- 6 hours ago
60 Minutes - Season 58 - Episode 03: The China Hack; Booms, Busts and Bubbles; The Road to Damascus
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:05can you think of any reason that china would target your little community that's the exact
00:12question i had for the fbi when they visited me on that first day and i i still can't answer
00:17that
00:17question no i can't think of one reason the fbi told nick lawler that china has hacked into the
00:23computers of vital american utilities even his in tiny littleton massachusetts if they're willing to
00:32go after that small provider that doesn't have a national security connection that means every
00:38target is on the list do you think that we will have a crash we thought it was a good
00:46time to check
00:47in with andrew ross sorkin one of the country's most influential financial reporters
00:53he's just written a book about the market crash a century ago are you scared i'm anxious that we
01:00are at prices that may not feel sustainable we are either living through some kind of remarkable boom
01:07or we're reliving 1929
01:13the deal between israel and hamas could lead to big changes in the middle east we spoke with a man
01:19who
01:20knows a thing or two about remarkable transformations syria's new president ahmed al-shara have you ever
01:27seen that poster the wanted poster yes of course you were designated as a terrorist by the american
01:35government there was that 10 million bounty on your head it would have been a waste it would have been
01:41money ill spent
01:45i'm scott pelly i'm bill whitaker i'm anderson cooper i'm sharon alfonsi i'm john wertheim i'm
01:52cecilia vega i'm leslie stahl those stories and in our last minute new hope for peace in the middle east
01:59tonight on 60 minutes
02:09until recently tim hawk was among america's top spy masters the four-star general spent 33 years in
02:18air force intelligence and rose to lead america's largest and most advanced intelligence agency hawk was
02:26also in charge of defending america from computer threats in his first television interview since
02:34retirement general hawk is here to warn that china has hacked into u.s computer networks to an astonishing
02:42degree and he believes he knows why the surprise tim hawk told us is that china is targeting not just
02:51the u.s military and industry but also americans in their homes i think initially we were surprised
03:00that china would target every american with these capabilities that goes against every norm of
03:09international law that certainly goes against how the united states military would approach
03:15targeting in a crisis or a conflict that the fact that they would go after basic services as part of
03:21their effort that they have identified as unrestricted warfare is unconscionable and what did they
03:27target they targeted water they targeted electrical power infrastructure transportation are examples of
03:36the types of things that were targeted and in many cases they're vulnerable multiple intrusions at
03:41utilities were discovered in 2023 and china had been on some of their computer networks at least five years
03:50you're saying that the chinese today are in american power plants water treatment plants other parts of
03:59the electrical grid maybe even hospitals telecommunications all of that so there is a daily contest that is
04:06going on to be able to deny china those accesses but they are certainly attempting every single day to be
04:13able
04:13to target telecommunications to be able to target critical infrastructure both in the united states
04:18and in other countries and they are doing that to try to ensure that they have an advantage in a
04:23crisis
04:23or a conflict is china preparing for war there was no other reason to target those systems there was no
04:31advantage to be gained economically there was no foreign intelligence collection value the only value
04:37would be for use in a crisis or a conflict in 2024 tim hawk rose to lead both the national
04:43security
04:44agency america's largest spy agency america's largest spy agency plus u.s cyber command the military defense
04:51in cyberspace hawk took over just as the scope of china's hacking of utilities was becoming clear
04:59in a place no one would have imagined is littleton a major supplier of some kind of the federal
05:08government we are not major supplier to a military base no
05:12nick lawler is general manager of the littleton massachusetts electric and water utility his town
05:21has 10 000 residents can you think of any reason that china would target your little community that's
05:30the exact question i had for the fbi when they visited me on that first day and i i still
05:34can't answer
05:35that question no i can't think of one reason the fbi visited in november 2023 to tell lawler that china
05:43had access to his utilities computer network he says the feds told him he was one of 200. how much
05:52of
05:52all of this is controlled remotely by computer all of it in his water treatment plant lawler showed us
06:01tanks of dangerous chemicals that are precisely controlled to deliver clean water if you had control
06:09of these tanks you've got control of littleton massachusetts you can poison the water you can poison the water
06:20but china was caught before it had operational control with lawler's permission the feds watched
06:28what china was doing and what they learned was part of an awakening for american security if you are
06:35willing to go after a small water provider in littleton massachusetts what other target is off the list
06:43so from that perspective this is a national threat it's one that needs to be addressed but it's also one
06:48that every american should understand because if they're willing to go after that small provider that
06:53doesn't have a national security connection that means every target is on the list so help me understand
07:01why littleton if we are involved in something in the indo-pacific that is is becoming a challenge
07:08between the united states and china the more that china could get us to focus at home means now
07:16our resources are focused in the homeland that would distract us distract resources make it more
07:23difficult for us to mobilize in a crisis littleton may not be a very large place but if the chinese
07:29took
07:30its water offline the entire country would be focused on it and if there were three to four other examples
07:36simultaneously plus an information campaign it could seem much larger than it is or it could be done in
07:42critical places that would have a greater effect other critical places believed to have been targeted
07:48by china over years include new york city's metropolitan transportation authority 13 gas pipeline operators
07:58the port of houston and major phone companies but here's the bottom line on this they have gotten to be
08:04very very good at cyber operations mike rounds thinks he knows why china is doing this
08:12the republican senator of south dakota is chair of the armed services cyber security subcommittee
08:19he believes china intends to deter the u.s from standing up in a fight by hacking our most sensitive
08:27industries but all it takes is a blip on the financial markets to delay certain trades by just
08:33milliseconds to put the market into an entirely different attitude about the security and the soundness of
08:41being able to make those transactions happen you're talking about causing chaos on wall street threatening
08:46to be able to cause chaos on wall street would be something that they would love to do and turning
08:50the lights on and off most certainly or to start out with whether or not you can get an airline
08:56reservation and uh so those are areas that they would love to do just so that when the time comes
09:01in my opinion they can look at it and simply say we know where you're at don't mess with us
09:08we're capable of causing real problems for you long term china is causing those problems by exploiting
09:15vulnerabilities in network equipment in littleton massachusetts china found a weakness in a network
09:22firewall that's not unusual when software vulnerabilities go unpatched or when out-of-date
09:29equipment is no longer supported with security updates once inside china did not install malware
09:37which could be a red flag instead it stole login credentials and masqueraded as a legitimate
09:45employee they are just gaining access to that system and then attempting to lay dormant they're not
09:52spending more time collecting intelligence or taking other activities it's there if they need it
09:58later exactly do we even know how extensively the chinese are into our systems i don't think we have a
10:05a perfect knowledge of that how many chinese attacks are there on u.s systems in a day i i
10:12would
10:12expect that automated activity are happening at scans at the the millions of devices throughout every single
10:20day china denies the hacking the white house told us it is working to assess exposure and mitigate the
10:28damage in littleton the damage forced nick lawler to completely rebuild his network at a cost of more
10:36than fifty thousand dollars it is much more consuming to try to get somebody out of a network
10:42than to deny them access which is why it's so critically important that we get the basics right
10:48in our critical infrastructure and in these substantive networks so that we aren't expending
10:53more resource to try to root them out tell me we're good at this we are definitely good at this
10:58really
10:59but the scale is a challenge very few understood the scale or the challenge as well as general hawk
11:07in the first trump administration he was promoted to two-star general then three-star but later with a
11:15fourth star he led the national security agency for only a little over a year i got a phone call
11:22from a senior official in the department of defense that told me that the president had made a decision
11:27to remove me he was fired in april after a far-right activist named laura loomer met with the president
11:36online she explained that hawk was disloyal and had been referred for firing the evidence she pointed to
11:43publicly was hawk's appointment by president biden she called hawk's firing a blessing for the american
11:52people that has got to be galling after your career i i know in my heart that every day i
12:01wanted to
12:01achieve the things for our nation that would make us more secure and make every american safe and that
12:06continued to my last day of service uh so uh from that perspective um it it certainly was impactful
12:14to me and my family but at the end of the day it's about our nation and it's about our
12:18nation's
12:18security you're sitting there with four stars on your shoulder you have spent your entire life in the
12:25air force and you've been accused of being disloyal your reaction is what that every day i woke up
12:34committed to our national security and to meeting the expectations of the president not disloyal
12:40absolutely not the white house did not answer our questions about hawk's firing from the national
12:46security agency later hawk retired from the air force we do not have enough of these types of leaders
12:54and a loss of any one of them without strong justification is disappointing a new acting head
13:02of the national security agency was appointed but the week after the firing republican mike rounds
13:08chair of the senate's cyber security subcommittee saw hawk's sudden termination this way the departure
13:16of general hawk is a loss for our nation but will be a tremendous gain for any private or public
13:22entity
13:23where he decides to lend his expertise and leadership i wish him godspeed that said as our adversaries watch
13:34this hearing it will be clear that no matter the scenario our cyber mission forces are ready the national
13:41security agency and u.s cyber command are consequential organizations uh the the second i was no longer the
13:47leader focus shifts to them they have consequential missions to do and for my family it shifts to
13:54how do we serve in different ways today tim hawk serves by teaching at yale and consulting private
14:01industry but sidelined in government as china expands its aggressive hacking spying and theft of intellectual
14:10property there have been resignations and firings of other people focused on america's cyber defense
14:17what does that mean for our national security our overall capacity is getting smaller while we know
14:24china's continues to grow there is still immense capability in the u.s government and now it will
14:29be up the up to the administration to be able to to be able to use that and build partnerships
14:34with
14:34industry uh to be able to ensure that we're countering these threats if the united states does not
14:39dominate in this space what is at stake first i'm always confident in our nation but if we don't
14:47dominate in this space china gains advantage with the ability to continue to steal intellectual property
14:53which impacts our economy they could gain increased intelligence collection which would help them
14:57every day and also in a crisis and conflict and they could pre-position in critical networks both
15:02in the united states and with allies and partners that could give them advantage in a crisis we can't let
15:08that happen how china could use u.s farmland to attack america it's an entirely new way of war at
15:2160
15:22minutes overtime dot com stocks took a nosedive on friday after president trump threatened a big
15:34tariff hike on china until then wall street had been at record highs for months which is why we decided
15:42to
15:42check in with andrew ross sorkin one of the country's most influential financial reporters
15:48he's just written a book called 1929 about the market crash a century ago we wondered if he'd run out
15:57of
15:57news to cover or is he alerting us that what's been happening in the markets lately is a replay of
16:04what led to the most devastating financial collapse in our history tuesday october 29th 1929
16:12imagine the new york stock exchange back then the crush of frightened traders dumping stocks
16:21investors losing their shirts businesses their homes sweeping away the roaring 20s
16:28between walking that same but transformed floor today is everything's digital well yeah okay and
16:36andrew ross sorkin says we're in our own roaring 20s the 2020s with stocks climbing for months just like
16:44then the crazy part about this is from 1928 to september of 1929 the stock market was up 90 percent
16:54when you
16:55say the stock market was way up immediately i think of now are you scared i'm anxious i'm anxious
17:02that we are at prices that may not feel sustainable and what i don't know is we are either living
17:10through some kind of remarkable boom and part of that's artificial intelligence and technology and
17:15all of that or everything's overpriced or we're reliving 1929 there was so much anxiety
17:25sorkin has covered the markets for two decades he joined the new york times after college soon
17:32founding the dealbook newsletter covering finance he also co-hosts squawk box on cnbc good to see you
17:40too thanks for having me runs the dealbook summit where he interviews the high and mighty he co-created
17:47billions the tv show wrote a bestseller about the 2008 crash and now a book about 1929 we're always
17:58being undone by bubbles there was the internet bubble in 2000 the housing in 2008 are we in another bubble
18:07an ai bubble or something like that i think it's hard to say we're not in a bubble of some
18:12sort the
18:13question is always when is the bubble going to pop one symptom of a bubble is when the market goes
18:20up
18:21and up but the underlying economy the real economy goes soft and that appears to be happening right
18:29now i would argue to you that the economy is being propped up almost artificially by the artificial
18:37intelligence boom there are hundreds of billions of dollars that are being invested today in artificial
18:44intelligence this is either a gold rush or a sugar rush and we probably won't know for a couple of
18:52years which one it is four million shares a day 1929 was a sugar rush caused by speculation and debt
19:01people who didn't really have much money were lured by wall street bankers to invest using a new fangled
19:09concept to take on debt called credit you only had to put down 10 of the stock price borrowing the
19:18rest
19:18from your broker prior to 1919 most people did not take on credit or debt at all it was a
19:27sin it was a moral
19:28sin to use credit really to buy anything and it was really general motors that basically came up with
19:37the idea that we're going to lend you money so you can afford to buy our cars brilliant and then
19:43the bankers
19:43realize what's happening and they realize that they can lend out money so that more folks can buy stocks
19:50it was all sort of wrapped in the flag of democratizing access and in good times when the stock is
19:59going
19:59up it's like free money in bad times you're on the hook and you're on the hook in a very
20:06bad way
20:06since then laws regulations and agencies have been put in place to protect investors especially the
20:15less affluent from being exploited we put up barriers after 1929 yes protections yes so those are coming
20:25down they're tumbling down one of the sec rules aren't as stringent anymore yes the consumer protection
20:32bureau practically doesn't exist anymore correct that's what concerns me it's not that we're going
20:38off a cliff tomorrow it's that there's speculation in the market today there's an increasing amount of
20:44debt in the market today and all of that's happening against the backdrop of the guard rails coming off
20:53including guard rails that allow only the wealthy to invest directly in private companies that have
21:00fewer regulations like ai startups before they go public so over the last 20 or 30 years folks who
21:10had access to who could invest in private equity and venture capital clearly outperformed folks who
21:18didn't that's how you really made money but you have to remember that these kind of assets are gambles
21:25public companies after the sec was created were required to have all sorts of disclosure rules so
21:32that the public could understand what's going on inside them private companies don't have that but
21:36historically the average ordinary american wasn't really allowed to invest in the private companies
21:42but in this flag of democratizing finance there's a lot of people who want access to that
21:49isn't this something this is spectacular sorkin took us to the fifth avenue mansion of one of the big
21:56bankers back then who pushed democratization if this idea of bringing the regular guy into buying stock
22:06if that was a big problem back in 1929 why are we going there again doesn't it defy some kind
22:13of logic
22:14there is a view that it's been only the elites that have had access to these investments facebook
22:21before it ever went public uber before it went public so there was this idea that it's unfair actually
22:28to the ordinary investor because we haven't allowed them to get access to some of these investment
22:35opportunities early and there is a real push partially by the trump administration
22:40um partially by the industry itself which wants to get more money get more money in yeah to open up
22:48the market to more and more people so we have these guardrails for a reason i mean they're there
22:56to protect and they have protected they have protected a lot of people but some people would say
23:01they protected people from getting rich many people don't believe in capitalism anymore
23:06and i think a lot of it is because they were not a part of the growth of the economy
23:13we went to larry fink ceo of blackrock the world's biggest money manager handling 12.5 trillion dollars
23:22in assets like pension funds his annual letter to investors is a kind of industry road map in his latest
23:31one he suggested opening our retirement 401ks bastions of caution to riskier private investments
23:40in the name of wait for it democratizing investing as i wrote there are many great opportunities to be
23:49investing in in in this in startup companies to invest in ai or data centers right now we are precluded
23:59to put those type of assets in many retirement products and the trump administration has now
24:06said we are going to allow in our 401k products the opportunity to invest in these private markets but
24:14they are risky aren't they yes but everything is risky other than keeping your money in a bank account
24:21overnight but we're talking about 401ks yes investing out of retirement accounts yes you're risking the
24:30nest egg or part of the little part of them but what the markets will teach you over the last
24:36hundred
24:36years even at the worst moments if you have the ability to persevere and you have a long-term horizon
24:43you're going to do fine and a diversified portfolio is essential we're not suggesting you know one shoe
24:50fits all we are suggesting uh the opportunity to have that ability to invest in these private market
24:57investments he also believes we should be investing in crypto it wasn't that long ago that the big bankers
25:06of course jamie diamond and larry fink were saying that crypto was stupid and a fraud i did say uh
25:15bitcoin
25:15because we were talking about bitcoin then uh was the domain of money launderers and thieves but you
25:22know the markets teach you you have to always um relook at your assumptions there is a role for crypto
25:29in
25:29in the same way there's a role for gold that is it's an alternative for those looking to diversify
25:37this is not a bad asset but i don't believe that it should be a large component of your your
25:43portfolio
25:44but sorkin says some crypto can be abused in ways similar to 1929. take meme coins cryptocurrencies that
25:55can be manipulated by speculators who pump them up then let them crash there are a number of examples
26:03where it felt like there was an inside group of people who were colluding to pump up some of these
26:09cryptocurrencies and other things i give you a bizarre story of my own i was on television with larry fink
26:17and he makes a joke i think about how there should be a sorkin coin i think the sorkin coin
26:23should sorkin
26:23coin well two hours later somebody makes a sorkin coin and all of a sudden this sorkin coin is now
26:30worth millions of dollars and i'm watching it are you serious go up and up and up and up and
26:35up
26:35the sorkin coin peaked at 170 million dollars worth of trading in a day and i think today it does
26:43something like 20 or 21 a day so i'm thrilled to have bill gates with us sorkin is trusted by
26:52the
26:53world's top business leaders who talked to him often exclusively i have no problem being hated
26:59by the way what role do you think these business leaders should be playing now my own view is that
27:06most ceos in america today are very scared to speak out publicly about anything they are so worried that
27:15they are going to be potentially uh attacked by the administration or regulated they're going to
27:24have a merger in front of some agency that's not going to be allowed to go through they are so
27:29nervous
27:29about criticizing anything that's going on with this administration there are some economists who
27:36suggest that because mr trump ties his success to the success of the market that he's not going to
27:43let anything like what happened in 1929 happen and that we should feel secure because of that
27:52i think it's hard to know how things get out of control when confidence disappears it happens like this
28:01so you spent nearly 10 years on this book the inevitable question is
28:09do you think that we will have a crash or not the answer is we will have a crash i
28:18just can't tell
28:19you when and i can't tell you how deep but i can assure you unfortunately i wish i wasn't saying
28:25this
28:25we will have a crash now margaret brennan on assignment for 60 minutes the deal brokered by the trump
28:42administration between israel and hamas raises hope not only for an end to the war in gaza but for a
28:49broader transformation of the middle east and in some ways that's been happening already israel's
28:56massive response in the two years since the october 7th terrorist attacks included decimating the
29:02powerful iran-backed militia hezbollah which helped prop up the syrian dictator bashal al-assad who bombed
29:10and used chemical weapons against his own people with hezbollah weakened syrian rebels set out on the road
29:18to damascus to overthrow the brutal assad regime in december the rebel commander 42 year old ahmed al-shara
29:26proclaimed a new and free syria a stunning turn because the country's liberator had once been a
29:33member of al-qaeda tonight you'll hear his first u.s television interview since becoming president
29:40but before we sat down in the presidential palace there was something he wanted us to see
29:48this is jobber on the outskirts of damascus 300 000 people once lived here
29:57syria's new president ahmed al-shara brought us here last month it's shopping it's
30:06there's just nothing left
30:09this war was cruel it was a hard war every single room in any one of these buildings holds memories
30:18for those people who lived here
30:22this wasn't a mistake this was a target
30:26of course all these were direct targets with one objective to displace the people in these areas
30:34about 13 million syrians half the population are internally displaced or living abroad as refugees
30:43over half a million died during nearly 14 years of civil war
30:49there are places like this throughout syria where even mosques were bombed al-shara told us rebel held
30:57areas that were destroyed by bashar al-assad and his allies russia and iran
31:07there are entire generations that have suffered tremendous psychological trauma so it's very
31:12important that the period of liberation give people new hope for their return and for reconstruction
31:19you're a father of young children do you think this will be rebuilt in their lifetime for sure the syrian
31:28people are strong
31:31when al-shara's islamist forces launched a surprise attack on the city of aleppo in november 2024
31:38they not only won they kept going
31:42by the time they got to damascus the capital the dictator bashar al-assad had fled to moscow
31:49al-shara's forces ended 54 years of the assad family's tyrannical rule in just 11 days
31:59in january leaders of the militias that overthrew the regime appointed al-shara president of syria
32:05we spoke with him in the cavernous building that bashar al-assad once occupied
32:09what was it like when you first entered this place entering this palace wasn't a very positive
32:18experience much evil towards the syrian people came out of this palace since it was built
32:25to understand his improbable path to the presidency you have to go back about 20 years when al-shara
32:32left an upper middle class life in syria to join al-qaeda in iraq he wouldn't go into details
32:39about what he did then but he was arrested and spent six years in american and iraqi prisons
32:45released in 2011 just as a popular uprising against bashar al-assad had begun
32:51he started an al-qaeda affiliate in syria that staged suicide bombings and armed attacks against
32:57the assad regime we did not take any external actions outside syrian territory we did not target
33:04anyone but the syrian regime but the united states stated that many of the attacks killed quote
33:10innocent syrian civilians and designated al-shara a global terrorist putting him with his nom de guerre
33:17on this wanted poster and offering a 10 million dollar reward to anyone who could help quote stop
33:25this terrorist have you ever seen that poster the wanted poster yes of course when you met president
33:33trump back in may uh he described you as handsome tough and he said you had a strong past have
33:41you
33:43any doubt about that i i don't have any doubt about your strong past but um it's because of that
33:50past that
33:51you were designated as a terrorist by the american government there was that 10 million dollar
33:56bounty on your head until just a few months ago it would have been a waste it would have been
34:03money ill
34:03spent we are talking about 25 years ago i was 17 or 18 years old the level of awareness that
34:13you have
34:13now is different from what it was 20 years ago he eventually broke ties with a former ally the founder
34:19of the terror group isis and in 2016 renounced his allegiance to al-qaeda did you actually believe
34:27in those terror groups then or were they just a means to an end if i had agreed with them
34:35i would
34:36not have left them many of the officials that i spoke to about you describe you as a pragmatist
34:43other skeptics say that you change to meet what you need to be in that moment and that's important
34:50to understand who you are and the direction you're taking syria in are you saying that you are just a
34:57completely changed man i don't entirely agree with the description of pragmatist because in arabic
35:05it has some negative connotations the point is let's look at what's happening now regardless of
35:13what was said in the media today we have really saved the people from the oppression that was being
35:20thrust on them by the criminal regime
35:27ten months after the fall of the assad regime we found signs of normalcy and difficulty uncertainty and
35:33hope in damascus one of the world's oldest cities the bazaar still bustles
35:41and the faithful still come to pray at the umayyad mosque as they have for 13 centuries
35:49one of the only places you'll still see bashar al-assad's face is on syria's highly devalued
35:55currency you need a brick of it to buy dinner many syrians have electricity and running water for just
36:02a few hours a day the country's woes are the result of the long civil war but also harsh economic
36:10sanctions the u.s and other countries imposed to punish assad for his human rights abuses al-shada
36:17wants all sanctions lifted and in may during a speech in saudi arabia president trump took a bold
36:23but provisional step in that direction i will be ordering the cessation of sanctions against syria
36:29in order to give them a chance at greatness
36:36last month al-shada spoke at the united nations general assembly the first syrian leader to do so
36:42since 1967. he's seeking long-term investment in syria and still needs the u.s to repeal sanctions
36:49permanently which some lawmakers are reluctant to do and at the u.n china and russia would need to vote
36:57to
36:57lift terrorism sanctions against him al-shada personally welcomed a high-level delegation from
37:03moscow last month a remarkable development given the russian air force helped bashar al-assad pummel
37:10places like jobar there are millions of syrians living in tents because things like this happen to them
37:18bashar al-assad and vladimir putin are living in moscow what justice do they face
37:26we will use all legal means possible to demand that bashar al-assad be brought to justice
37:32however engaging in a conflict with russia right now would be too costly for syria
37:36nor would it be in the country's interest new sectarian violence at home has raised questions
37:42about whether al-shada can control the fighters who helped bring him to power
37:47on syria's western coast in march his security forces and allied militia were accused of participating
37:53in the massacre of 1500 civilians most of them members of the alawite community that was loyal to assad
38:00the united nations does say that your security forces violated humanitarian law
38:05i believe this is an exaggerated description and i believe that syria is committed to prosecuting
38:11anyone who committed crimes against civilians of any party or side
38:15but then again this summer during a fight between ethnic groups al-shada's security forces and bedouin
38:23militia were accused of executing unarmed members of the minority jews community in the southern city of
38:29sweda a syrian tv broadcaster was reading the news when israel which also has jews citizens bombed
38:36syria's army headquarters and defense ministry al-shada told us israel also bombed the grounds of his
38:41presidential palace twice one time i wasn't there but the other time i was in the palace close to
38:49the site that was bombed to target the palace to convey a message that's not a message that's a
38:55declaration of war but syria doesn't want to engage in wars and it doesn't want to be a threat to
39:01israel
39:02or anyone else israel said publicly their intention was to protect a minority group there that the druz
39:09and the prime minister said he had to protect them because your forces did not this is a syrian
39:18internal matter that should be resolved legally by syrian authorities after assad fell israel occupied
39:26strategic parts of its shared border with syria and conducted air raids and land incursions citing
39:33potential security threats president trump's special envoy to syria tom barrack has been trying to
39:39broker an agreement that would ease tensions your government has been discussing a security agreement
39:46with israel does that for you mean that israel has to return all of the land that it seized after
39:56the
39:56assad regime fell during negotiations yes for sure israel must retreat from any point taken after december
40:048th syria has not provoked israel since we arrived in damascus meanwhile this past week parliamentary
40:12elections were held in much of syria but only a limited number of people were eligible to vote
40:18under an interim constitution al-shara signed in march he's supposed to serve as president for five
40:23years leading a transition to elected government what kind of government do you want to see here
40:31is it a democracy general elections will be held once the infrastructure is rebuilt
40:37and once the population has ids and proper documents so eventually you want syria to be a place
40:43where every person gets one vote the kid absolutely if al-shara can follow through on his promises
40:53it would be a new day for syria and for the middle east
40:59but as we saw major challenges lie ahead in jobar al-shara told us it will cost 600 to 900
41:07billion
41:07dollars to rebuild his country and that's going to require the international community's help
41:14the world watched this tragedy unfold for 14 years and couldn't do anything to stop this massive crime
41:21so the world today should provide support to syria anyone who obstructs the lifting of sanctions on
41:27syria is an accomplice to those who committed this crime
41:39the last minute of 60 minutes is sponsored by united healthcare coverage you can count on for your whole
41:46life ahead news of a ceasefire deal in gaza including the return of all israeli hostages offers hope
41:57that the war ignited by hamas and its slaughter of 1200 israelis will finally come to an end we've
42:06thought about the people we met since the terrorist attack on october 7th 2023 among them al-longat and yardan
42:15roman got he escaped with their daughter yardan was captured she was released after 54 days and
42:23reunited with her little girl we also remember these palestinian children how many of you lost one of
42:34your parents the hamas-led health ministry in gaza says 67 000 people have been killed there
42:42two million were driven from their homes i'm leslie stahl we'll be back next week with another edition of 60
42:52minutes
42:56if you love 60 minutes see america's stories told every weeknight on the cbs evening news
Comments