Across America tonight, American troops in the desert, not just digging in, building
in.
How long does it have to last?
Is this the most dangerous job in America?
The danger is kind of exciting.
It's like a trap shoot.
But how do you tell people 10,000 years from now not to dig here?
From CBS News, this is America Tonight Friday with Robert Kralwicz and Edie Magnus.
Good evening.
President Bush is due back in Washington early Saturday morning wrapping up his trip to the
Middle East and a controversial visit today with Syria's President Assad.
Assad told the president he agrees Iraq should get out of Kuwait, but that he opposes using
force.
The UN Security Council next week could consider a resolution authorizing force against Iraq.
For his part, Mr. Bush said today, quote, we have the authority to do what we have to
do.
In Saudi Arabia, the soldiers of Desert Shield continue digging in.
But along with digging, there is sawing and hammering and drilling.
Soldiers are doing more than just hunkering down for the long haul.
As Bob Simon tells us, they are building a city in the sand.
After 40 days and 40 nights of wandering on patrol near the Kuwaiti border, men of the
4th Cavalry Regiment parked their cars, pitched their tents, and began settling down in the
sands of Saudi Arabia.
They built a base camp and gave it a name.
It is not the first time nomads have made a home in the desert.
We've been like the last.
We caused the last drop of Israel running around the desert.
Now we're home.
All over Saudi Arabia, Americans are drawing new lines in the sand, lines Americans can
understand.
The Marines, the first ground troops to land on these shores, are not digging in anymore.
They are constructing, building a city, and furnishing everything custom made.
We didn't have much or nothing when we first got here at first, but the longer we stay
here the better things get for us.
Like any hometown in America, there are streets with street signs, a fire department, a post
office, a phone booth, and a barber shop where the proprietor decides what kind of haircut
you want and backs up his decision with a razor, a comb, and a 45.
This is the finished cut of the barber shop out here.
Don't talk about chow anymore.
Dinner is catered by the United States Marine Corps, dining al fresco at the Outdoor Cafe.
Call it the Sands.
And with 250,000 Iraqi troops poised across the border, what's the biggest problem facing
the Marines?
The most difficult problems that we do have are just the normal, everyday piling up of
trash.
Home is where your porch is, where you can put your feet up and watch the neighborhood
pass by.
Home is where you can cook up a little snack between meals.
We have here a little bit of chili, some ramen noodles, and a little bit of hot sauce.
I would never have eaten this in the States.
Now it's just normal.
Everything's normal to us.
It's hard to see what's abnormal anymore.
Home is where you make plans.
We're in the process of making some wells, drilling for water, going down about a thousand
feet or so, and hopefully we won't strike oil.
Ask the bedrooms.
You don't dig wells unless you're planning to hang around.
Some comforts of home are still missing, air conditioning for example.
The Air Force has air conditioning and it has it better.
The Air Force has everything better.
We have a little library over here for both education and enjoyment reading, the golf
course bowling center, recreation center, fitness center, etc., etc.
And the movie house and the supermarket and the basketball court is on the way.
All that and feeling at home, which means wearing what you want to wear, which in the
desert means not wearing very much at all, even with peeping masks in the neighborhood.
It looks like a beach party sometimes.
The golf war is a t-shirt now, several t-shirts, and a video game.
And it all started with nothing.
There was not much here except some blowing dust.
What the GIs brought here is American.
It's that simple.
They brought American music, American culture to this strict and somber land, the same way
their fathers and their brothers brought it to Europe and to Asia, American joy.
There is a sobering thought that some of these men dancing in the dunes may not make it home
from the home they've built in the desert, and the made in America metropolis they've
brought with them may prove as permanent as the desert wind, as enduring as castles in
the sand.
Now from Saudi Arabia Live, good morning, here is Bob Simon, how are you?
I want to ask you a question that strikes me right off that piece.
The America that you described, this little America that they're building in the desert,
seems to me so fragile, such a thing that could just blow away.
I'm wondering how long can these guys hold morale together in this fashion?
When you look at these American tents, you think back on the crusader castles that were
built here forever, and they didn't last very long.
I think that the American empire here is going to peak within the next few months, and if
something isn't done with it, if it does not swing into some kind of action, it will begin
to deteriorate.
I think this is realized here.
Morale cannot be maintained at an operative pitch forever.
Napoleon said that you can do everything with a sword except sit on it.
In about a month from now, the forces here will be at their peak.
They will either move or they'll begin to lose their edge.
Bob, as you know, President Bush has in a sense raised the stakes a little bit.
He said yesterday he thinks that Saddam Hussein is soon going to have a nuclear weapon.
What's been the reaction there?
Well, I don't know if there's been any reaction here.
People here don't get the news very quickly, but one reaction is this.
That it's the first time he raised this issue.
He raised it a couple of days after polls in the United States showed that this was
by far the only issue that made any sense to many Americans.
And it might have been raised therefore in a political sense, but at the same time, now
that he, the President of the United States, has said it, it will be very difficult for
him if and when the military swings into action here not to go for Iraq's nuclear potential.
All of a sudden we have another target on the map.
We always assumed that the target was a potential one, but now it has to be considered a very
real one.
There are two dynamics working here, and they're working in opposite directions, and it's very
difficult to even imagine how it's going to work out.
You have the military dynamic, which is pushing towards action.
After the end of February, the weather deteriorates, the Muslim holy days around the corner, something
should happen.
The military almost will want to move.
There is a logic of its own.
At the same time, the politics in the states is moving the other way.
Trump seems to be losing support for any kind of offensive action, and how these two dynamics
will resolve is very difficult to ascertain at this point.
Bob Simon, thank you very much for joining us.
And when we come back, behind the wheel with some of the Big Apple's biggest crime targets
and an Ad Man's nightmare, making sure people understand you 10,000 years from now.
This portion of America Tonight Friday is sponsored by Alcoa, reminding you to recycle
your aluminum beverage and food cans.
One of the problems of living in the land of plenty is that there's plenty left over.
There must be burned or buried or dumped at sea.
An exception is the recyclable aluminum can.
Today, over half the aluminum cans produced are being recycled.
No other beverage container comes close to that record.
Not glass, not plastic, and not steel.
The recyclable aluminum can in the land of plenty, it's a notable exception.
They're at your Christmas store.
Sears, great looking flannel shirts, what makes them even more comfortable?
They're on sale now.
Select flannel shirts as low as $11.24.
Reduce 25%.
Only at Sears for Christmas.
My brother Tom needed one hand for his TV remote, one for his VCR.
The other for my cable.
Then he got this Magnavox universal remote.
It's so smart, it controls the TV it came with, plus just about any other brand of wireless
VCR and cable.
Yeah, single-handed.
Tell Neupron where it hurts.
It hurts behind my eyes, right here.
Neupron works at the site of pain, right at the spot.
It helps stop the chemical reaction that triggers pain.
Headache?
What headache?
Tell Neupron where it hurts.
I overdid it.
Pain's right in the small of my back.
Neupron works at the site of pain.
It has ibuprofen.
It actually works right at the spot, right where you need it.
Pain's gone, back feels great.
Tell Neupron where it hurts.
How do you have a meeting in lots of places at the same time?
Well, Sprint has operators who can quickly and easily arrange a call with up to a hundred
locations.
Sprint also has the world's most extensive video conferencing system.
There's probably a center near you.
So there's no limit to how many meetings you can have.
Is that good news?
He's entered a dangerous new world.
Guys die doing this all the time.
But the people he left behind could pay the price.
They have threatened your life.
Wise Guys, Saturday.
Sunday, it's a celebration of three decades of Motown artistry.
Featuring superstars Smokey Robinson, Natalie Cole, Will B. Goldberg, The Temptations, Denzel
Washington, The Four Tops, Cady LaValle, Stevie Wonder, Michael Bolton, and Gladys Knight.
Plus, some classic moments.
You've got to be there.
Motown 30, what's going on Sunday?
It's time for the show.
If you are coming to New York City this holiday season, chances are good you'll end up in
the backseat of an infamous yellow cab.
They're about the surest way to get around Manhattan.
If you're in another borough, chances are just as good you won't find a yellow cab
anywhere in sight.
You'll probably have to rely on what New Yorkers call gypsy cabs.
The gypsy cab has achieved its own notoriety, but for very different and frightening reasons.
I don't take gypsy cabs.
I like yellow cabs.
I can trust them.
Some of them don't have a license to pick people up.
That's why they call them gypsies.
Oh, definitely the yellows.
We're from Minnesota.
We've never driven in a gypsy cab.
This is what a gypsy cab looks like.
And this is a gypsy cab driver, one of 30 shot dead on the streets of New York City
this year.
They are some 5,000 strong, and in some neighborhoods, they're the only transportation around.
They service the poor, but for a violent few, they are like small, unguarded banks just
waiting to be knocked off.
Those who drive them may just have the most dangerous jobs in America.
The danger is kind of exciting.
It's like a crapshoot.
I'm in seven or a snake accident.
I'm always betting, of course, that I'll be in seven.
49-year-old Melvin Callahan drives 12 hours a day for Thruway, a small taxi company that
just a few months ago saw one of Melvin's coworkers murdered.
These are spent responding to radio calls and searching the sidewalks for a paying fare.
On a good day, he earns about $100.
Melvin's been robbed two times, but keeps on driving.
He needs the money, and the people who live uptown need him.
We're going to find a yellow cab in the Bronx.
Isn't it easy to find a yellow cab in the Bronx?
Manhattan, you get a yellow cab.
They're like the vagabonds of their industry, not ours, theirs.
They think that we take money away from them, which we don't.
We pick up the fare that they don't want.
I mean, at 3 o'clock in the morning, the guy jumps in the cab and says, take me to Holland.
They don't want that.
They don't want to come at all.
Somebody has to bring me.
The Autobahn car service is in the heart of a Manhattan neighborhood that has been taken
over by crack dealers.
Drivers here have been murdered for as little as $25.
The guy put it to me, the knife here, and he said, yo, don't move.
Give me a radio, give me your money.
Just a few days ago, this driver had a knife put to his throat.
Violence is a day-to-day reality here.
It's something even the children understand.
And 13-year-old Jimmy Arejo also understands the underlying racism that somehow designates
yellow cabs for white people.
I think the yellow cabs, they think that the Spanish people won't pay and things like that.
They selfish.
They want everything for them.
Melvin Callahan says he only avoids passengers who have what he calls a gangster walk or
whose clothing smells of drugs.
But he says if he didn't take a few chances, his family's future would suffer.
My granddaughter, and of course I'd like to help her and my daughter.
She can go to school, college, and everything like that.
I go to school.
Back with my friends.
To help her.
Help the family.
This is all part of what I do it for.
This little one right here.
So, despite the murders, this driver has no intention of abandoning his gypsy cab.
Melvin Callahan has a ready answer for anyone who suggests he should move out of New York
City.
Everybody has to work to make a living.
I mean out there maybe a farmer gets caught in a thresher.
You don't say, why don't you stop farming?
You just work at what you do and keep moving.
Hope it don't happen to you.
Eat your cereal, it's healthy.
Open wide.
That's it.
I've had it with these healthy, schmelfy tasting cereals.
I want a cereal that tastes so good you want to eat it.
For mini wheats.
Dad, these are good for you.
I don't want to hear that.
No salt, no cholesterol, fat free.
I can't hear you.
I'm sorry, wrong number.
Kellogg's Frosted Mini Wheats.
Surprise, they're good for you.
It's got lots of fiber too.
I didn't hear that.
I heard that.
They're at your Christmas store.
Sears, top brand electronics like this 41 inch LXI TV with remote and MTS stereo surround
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For Christmas.
I'll call you back.
When the diagnosis is minor sore throat pain, the physician's desk reference lists maximum
strength sucrettes for soothing and aesthetic relief.
Feels better.
Sucrettes soothing medicine for sore throat pain.
The US and Iraq raise the military stakes in the Persian Gulf.
Hundreds of thousands of GIs wait in the desert for marching orders while the president pursues
UN backing for a shooting war.
Is a peaceful settlement possible?
Watch Iraq's foreign minister, Aziz and US defense secretary Cheney face the nation with
Leslie Stahl Sunday.
How would you like to be in his shoes?
He witnessed a murder, but if he goes to the police, the murderer will murder him.
What would you do?
Probably what he did.
60 minutes Sunday.
America tonight will continue.
United buy and sell furniture warehouse is on the move.
Seattle, Tacoma and now Linwood.
The no frills, no gimmicks furniture warehouse operation is here.
Brand name furniture and mattresses for less, a lot less.
Prices as little as one half regular stores.
Yes, up to one half.
That's why we're expanding so quickly.
United buy and sell furniture warehouse.
Seattle, Tacoma and now open in Linwood.
Frederick and Nelson's three day first sale.
Full length mink cuffs and mink strollers.
Now just 14.99.
At the three day first sale.
Friday through Sunday only.
Simply irresistible.
Simply Frederick and Nelson.
Hi, I'm Chip Hanna.
And I'd like you to join us for the Seafarer special people's Christmas cruise on Sunday,
December 2nd.
Call Seafarer to register.
728-0123.
This news break is brought to you by Czech Medical Centers, now located in Federal Way.
You're watching Cairo TV, Channel 7, your 24 hour news source.
It's 12.09, I'm Mary Farrell.
A mudslide near Silverdale threatens to grow worse tonight.
Already 40 families have been evacuated.
As to in Mason County where heavy rains have broken a dike on the Skokomish River and one
man is dead after a steam boiler explosion on the Seattle waterfront.
That's the latest news.
Next news in one hour from Cairo, your 24 hour news source.
Tell you about one of the most difficult design problems I've ever heard of.
The US Department of Energy has a radioactive waste dump which they are digging right now.
It's on a spread of land in a remote part of the New Mexican desert.
Using giant machines, government engineers are creating floor after floor of storage
space where they will put thousands of barrels of radioactive waste, some containing plutonium,
which can last for a very long time.
A regulation issued by the Environmental Protection Agency says the site must be marked with words
or pictures, a design that will tell people 10,000 years from now that this site is dangerous.
What kind of a message could you create that would tell people 10,000 years into the future
about this problem and be intelligible to them?
This is the difficult part.
You get to say, you know, don't dig here or you could die.
That's the problem.
The Energy Department has paid $60,000 to a defense contractor for some startup ideas
which I took to one of the best little design firms in New York City, M & Company, run by
Tibor Kalman.
He's a sharp guy and I asked him, how would you solve this problem and can you do better
than a defense contractor?
This here is Tibor Kalman.
Let me show you right away the designs that the United States of America came up with
at great expense, by the way.
Here is the first logo.
This should say, danger at this site, beware 10,000 years from today.
What do you think?
Well, I think the government hasn't spent its money too well.
What I see is I see a man digging.
I see this angled line over here.
I don't know exactly what that means.
Maybe there's a change in the polarity of the earth.
No, no, it's the, it's the, the gun site.
It's the international driver's sign for no.
Yes, but we're assuming that 10,000 years from now people will be driving.
I'm not sure they will be.
All right.
And how about these terribly dangerous looking items down here?
They look kind of, I mean, out of context, they kind of look to me like pretty little
flowers that I might actually want to dig up.
You don't recognize the trefoil, the internationally accepted symbol for radio activity found at
every fallout shelter.
It's accepted in every international sense, except the sense of 10,000 years passing,
which I think is the fundamental problem that needs to be addressed here.
Number two, this is the rest of the $60,000 investment.
Of course you recognize immediately the international.