Obama Vs. Putin:  Syria Showdown; NSA Leaker Speaks Out in Live Online Chat
JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: Jake, happening now, a test of strength as President Obama and Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, face off over Syria. One wants to arm the rebels, the other is still arming the regime. The NSA leaker may be hiding, but that doesn't stop him from answering questions and making more accusations in a live online chat. And he's abroad, but President Obama cannot get away from some really poll numbers. Most worrisome for Democrats, is he losing the support of young people? Wolf Blitzer is off today. I'm Jim Acosta. And you're in THE SITUATION ROOM. They don't see eye to eye, and as you see in their body language in this video, they're not spending much time looking each other in the eye. President Obama and Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, in a showdown over Syria. It is dominating the G8 summit of key world leaders, most of whom want Russia to stop backing and arming the Syrian regime. Before the summit, Putin made it clear where he stands, warning against President Obama's plan to arm the rebels, who he says "kill their enemies and eat their organs." That's a quote. That -- let's go straight to CNN White House correspondent, Brianna Keilar -- Brianna, not exactly a cold war, but it does seem like there was a chill in the air.</s>BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Jim. There was no breakthrough. This was a meeting, though, that did last for two hours between Presidents Obama and Putin. The U.S., the biggest ally of the Syrian rebels, of the Syrian National Coalition. Russia, the biggest ally of the Syrian government. What the two sides did agree on was to push both parties in Syria to the negotiating table soon in Geneva. Here's what President Obama said.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And with respect to Syria, we do have differing perspectives on the problem, but we share an emphasis in reducing the violence, securing chemical weapons and ensuring that these are neither used nor are they subject to proliferation and that we want to try to resolve the issue through political means, if possible. And so we will instruct our teams to continue to work on the potential of a Geneva follow-up to the first meeting.</s>KEILAR: Now, the date is still to be determined. The conditions are still to be determined. If the two sides sit down, is it under the condition that Bashar Al- Assad will leave and there will be a transition to a new government? That's certainly not settled. So Presidents Obama and Putin not really moving the ball here, Jim. But you did comment on the body language there. It did seem a little warmer than some of that rhetoric you mentioned of Putin's yesterday, when he was in London, likening the rebels to cannibals. And if you compare it to a year ago, when President Obama and Putin last met in Mexico at the G20, this was much warmer. That was a very, very icy meeting that they had a year ago.</s>ACOSTA: It is good to have that perspective, Brianna. But we all remember last year, when the president was caught on that hot mic with Dmitry Medvedev, the former president of Russia, saying this. Let's take a listen.</s>OBAMA: This is my last election.</s>OBAMA: And after my election, I have more flexibility.</s>ACOSTA: More flexibility, as the president put it -- so, Brianna, they spoke for well over 90 minutes, it seems. Any signs they now have that flexibility and that they're using it?</s>KEILAR: Well, that cer -- that had to do with missile defense, the US's European-based missile defense system. And the U.S. has eased some of the tension by foregoing the final phases of that. You also may notice the body language there seemed to be pretty good. But we're talking about President Obama with then President Dimity Medvedev. And what really matters is Obama and Putin, now the president and very much the one who's always been calling the shots. This relationship is one, Jim, that has really been tense here over the last year. And a lot of it has to do with Syria. These two sides are worlds apart on this, not just what Putin said in London about the rebels and that rhetoric, but also the fact that he doubts that -- Russian officials doubt whether the U.S. claim that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons is true. Russia is providing arms. They've threatened to provide anti-aircraft missiles should the U.S. and their allies try to put in place a no fly zone. So there are huge sticking points here. And, no, the ball was not moved today.</s>ACOSTA: Still many differences to resolve between those two leaders. Brianna Keilar, thank you. As world leaders grapple with the idea of arming Syria's rebels, we have disturbing new details about al Qaeda's involvement in Syria. The al Nasra Front is now said to be al Qaeda's best equipped affiliate. And may have as many as 10,000 fighters and supporters inside Syria. And one analyst tells CNN the group is making desperate attempts to get chemical weapons. That growing concern comes as Syria's regime is engaged in brutal urban combat with rebel forces. CNN's Frederik Pleitgen got a firsthand look on the front lines. You have to take a look at some of this video in Frederik's report.</s>FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Jim, there's a lot of districts here in and around Damascus that are in the hands of the opposition, but they're hotly contested. And the government is starting pushes in most of them to try and get that back. Now, Yarmouk is the place that we went. And by many accounts, it's seen some of the fiercest fighting here in the Damascus area. We went along with a detachment of Palestinian fighters who are fighting for the Assad regime. They took us straight to the front line to see the house to house combat there.</s>PLEITGEN (voice-over): The urban combat is fierce. In Yarmouk, a suburb of Damascus close to the city's center, we're on the front line with Palestinians fighting for the Assad regime. Snipers do much of the fighting and death can come any second. (on camera): This is a pro-government sniper position. And this fighter here just told me he sees the snipers through his scope from here. So we'll wait and see what happens. (voice-over): The man said that shot took out a rebel fighter. Yarmouk, which was set up as a Palestinian refugee camp by the Assad regime decades ago, bears the scars of war. But the pro-government fighters tell me like on other front lines in Syria, they are now turning the tide, winning back ground. The commander's name is Abu Ihab (ph). I ask him who his enemy is. "They are mostly Islamists from al Qaeda and Jabhat al-Nusra, he says, mostly foreigners from the Emirates, from Afghanistan and Pakistan, but also Syrians and Palestinians. A lot of the fighting happens inside the houses. And here, only a wall of sandbags separates the two sides. The pro-government militiamen say the rebels knock these holes into the walls when they own this turf and rigged some of the passages with explosives when they fled. (on camera): So the men tell us they've just recently retaken this house. And, as you can see, the fighters that left here, from the other side, they booby-trapped this entrance here with what looks like a hand grenade or something. So anybody who would have gone through there and triggered that wire there would have been killed. (voice-over): The pro-government fighters say they're angry at the U.S. after the Obama administration announcement that it will help arm the opposition. "We will keep fighting until we get rid of Jabhat al-Nusra and al Qaeda," he says, "and all other insurgents in Syria. And we're sure that God will be on our side." In breaks from combat, the pro-government militiamen sing the praise of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, emboldened by recent gains on the battlefield, but also worried what changes U.S. involvement might bring.</s>PLEITGEN: And, you know, Jim, you go into these areas and you can just see why this conflict has, according to the United Nations, already killed up to 93,000 people you see the fierce fighting between the two sides. You see a lot of the houses there burned from the inside, a lot of destruction there. And still, even in that area, there are a lot of civilians who are caught between the front lines and have nowhere to go -- Jim.</s>ACOSTA: Thank you, Fredrik, for that eye-opening report. Now, forget about leaving notes in a hollow tree or even a secret meeting with Deep Throat in a parking garage, times have changed. The self-declared NSA leaker, Edward Snowden, is speaking out publicly again, this time in an extraordinary live online chat with "The Guardian." CNN's Nic Robertson is in Hong Kong, where Snowden has been in hiding -- and one thing he did not reveal today, Nic, is his whereabouts, right?</s>NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, no clues on his whereabouts, although I guess we can take away from this that he does have decent access to the Internet. He was online chatting for about an hour and three quarters. He had about 2,000 questions lined up. He got through about 1 percent, 20 of them. He was asked about whether or not he was a traitor who was going -- whether or not he was going to give documents -- secret documents that he had to the Chinese. And I'll quote from what he said here. He said, "Ask yourself, if I were a Chinese spy, wouldn't I have flown directly to Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a Phoenix now." That was an exact quote of what he said. So knocking down the idea that he's about to give secrets to the Chinese, which is a rumor that's been going around. And to Dick Cheney, and the former vice president, who's accused him of being a traitor, I'll read you here what he said back to Dick Cheney, as well. He said, "This is the man who gave us the warrantless wiretapping scheme as a kind of atrocity warm-up on the way to deceitfully engineering a conflict that has killed over 4,400 and maimed nearly 32,000 Americans, as well as leaving 100,000 Iraqis dead. Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give an American." That was what Edward Snowden was saying this evening. He was really hitting back, giving details, but really pushing back and trying to get his narrative across here tonight -- Jim.</s>ACOSTA: And, Nic, he really seemed to be playing to his audience, I suppose. If there are a lot of Edward Snowden sympathizers out there, he certainly tossed out a lot of red meat to them, talking about Dick Cheney, although inexplicably, at one point, he talked about the Senate's Gang of Eight, which has more to do with immigration right now than surveillance activities on the intelligence front. Did he give any insights during this exchange -- a very lengthy exchange, Nic, what his next move might be?</s>ROBERTSON: We really didn't get any clues for his next move. I mean he has indicated that he would be willing to sort of follow the justice here in Hong Kong. We've heard from state media inside China indicating that the Chinese in Beijing think that the Hong Kong authorities here shouldn't hand him back if they were asked by the United States. But he was asked why he came to Hong Kong. And the journalist who asked him that question clearly had an indication that he might have wanted to go to Iceland rather than Hong Kong. But the way that he answered this question, Snowden said that, you know, as an NSA employee, you have to give 30 days notice about traveling. So he could only travel at the last minute, only buy a ticket at the last minute. He was afraid of being interdicted on the flight. But he said, I had to go somewhere where I could get my message out. And that was why he says he chose Hong Kong -- Jim.</s>ACOSTA: And it did seem that, just reading between the lines, that a lot of planning has gone into what Edward Snowden is up to these days and what he might be doing in the future. Nic Robertson, thank you very much for that. From the time the news broke at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time here in the United States that Snowden would do a live chat, and for nearly the next four hours, there were over 17,000 mentions on Twitter of the hash tag "asksnowden." That is how they asked people to ask questions of Edward Snowden on "The Guardian" Web site. According to the Social Analytics Company, Topsy, the United States had the most Tweets, according to that location. The U.K. came in second. Coming up next, FBI agents dig up a field near Detroit. It's the latest attempt to solve a four decade mystery. You're probably wondering who -- who exactly could that be? Perhaps it's Jimmy Hoffa. That's right. This time, will they actually find the former Teamsters boss? And ahead, another mystery -- did Russia's President Putin swipe a Super Bowl ring from the owner of the New England Patriots? We'll get into that, as well.