In the meantime, women should just keep reading about these studies, but keep a head on their shoulders, too.
LOVE: I think, yeah -- I think you've got to realize that their making arguments about technical points and we shouldn't make such a big deal about every study as if this is the answer. We really need to look over the long-term.
The message, though, is mammography is not perfect. And while we should use it right now, we need to be working very hard to get something that will be better and work for all women.
WOODRUFF: Dr. Susan Love with some words of rationality. Thank you -- we appreciate it. Good to see you again.
Earlier this week, we saw a couple of injured American soldiers, one of them an amputee, touring Washington. So it seems worth noting the passing of an American soldier from an earlier war.
Harold Russell joined the army the day after Pearl Harbor. Three years later, he lost both of his hands in an explosion during training.
But what gained Russell fame was his portrayal of a veteran recovering from both the physical and the psychological wounds in the film, "The Best Years of Our Lives."
That movie, by William Wilder, won seven Oscars including Best Supporting Actor for Russell. He also won a special Oscar for bringing aid and comfort to disabled vets, making him the only person ever to win two Academy Awards for the same role.
Harold Russell was 88.
Coming up next, when over-using one little word can be dangerous. Keith Olberman joins us next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
As journalists, we wage a daily, sometimes hourly, fight against cliches and creating them.
In part, it's a matter of pride. Use a word or a phrase too much and it loses its meaning. It becomes distorted.
In another way, you can almost think of a cliche as dangerous. It means, literally, "printer's stereotype." Emphasis on stereotype.
Contributor Keith Olberman has been thinking about one word now that runs the risk of being over-used, and maybe misused, to describe the wrong people. The word is terrorist, and Keith's here now to explain.
Hello, Keith.
KEITH OLBERMAN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Hi, Judy.
If you've ever seen the movie "Citizen Kane," you'll remember the scene.
The Orson Welles character, on his first day owning the newspaper, orders his editor to send the paper's best reporter to interview a Mr. Silverstone in Brooklyn, who may or may not have murdered his own wife.
The report us instructed to identify himself as a detective from the central office and to demand that Mr. Silverstone produce Mrs. Silverstone.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ORSON WELLES: If Mr. Silverstone gets suspicious and asks to see your man's badge, your man is to get indignant and call Mr. Silverstone an anarchist. Loudly, so the neighbors can hear.
OLBERMAN (voice-over): That's what we called terrorist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Anarchists.
Anarchist floated from country to country and blew up heads of state throughout Europe.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE ANNOUNCER: Alexander I of Yugoslavia lies dying here, his life cut short by the hale of bullets.
OLBERMAN: And insinuated themselves into the labor movement here and elsewhere.
They merrily killed themselves and others, using state-of-the- art, impossible to defend against weapons, like a new thing called dynamite.
And one of them, Leon Czolgosz, who got no closer to the European cells of the leaders of the loosely-knit anarchist movements than his native Ohio, assassinated President William McKinley in 1901.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE ANNOUNCER: Here's the hearse carrying all that is mortal of one of the nation's best love presidents.
OLBERMAN: The problem was, anarchist were with us so for long, Sacco (ph) and Van Zety (ph) were accused of being anarchist, that was in 1920, that we over-used the phrase. By the time of that scene depicted in the newspaper office in "Citizen Kane," around 1890, anarchist had already become a smear word, like communist or liberal were to become later.
This is all mentioned not to criticize the president or his State of the Union address.
BUSH: Evil is real and it must be opposed.
OLBERMAN: He hasn't over-used the term terrorist.
But just as a warning that when we start publically linking three foreign governments at a time with terrorism, we run the danger of heading down a road in which the term terrorist loses its real meaning, and we'll start using it to describe sincere peace protesters or over the line revelers at Mardi Gras, or some poor guy named Silverstone in Brooklyn.
WELLES: Here is a three-column headline in "the Chronicle." Why hasn't the "Inquirer" a three-column headline.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The news wasn't big enough.
WELLES: Mr. Carter, if the headline is big enough, it makes the news big enough.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OLBERMAN (on camera): And that is of course the other problem, the headline. Whether in the time of Charles Foster Kane or in our own, we in news have never exactly been known for our restraint and, Judy, the word terrorist is as attention getting today as anarchist was then.
WOODRUFF: Appreciate the history lesson.
All right, Keith, you are hosting GREENFIELD AT LARGE TONIGHT. Tell us what you've got.
OLBERMAN: Something on a completely different tack: why America can't get enough competition. Not just the Super Bowl or "Fear Factor." We'll be talking to the guys from the International Federation of Competitive Eating and we will get a demonstration, if we can all stomach it.
That will be on GREENFIELD AT LARGE and tonight it's getting larger, right after NEWSNIGHT -- Judy.
WOODRUFF: Too late for me to sign up. Just kidding.
Keith Olberman -- thanks.
We have to run a few commercials now, but after that we'll run a few more. Only these you'll really want to see.
Now to suggest you don't want to see the ones that are coming right up, but here's a hint, think Super Bowl. NEWSNIGHT for a Friday.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WOODRUFF: If you think back, there were many predictions about the media after September the 11th. Irony was dead. Comedy would take a long time to re-emerge. Commercial-makers would have to reinvent how they pitched products. Well, all of this was gross exaggeration.
No better time now to look at how commercials, in particular, have changed, than right now, ahead of Super Bowl Sunday. We thought we'd save you time to go to the kitchen by showing you clips of some ads tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(MUSIC)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Toasted.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is it?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a Bud Lite.
(MUSIC)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WOODRUFF: Well, that was just a glimpse, but looking at that, the post-9-11 ads don't look a whole lot different than the pre-9-11's do, but there are intriguing trends when you think about it, and we're now joined by somebody who does this for a living.
She's ad critic Barbara lippert from "Adweek" magazine.
Barbara, what happened to the patriotism of post-9-11?
BARBARA LIPPERT, "ADWEEK": Well, we're still going to see it. I want to point out the E-trade ad was from two years ago, when things were crazy and all the dot-coms were on the Super Bowl and people were starting businesses in the garage.
So the chimp was not from this year, although we will see the chimp again. The rest are.
WOODRUFF: That may have been my favorite, by the way.
LIPPERT: Absolutely.
WOODRUFF: But tell us what's different about these other ones.
LIPPERT: Well, this year it's a little more schizophrenic.
On the one hand, we're going to have a lot of sentiment and a lot of emotion. There is one PSA with Giuliani thanking what we've done for New York.
There's an Anheuser-Busch ad where the Clydesdales, you know, in their nobility, march over the Brooklyn Bridge and pay homage to ground zero.
And on the other end is the extreme is that woman falling on her face on the sandwich.
As you said before, that's the kind of deep, dark, black humor and sarcasm that everybody said would completely disappear after 9-11. Especially shooting someone in the neck, that seems kind of violent.
And yet people seem refreshed by it. They want to be entertained. They want to be amused. They want to forget.
WOODRUFF: By shooting somebody in the neck?
LIPPERT: Well, this is -- it's the way to show that this company was cheating. But a lot of other commercials on the Super bowl this year do hearken to these company's roots.
Like Pepsi goes back with Britney to all of the decades, the 60's, the 70's, the 80's, the 90's. We have Britney Funicello in the 60's and before that she's sort of and channeling Miss Peggy Lee in the 50's. And they use all the old Pepsi jingles.
And so it's sort of the anti-Enron approach. Because Pepsi has been in our lives for more than 40 years. We've grown up with it. We remember it. And it's still here. And it makes that kind of deep, emotional connection.
And Cadillac does the same thing. They show that very iconic 1959 car with the tail fins driving up to a modern car.
So, it's showing that these are deep American brands that really conjure up a lot of nostalgia and memories. And it's almost like the advertising equivalent of the "Carol Burnette Reunion." It just makes people feel good.
WOODRUFF: Barbara, I guess I'm a little bit old-fashioned. What about the clip showing people getting undressed or dressed? I couldn't tell which one it was.
LIPPERT: Well, that was a Levi's clip. And what they did is, they used the Internet this year. They offered three commercials on the Internet and people had to vote for which one they wanted. And that was one of them. And if that was a nod to the women's vote, they are sadly mistaken, I think.
But the one with the crazy legs guy in Mexico City was also another one, and I think that's the one that's going to win.
WOODRUFF: How do the people who make these commercials, Barbara, figure out ahead of time what's going to work or do they?
LIPPERT: Well, they do a lot of focus groups. They make fun of focus groups, as that woman falling on the sandwich.
But this year they used the Internet for -- last year, Levi's did a commercial that was sort of bleak about a donor pair of jeans, and it bombed. So this year, to make sure and be cautious, they let everybody vote on it. So it's sort of pretested.
Other agencies, like Anheuser-Busch make 40 commercials, and then at the very last minute put five in the Super Bow.
WOODRUFF: Are we going to see the frog anymore?
LIPPERT: The frogs are gone. The waz'up guys are gone. There's one sort of parody of waz'up, but no. Mostly it's new stuff. And one look back at the Bush family and the deep values they convey for our feelings in the country.
WOODRUFF: You don't mean the George Bush family?
LIPPERT: No. No. The Busch family of Anheuser-Busch.
WOODRUFF: I just wanted to be sure.
Speaking of the bush family, the White House is spending over $1.5 million for each of two 30-second spots. What do you know about those?
LIPPERT: Yeah, this is unprecedented, but they did get kind of a bargain. They did get a discount, and it's one way to reach 140 million people. Otherwise they'd be on at 4:00 in the morning somewhere and no one would see them.
And they are antidrug messages that are linked to terrorism, so they're very timely. It's the only people are watching really with the intent to look at the commercials, so they will be seen. And I think they'll be very dramatic because they're directed by this guy named Tony Kaye (ph) who does very, intense black and white footage.
WOODRUFF: So no advance peek at them?
LIPPERT: No, they are not releasing them at all. They don't want the extra publicity that, you know, seeing them ahead of time brings, I guess.
WOODRUFF: All right. What's your prediction? What's going to be the most memorable spot of all?
LIPPERT: Well, I'm hoping E-trade, again. Last year was so brilliant, because the chimp was commenting on all of the dead dot- coms, and he rode a horse mournfully with a tear coming down his eye as PimentoLoaf.com went by and HighClass.com and the sock puppet. So I'm hoping that he comments on this year again.
And some of the Anheuser-Busch ads will do well, and I think people will like the Britney Pepsi visit to the old jingles.
WOODRUFF: And I still miss the frogs. But, again, I'm kind of old-fashioned.
LIPPERT: I Loved the frogs and the lizards were great, too. But you know what? When all else fails, we'll always have dancing animals and we'll always have cross-dressers, so look for those, too.
WOODRUFF: OK. A lot to look forward to Sunday night at the Super bowl. The ads. All right. Barbara Lippert, "Adweek" magazine, thanks very much.
LIPPERT: Thank you.
WOODRUFF: We appreciate it.
You remember the line from the song? "Celluloid heroes never really die"?
Well, they don't. But in a moment, see what happens when their fans do. It's the story of a man, a horse and a museum at the end of the trail.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WOODRUFF: Finally tonight, remembering Roy, Dale and Trigger.
It's hard to imagine, but even some adults in their 20's can't remember a time before Nickelodeon or 24-hour entertainment for kids.
Decades ago, there were just a handful of shows that kids, believe it or not often with their parents, watched religiously. And one of the best from the '50's was "The Roy Rogers Show."
If I knew you better, I'd confess that I used to watch it.
Well, as they said in the song, "some trails are happy ones, other ones are blue." The one we're about to follow is a little of both.
Anne McDermott now, from the Roy Rogers, Dale Evans Museum in California.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE ANNOUNCER: The Roy Rogers Show.
ANNE MCDERMOTT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They galloped across our TV screens almost 50 years ago, making our Sunday evenings so special.
We read about Roy and Dale. We played with their toys. We ate what they ate.
ROY ROGERS, TV PERSONALITY: Yes sir, buckaroos, Sugar Crisp is my favorite.
MCDERMOTT: We could visit their museum, in Victorville, California, to see Trigger in all his stuffed glory.
But Roy and Dale are gone now, and these days Trigger rears patiently waiting for little visitors who no longer come. They've grown up. They're gray.
Well, face it, we're not little buckaroos anymore. And the children of today no longer dream of riding the range. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And there's Dale Evans.
MCDERMOTT: He turns away, he doesn't know her, or him either.
That's Roy, with son, Dusty, one of a zillion family photos in this very personal museum.
Today, Dusty is curator and unofficial greeter.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want a copy of this picture.
MCDERMOTT: Better get it now. The future of the museum is bleak.
You see, when Dale died last year, the museum was left with a multi-million dollar tax bill and dwindling revenues.
Dusty ponders a move to the Midwest, or maybe just closing their doors.
And yet, not long ago, something surprising happened. Business actually got better, briefly, in the wake of September 11th.
DUSTY ROGERS, ROY AND DALE'S SON: There's only certain things that matter in this world, and it's your family and your loved ones, and so everybody kind of run to, kind of go back to their past, to try to go back to an era in their life that was safe.
MCDERMOTT: How did they make people happy?
Well, they were the good guys. Roy was a hero. He never shot and killed anybody.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He'd shoot the gun out of their hands.
MCDERMOTT: Memories are for sale at the museum gift shop. That bedspread you once owned, that lunch-box you used to carry. Silly, and yet...
D. ROGERS: You can talk about any star you want to, you can talk about Marilyn Monroe, or Bogart or any of them, and you have a certain conversation that takes place, but when you mention Roy and Dale, everybody goes, oh, yeah.
MCDERMOTT: Roy and Dale grow dimmer and dimmer these days. Until maybe you hear a song or catch an old movie, or maybe talk to one of those long ago buckaroos who still remembers.
Anne McDermott, CNN, Victorville, California.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WOODRUFF: I hope they don't close it. I didn't have the lunch- box, but I did have the Dale Evans paper-dolls.
Well, that's it for NEWSNIGHT. Thanks for joining us. I'm Judy Woodruff, filling in for Aaron.
Good night.
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