deployed for political means for powerful people. how do you defeat that other than calling on people s individual valor and patriotism. you have to start at the top and you work at the bottom as well. that is probably the most fundamental change in the iraqi police forces. the duties of the police before 2003 were obviously not to secure and defend the iraqi people. they were to secure and defend the government against the iraqi people. and we have a fundamental difference now. and then although polls are what they are it s very clear over 70% of the iraqi people have the confidence in their police forces. and when you talk about the federal police forces who just a few years ago when they were known as the national police, they were not the good guys. yeah. and now it s a fundamental change. i will tell you, i don t want to embarrass anybody but while we were out shooting in downtown baghdad yesterday, we were close enough to a check point that a federal police officer came o
reporter: where supporters of the center say they want to build bridges, opponents see them burning bridges instead. jim axelrod, cbs news, new york. couric: in other news, the man who s run the pentagon during two wars for two presidents of two different parties plans to retire next year. robert gates tells foreign policy magazine that leaving in 2011 will give him time to oversee the troop surge in afghanistan but exit before the next presidential election. inside afghanistan, the taliban are flexing their muscle outside their power base in the south. the new york times reported today that a young couple was stoned to death in the north for committing adultery. it s the taliban s first public execution since the u.s. ousted them nine years ago. meanwhile, a spokesman for afghan president hamid karzai said today all private security companies in his country should be disbanded within four months. about 26,000 contractors guard convoys and installations there,
they haven t been able to actually capture those bubbles as yet, so they re not certain what they are. this report is coming from an unnamed federal source. so far, no announcement from either thad allen or b.p. on any possible leaks. mitchell: kelly cobiella in grand isle, louisiana, thank you very much. in iraq, a suicide bomber attacked a group of sunni awakening council fighters who were waiting to get paid west of baghdad. officials say the bomber killed at least 45 of the anti-al qaeda fighters and wounded dozens more. and a suicide bomber struck in afghanistan today as well, one day ahead of an international conference to be attended by secretary of state clinton. mandy clark has the latest tonight from the afghan capital of kabul. reporter: kabul is getting ready. this week delegates from 44 nations will arrive here for an aid conference in, and the afghan president wants to show that he s in control. but the insurgents sent a
course, before they were able to get him off. that is one part of the equation as people dealing with this story and the repercussions. but also t weather. yeah, that was an initially. we thought, reynolds, for so long, people that were going to be traveling. you ve got to worry about this weather. but they seem to have much bigger problems and concerns a lot of people. but still, the weather s going to be an issue, a factor. absolutely. but you know what s funny when it comes to the weather? you re going to have issues on the airplanes. but you think, hey, let s take the train. buff we ve had issues last weekend in terms of the train and the weather. then it comes to the trusty car. take a look at the video from arkansas. in some places around the country isn t much better there. cars on the side of road, people not used to driving in these conditions. and it gets slippery and then boom, off the side of the road. this has been playing out up and down the northern parts of the plai
lodi. you can see how horrific this travel situation was. now the visibility when this was taken. a whole lot better than it obviously was just two hours or several hours before this. one car piled up on top of another car. as i mentioned there were no reports of any fatalities. there were injuries reported. about 13 injuries. did shut down a portion of southbound interstate 5. for a couple of hours. but they did reopen that. i want to show you what is happening as far as california is concerned. here you can see sierra nevada, starting sunday into monday. we have winter storm watches in effect. now, i mentioned sunday. into monday. but i think it is going to turn into warnings as we watch a storm system plow out of the northwest. arctic air, not talking about temperatures dropping 10 or 20 degrees. into the pacific northwest. places like seattle you will see some of the coldest temperatures of the season. snow levels dropping down.