Bombs Make The Difference

For Colin Powell, it was a trip back to the battlefield as the retired general visited a bomb site in Saudi Arabia. CBS News State Department Reporter Charles Wolfson reports on the Secretary of State's Mideast trip and its sudden shift in focus.

It took only ten or fifteen minutes but Secretary of State Colin Powell's visit to the Vennell residential and training compound in Riyadh Tuesday brought the former four-star general and retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff back to a battlefield.

Powell saw the results of what was described as a 400-pound bomb: a crater 10 feet deep and just as wide; the Dodge Ram truck which had carried it flipped over onto its top, still smoldering; a four-story building missing its facade that once had been residential quarters for U.S. contractors, most of them retired soldiers; and rubble everywhere for blocks around.

The Vennell Corp has operated in Saudi Arabia for decades, taking on such tasks as training the Saudi National Guard. It has a large compound on the eastern edge of this sprawling capital city of more than four million, or, more accurately, did have. The bomb, which Powell said "appeared to have all the fingerprints of al Qaeda" damaged virtually every building in the compound.

Powell stepped over broken glass, passed several one-story, barracks-style buildings and saw desert palm trees snapped in half. A U.S. army general told reporters the destruction was caused by "something like RDX, a semtex-like compound which doesn't produce a lot of noise but which has a tremendous shock wave." The severe damage to the cinder-block buildings was clear evidence of that. So was the lingering smell of explosives which greeted Powell, who called the attack "well planned…and, obviously... well executed."

About halfway through his visit, a sandstorm blew through the area causing Powell, his staff, and reporters traveling with him to dodge blowing debris as well as the broken glass and other rubble strewn about the area.

The Secretary of State's security detail was not totally in favor of the site visit, but with the deaths and injuries of many American citizens at hand, Powell overruled their concerns and he made the stop after meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah before leaving Riyadh for Moscow.

Powell's Saudi visit was intended to highlight several moves that were supposed to reduce tension in the region. The U.S. had already announced it was withdrawing from military bases in the kingdom, a longtime demand of Osama bin Laden. Powell also had Iraq and the new effort to broker Middle East peace on his agenda. But for now, it seems the bombers have put terrorism back at the top of the agenda.

By Charles Wolfson