Middle East Trip: Day One

CBS Evening News anchor and managing editor Katie Couric is accompanying Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on a five-day overseas trip to several undisclosed countries. She is currently in Cairo, Egypt. Look for her reports next week on the Evening News and on 60 Minutes.

Arrived in Cairo around five this afternoon and was greeted by a very dusty dusk, caused (we're told) by the khamseen wind, as our convoy makes it to the hotel through rush hour traffic.

This is Secretary of Defense Robert Gates's first overseas trip since February when he traveled to Krakow for the NATO Defense Ministerial. He's been busy significantly altering the Pentagon's budget to address the changing threats the U.S. is facing rather than the age old practice of gearing up for a cold war confrontation. Less emphasis on multi-billion dollar weapons systems used for conventional warfare, and more on what soldiers need as they fight less organized insurgencies in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Gates will be meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Their first encounter was in 1990 prior to Desert Storm. He says he'll talk to him about Egypt's role in the Arab-Israeli conflict and about the problem of smuggling supplies into Gaza through underground tunnels. There is a small press corps on the trip: The New York Times, Washington Post, AP, CBS Radio. CNN's new Pentagon Correspondent Chris Lawrence is the pool reporter.

We came over on a Boeing 757, part of the Air Force fleet.

Cocktail party for press before Sec. Gates has dinner with Egypt's defense minister.

We're on our own.

Light show at the pyramids, anyone?

This post originally appeared at CBSNews.com.

Comments

[OliverTwist]

Secret tunnels.

Sort of like the secret tunnels that are dug out of prison camps.

Not like the Lincoln Tunnel or the Holland Tunnel or the Channel Tunnel.

The situation in Gaza makes me think of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Nothing is ever the same but there are similarities.

How many semiconductor device fabrication plants are there in Gaza?

What is the business model for building in Gaza anyway?

Is Gaza just some kind of manual labor holding pen?

[David Wild - Huffpost Blogger]

Light show at the Pyramid? Even without the Grateful Dead playing in front, it sounds pretty cool.

[jollyelle]

Hopefully you will not bring us more Israeli propaganda about how the tunnels and rockets forced them to proceed with war on Gaza. The 2 year siege on Gaza waged by the Israeli Government when they publicly say they disengaged from the area should be addressed. The economic blockade and stranglehold Israel imposed on the Palestinians made them resource goods the only way they could----by using the tunnels. Israel broke the truce with Hamas on our Election Day, clever distraction, huh? We never heard much about that from the MSM.
There is absolutely no comparison between military arsenals. USA money paid for the variety of sophisticated weapons used to indiscriminately kill the Palestinians.

Please Katie, we look to journalists to ask the tough questions and report all the facts, the facts that affect ALL human beings, not just some of them. Who are the victims and who are the ones victimizing? We all hear that Israel is the only Democracy in the ME........­do democracies have discriminatory laws? Do they treat one group of citizens differently than another? Do they have roads that only some of the people can use?? Report on the facts please, thanks.

[SEQUOIABISON]

It is very telling that the Palestinians have to smuggle weapons into their country, while Israel unloads tons and tons of military equipment, like F16 Fighter Jets, Cluster Bombs, White Phosphorous Bombs, for all the world to see, no smuggling weapons into Israel, America gives them whatever they want, its done in the open.

Lets hope we Americans finally change this unfair and unbalanced attitude in the Middle East, if we ever want lasting peace in the area, we have to return to the role of fair and honest broker.

[a human being]

I have a question for you, to ask whom you see most concerned in the region.

Are the tunnels, the cause or a consequence?

As you know, we are months since the last cease fire is in place, but was the siege of Gaza lifted? Is the reconstruction underway? What are the life conditions of the 1.5 millions people packed there because of an aggression after another since 1947?
Ms Couric, I hope that a visit to Gaza may be possible for you, so that you can make your own assessment of the problem.

[Bish]

In discussing the smuggling tunnels between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, I'm sure Mr. Gates realizes that tunnels are a symptom of a much bigger problem, and that the tunnels are a life line for tens of thousands of civilians. Israel has maintained a choke hold on the Gaza Strip for years and it is only natural that Gazans seek any possible relief. Shutting down the tunnels will only make a regretful humanitarian situation worse. Let goods flow into Gaza, turning a blind eye to tunnels will be much more difficult to justify politically for the Egyptians.

[monelis]

Maybe it is time for the boss (Gates) to tell Mubark to retire and pass-on the kingdom to his son. I just don't know why US keep backing up these dictators in Middle East, maybe they think the the world is so stupid, naive and blind that don’t see the writing on the wall.

During the past 25 years of Mubark’s ruling (fair Presidential elections) the population in Egypt has become more radicalize and with one little spark the whole place will burn to the ground and there goes our TAX DOLLARS propping up another failed government.

Good job Katie, please report about the real stuff not the soup-opera­s..

[arvay]

I agree that the possibility of a radical takeover or maybe a coup by dissatisfied military people is very possible. Mubarak Sr. and Jr. are sitting on a resentful and impoverished population, most observers agree that the islamic Brotherhood would win a fair election, just as Hamas won in Palestine.

Tied down as we are in Iraq and Afghanistan, and very fearful of events in Pakistan, there's little we could do militarily -- "rescue" troops would be out of the question, I'd think. The Shah of Iran once appeared invulnerable and was overthrown, this government looks much shakier.

Sooner or later, our sixty-year mideast folly will collapse -- an expensive failure that has served to inflame hatred for us in much of the world. Nasser tried to forge a secular, modern state, and after a good start in the Eisenhower administration, when we smacked down the joint British-Fr­ench-Israe­li grab of Sinai and the Suez Canal, (funny how the Zionists never mention that) our policy has resulted in an eventual victory for much less progressive Islamist groups who will win because they have not sold out their country. Eisenhower, unfortunately, was the last truly Israeli-lobby independent president.

Let's see what Obama does.

[DenverJJ]

K-,
Arab-Israeli conflict, a land grab a - wait a minute it's not really the greatest land grab story in the mid-east. Lott and Abraham (according to my 3rd grade Sunday school teacher ) had the same problem in Genisis I think. As their tribes elbowed each other into a stalemate and though by tradition (Abe being the older uncle) it would be Abraham's call, he choice of parcels, but he gave preference to Lott and the good Lord, so the book says, showed favor to Abraham for it. What will the Israelis do? The Arabs?

DenverJJ

[Pema]

well lets be honest, you nor anyone knows if that really happened, not even your sunday school teacher. the bible is a crummy and totally illegal document in order to make any land claims, I say this as someone who worked in Title. its not easy to legally give a person a piece of the earth. the bible as a deed (for all its relgious significance to people), is worthless.

[LeeCalif]

Katie-
Just wanted to say thanks for your persistence in a particular interview of a particular woman at a particularly critical time in this country's election season.

Now, Gates is so focused on some Hamas guns and rockets. What about Israel's use of
white phosphorous and her undeclared nuclear weaponry?