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CNN Wolf Blitzer Reports

More Controversy at Winter Olympics; U.S., Pakistan Vow to Find Pearl's Kidnappers

Aired February 22, 2002 - 19:00   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.
KATE SNOW, GUEST HOST: Tonight on WOLF BLITZER REPORTS: Judgment call, the Olympic controversy. Echoes of the Cold War as Russia threatens to put the Games on ice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VLADIMIR SOLOVIEV, JOURNALIST: This contest is not political. It is emotion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SNOW: The Winter Games drawing to a close as they began, with more medal madness over figure skating, this time it's the gold won by Sarah Hughes. We will go live to our correspondent in Salt Lake City and we'll speak live with Olympic historian Bill Mallon, publisher and figure skating expert Mark Lund; and for extreme sports, Mike Jaquet, the publisher of "Freeze" magazine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The murder of Daniel Pearl is an absolute outrage.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SNOW: The U.S. and Pakistan vowed to get all of those responsible for the murder of journalist Daniel Pearl.

Good evening. I'm Kate Snow in tonight for Wolf Blitzer.

The Winter Olympics are heading into their final weekend, but the buzz generated by these Games and the controversy may linger for quite a while. There seems to have been one firestorm after another since the Olympic torch was lit in Salt Lake City. The latest: The lower house of Russia's parliament unanimously passing a resolution urging the Russian team to boycott the Closing Ceremony. The Olympic charter calls for mutual understanding, something these Games seem to lack.

CNN's Rusty Dornin joins me now live from Salt Lake City on these claims of tarnished gold -- Rusty.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, the good news is that right now, the U.S. team and the Russian ice hockey team are on the ice. The Americans are up 1-0, but there was some question as to whether that game was going to take place at all.

After yesterday, the Russians had threatened to pull their athletes out of these Games altogether because they feel they've had a string of unfavorable decisions against their athletes. There was a meeting this afternoon between the Russian teams and the IOC, and apparently they had gained assurances from Jacques Rogge, the IOC president, that their concerns would be looked into. But as you said, it's one firestorm after another. It's going to be interesting to see how history views the Winter Games of 2002.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(voice-over): The sun has shined nearly every day. The crowds, record breaking, along with the performances. Security worries, unfounded. It looked great, but the sounds from the Winter Games were often grating.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This will definitely be remembered as the whining Salt Lake 2002 Games. And it's really too bad because we saw some great Olympic performances along a variety of sports.

DORNIN: What will they remember? A 16-year-old start-up stole the gold. Then the Russians protested. The winner should have been their skater, despite mistakes.

SOLDVIEV: This protest is not political. It's emotional because any other state would just be gone and that would be fair because from the point of view of mass media and the way judges behave, that's the worst Olympics ever.

DORNIN: The Russians weren't happy long before that, threatening to pick up their athletes and go home after a cross country skier was disqualified after a pre-race blood test, part of a trend, they say, against their athletes. The South Koreans threatened to pull out of the Closing Ceremonies because speed skater Kim Dong-sung had his gold medal yanked for blocking American Apolo Ohno.

How about the Lithuanian ice dancers, angry because they got edged out of a medal. But their's, they say, was a selfless protest.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We just want somehow to improve the judging system, the competition system. And that's why we are here. We just want to help those who are coming after us.

DORNIN: But the ones who came before them may have started it all, the pairs judging scandal, "Skategate." Russian skaters won on a Monday but had to share the gold medal by Friday.

JACQUES ROGGE, PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE: The IOC agreed and a gold medal will be awarded to the Canadian pair.

DORNIN: The scandal and all that complaining will likely soon change skate judging forever, a pile of protests that has the IOC working overtime.

FRANCOIS CARRARD, INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE: But the stakes are high, the emotions are high and the tensions are high.

DORNIN: So how will these Games be remembered? For getting all those slackers on snowboards a little respect? A level of commercialism that, well, could probably only be seen in America? For the U.S. team setting its own record for Winter medals, though critics say some of those medals were undeserved.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(on camera): Well, it ain't over until it's over. So until Sunday, there will be more victories, more defeats and perhaps a few more protests -- Kate.

SNOW: Not over yet. Rusty, tell me about that protest that was lodged by the Russians about the women's figure skating. Where does that stand now?

DORNIN: Well, apparently, the International Skating Union has yet to rule on that. The Russian Skating Federation did make the rounds of the media center, even this afternoon. They're still very upset by it. They really feel that she should have gotten the gold. They think that Sarah Hughes came in fourth in the short program and that their skater should have gotten the gold. But the International Skating Union has not ruled on that and they may not until the end of these Olympic Games. It may not be for a couple months. Then again, it may happen tomorrow.

SNOW: Rusty Dornin, live in Salt Lake City, thanks so much.

Russians' displeasure is more than just a series of official protests, though. Just as people can feel tremendous pride over Olympic results, there can also be obvious anger. As CNN's Moscow bureau chief Jill Dougherty found out.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At Moscow's outdoor pool, the Seagull (ph), the air is frigid, the water warm and people are steamed. I got an earful from two friends, both named Lyudmila.

"Personally, I think our team should come home", she says. "They've been insulted and offended." "I think everyone can see it", her friend says, "what kind of a team we've got, how strong they are." The two Lyudmilas and others here at the pool say there are just too many cases of unfairness toward the Russian teams.

Last week, the Russian figure skaters got the gold, but after a judging scandal, had to share it with the Canadians. Then, Russia's powerhouse women's cross country ski team was disqualified over alleged doping. Figure skater Irina Slutskaya won a silver medal instead of the gold.

(on camera): All of this has hit a nerve with Russians. They say the U.S. and others are injecting politics into the Olympics, a throwback to the old Cold War days in 1980, when the U.S. boycotted the Summer Olympics here in Moscow.

(voice-over): Even President Vladimir Putin is miffed, astounded, he says, by the Olympic judges' decisions. He chalks it up to commercialism and, using a popular Russian expression, criticizes how the new leadership of the International Olympics Committee is handling its first Olympics.

"For the new leadership," he says, "the first pancake is a flop." The head of the Russian Olympics Committee threat to walk out of the Games. The Russian parliament overwhelmingly passed resolutions saying if the IOC doesn't do some explaining and apologize to the Russian national team, they should boycott the Closing Ceremonies.

Back at the pool, several swimmers agree. The Russian national team, they say, has worked too hard for four years to simply walk away. The truth they say will out.

Jill Dougherty, CNN, Moscow.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SNOW: Some of the 30 U.S. medals have come in sports new to the Olympic Games, like snowboarding, popular among U.S. athletes. Has adding certain sports to the Games helped build the U.S. medal count? Joining us to discuss that and a whole range of other issues, all these controversies of these Games, Bill Mallon, president of the International Society of Olympic Historians; and on the left there, Mark Lund, publisher of "International Figure Skating" magazine and analyst for CNN. Also joining us, Mike Jaquet, publisher of "Freeze" magazine. He joins us from Park City, Utah. Thank you all for being here.

Bill Mallon, let me start with you. You've documented so many Olympic Games. You're a historian of these games. Have you ever seen this kind of controversy?

BILL MALLON, INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY OF OLYMPIC HISTORIANS: Probably not as much media involvement in the controversy, but there's been a lot of controversies in the Olympics before.

The worst Games for this was actually 1908, almost 100 years ago in London. They called it the battle of Shepherd's Bush because the Americans and the British were arguing so much about the outcome of the events.

SNOW: The Russians have, apparently, to boycott. They're not saying they are going to do that anymore, the Closing Ceremonies. But they've also talked about maybe boycotting Athens in 2004. Are they serious, do you think, about this? Why are the Russians making such threats?

MALLON: I think they are making those threats because they haven't had a very good Olympic Games. This is the first time ever the Russians or the Soviets have not finished in the top two in the medal count at the Winter Olympics. And it's the first time ever the United States has beaten the Soviet Union or Russia in the medal count at the Winter Olympics.

Normally, Russia is a winter power. But we actually did better this time. I don't think they liked that. I don't think they liked the fact that these were excellent Games. Everything went very well. And maybe, it was an attempt to rain on our parade a little bit.

SNOW: Let's bring up that medal count right now. We've got it for the screen here. The totals looking like this. Germany has a total of 33; United States, 30; Norway, 21; Austria, 16; Russia rounding it out with just 14 medals.

Mark Lund, do you think this has to do with sour grapes?

MARK LUND, "INTERNATIONAL FIGURE SKATING" MAGAZINE: Yes. I most definitely do think it has to do with sour grapes. It's unfortunate that the Russian Federation, Figure Skating Federation has taken the actions that they did yesterday, because the result was very clear. So I think it's nothing more than sour grapes, absolutely.

SNOW: Has the sport that you studied so closely, Mark, has it been changed? Has ice skating, figure skating been changed forever by these games, do you think?

LUND: Oh, I think so. I think 2002 really is setting the change of figure skating. I think the ISU Congress, when they meet in June in Japan will have hopefully a wide range of sweeping reforms that will get passed that will bring figure skating well into this century.

SNOW: Mike Jaquet, let me bring you in here. In 1998 and also this year there have been these new sports. They call them extreme sports, Gen-X kind of sports -- the halfpipe, freestyle skiing. You know the sports better than I do. Do you think those sports are inflating the Americans' medal count?

MIKE JAQUET, PUBLISHER, "FREEZE" MAGAZINE: Not really. I mean, obviously they are this year because we did so well in snowboarding and freestyle skiing, but you look back to Nagano, we only had one guy, Russ Powers on the medal podium there for snowboarding. So a lot of -- I mean, snowboarding is an American sport, it was invented in America, but at the same time it internationalized itself in the early '90s, so to say that they're just adding snowboarding just to beef up the American medal count just isn't true. We happened to do very well this year, but that's not the reason why those sports were added.

Those sports were added because that's what American youth wants today. They're interested in these sports, and this is what they care about. And I think when we look in history in the future, it will be these games that really turn on a whole new generation of kids to the Olympics, and they would have lost them without these sports.

SNOW: Do you see other countries getting involved in these extreme sports? As we move on, Americans dominating now, but do you think eventually there will be more competitive other nations?

JAQUET: Well, if you look at what the future extreme sports might be at the Olympics, you're looking at probably skiing in the halfpipe, maybe border cross and skier cross. Those two sports, in particular border cross and skier cross, are very internationalized sports right now. In fact, the Europeans are stalwarts in them, and they'll do very well.

So I think as they add more extreme sports, they'll find that this might be an American commercial phenomenon right now, but as far as participation and the top level athletes, it's not just America that does well and competes in these sports.

SNOW: Bill Mallon, you're the historian here. What do you make of those extreme sports? Are they legitimate?

MALLON: I think they're legitimate. I think they've been great for the games. They did inflate our medal count some. The number of added sports on the program and added events certainly inflates our medal count, but those sports are popular in other places, as Mark said. They have a Czech one in men's aerials, an Australian one in women's aerials and freestyle skiing. And snowboarding, that's popular in Europe, and the U.S. doesn't always dominate that anymore.

SNOW: Let's go back to figure skating for a moment. Mark, talk to me about the judging. Can the judging -- there have been a lot of plans now put in place to change the judging. Can it be reformed, do you think, or is there a certain amount of -- maybe corruption is too strong a word -- but is that endemic to it or can it be changed?

LUND: Well, you know, it's a judged sport. There will always be the subjectivity of it. I think -- I do like President Cinquanta's proposal of 14 judges, with seven actually being the deciding factor, with a computer selecting the results at random. So I think we are certainly going in the right direction. Ultimately we'll see what happens in June.

June will really be a big moment for figure skating. I hope a lot of lessons have been learned here over the last couple of weeks. Certainly figure skating has been put under the microscope, and particularly the judging, and hopefully reforms will come. But it's up to the ISU to make this change.

SNOW: It almost seems like one of the lessons learned perhaps is that you can complain and you can whine and then maybe you can get your own gold medal.

LUND: Yeah, it's really sent the wrong signal. Really, I look at the Russian Figure Skating Federation, and I don't know what their point here, what they're trying to do. You look at these two programs for the first and second place, and it's clear who won. The system is in place to whoever was in fourth place, you know, like Sarah Hughes, how she won -- it was following the rule book. It was very clear. And I don't know what the deal is.

SNOW: You don't see any -- you don't seen any -- I mean, you watched last night. Did Irina Slutskaya, did she maybe perform close, at least, to the Americans?

LUND: No, not even close. If you look at Sarah Hughes two triple-triple combinations, as I said earlier today, her -- the triple loop on the end of it is so difficult to do as a figure skater. I mean, some of them only do a double, never mind a triple, and she did two of them. We go back to 1998 Nagano, after Tara Lipinski did two triple-triple combinations, they were both loops. So you know, Sarah Hughes' performance over Irina's was far and above beyond excellent. And Irina just didn't have a good skate last night. It was as simple as that.

SNOW: Bill Mallon, we did have -- we are having a record amounts of people watching these Olympics, the ratings on television are outstanding. A lot of great personal stories. Talk to me about the positive of these games. Is that what you think is going to be taken away from these Salt Lake City games?

MALLON: I hope so. These are great Olympics. The last few Olympic Games in the United States have been OK, but the Europeans have really trashed both Atlanta and Los Angeles games, and I sit in the media center every day surrounded by a lot of Europeans, and they're fairly unanimous in the praise of these games. They talk a little bit about maybe a little excess nationalism, but really not a lot, and I don't see a lot of that here. We've rooted hard for the other nations and given them the respect. I see interviews all the time with the athletes from the other countries. We aren't just focusing solely on the American athletes.

SNOW: Mike Jaquet, a lot of people talking about snowboarding coming of age at these Olympics. Do you agree with that?

JAQUET: Oh, most definitely. I mean, you can look back to just Nagano, when the very first snowboarding competition happened and the amount of interest there was in that. What happened at the snowboarding competition here at Salt Lake was groundbreaking. It was by far, in my opinion, the most exciting event of the Olympics. It was just -- as I said before, it's just going to turn on a whole generation of kids to the sport of snowboarding and also to the Olympics and Olympic competition in that sport.

And I think that this is a sport that's on the rise for sure, and this performance by the three Americans, as well as just the entire day. If people watched that entire competition, they saw some unbelievable things, not just by the Americans but by all the athletes. And it was something that was very exciting, and I do believe that this will be a turning point in snowboarding not only in America but in the rest of the world.

SNOW: And we didn't even get to talk about that skeleton sport, that great sport. Mike Jaquet, thanks so much, Mark Lund, Bill Mallon, we appreciate all of you hanging out with us tonight. Thanks.

When we come back, Andrea Koppel will be with us with the latest on the hunt for those responsible for the death of Daniel Pearl. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: Pakistan's interior minister says investigators know the names of American journalist Daniel Pearl's killers. He says Pakistan is taking the strongest possible actions to bring them to swift justice. The "Wall Street Journal" reporter's widow is thanking well- wishers throughout the world for their support since his kidnapping a month ago. Mariane Pearl issued a statement today, saying, in part: "The terrorists who say they killed my husband may have taken his life, but they did not take his spirit. Danny is my life. They may have taken my life, but they did not take my spirit."

Expressions of pain and outrage echoed by Pakistan's president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PERVEZ MUSHARRAF, PRESIDENT OF PAKISTAN: I can assure my countrymen that we will not leave any stone unturned to bring all these people involved in this murder to justice, and set an example of them for other such people who may be thinking of such acts in the future.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SNOW: In Washington, CNN State Department correspondent Andrea Koppel is following the investigation into Daniel Pearl's death -- Andrea.

ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Kate. As you mentioned, the Pakistani government today has signalled some progress in its investigation, and for its part, the FBI is looking into any clues they can find in a gruesome videotape that shows Danny Pearl when he was held in captivity while he was still alive, and then it also shows his execution.

U.S. officials tell CNN they have some good leads, but they also readily admit that they're trying not to say too much. They don't want to tip their hand. They feel that too much information has already come out of Pakistan. But despite the tough talk from Pakistan's president, some wonder just how much control President Musharraf has, considering that for years Pakistan's intelligence service has had close ties to Islamic militants. But as to any link there might be between Pearl's kidnappers and those Islamic militants, it is a connection the State Department is not ready to make.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD BOUCHER, STATE DEPARTMENT SPOKESMAN: I can't rule out that Martians were involved. I mean, I have to -- I don't want to be facetious on this, but you're asking me to speak for every member of a foreign government organization.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOPPEL: And so, tonight, Kate, there are still so many unanswered questions. When was Danny Pearl killed, where is his body, and even more importantly, where are the kidnappers and the killers responsible.

SNOW: Andrea, what else can the U.S. do here? I'm not sure we're clear exactly what they're doing in Pakistan to try to find the killers, but what more can the U.S. government do?

KOPPEL: What they're doing is they've got investigators on the ground there, FBI agents looking at the videotape, obviously trying to track down leads.

As to next steps, U.S. officials I've spoken with said that they aren't looking in that direction. They're not looking at things like extradition of suspects, even though there's a federal grand jury that's meeting behind closed doors. They say that all of their energy right now is focused on the investigation on the ground, tracking down those kidnappers.

SNOW: Andrea Koppel at the State Department tonight, thanks.

Just ahead, there's been an arrest in the case of a missing California girl. We'll have the latest on that, and our other top stories after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SNOW: "CROSSFIRE" is just ahead. First, a quick news alert.

The Pentagon is investigating a suspicious package found at Fort McPherson, Georgia. Mail handlers at the U.S. Army Reserve Command Headquarters spotted the package on the fourth floor of one of the buildings at that base near Atlanta. Authorities evacuated the building. The package, containing a white powder, was found about two hours ago.

San Diego police have charged a neighbor with kidnapping a 7- year-old girl who disappeared from her bedroom nearly three weeks ago. Police report finding Danielle van Dam's blood on clothing in a motor home belonging to David Westerfield, as well as other DNA evidence in her bedroom. The search for the girl continues.

The northwest Georgia crematory operator accused of dumping corpses instead of cremating them will stay in jail for at least a few more days. A judge took Ray Brent Marsh's bond request under consideration today. Investigators say so far they've recovered 289 bodies from Marsh's property.

And that's all the time we have for tonight. Please join Wolf on Monday at both 5:00 and 7:00 p.m. Eastern. Until then, thanks very much for watching. I'm Kate Snow in Washington. "CROSSFIRE" begins right now.

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